Food Processors beg to use Prison Labour

[Montexy]

I would rather the government used community based or charity based employment for prisoners which would benefit all of UK society rather than getting food processors out of a short term labour shortage problem. If processors need labour then offer higher wages and better working conditions, those vacancies would soon be filled - supply and demand / market forces will always win through.

 

[GeorgeC1]

I would rather the government used community based or charity based employment for prisoners which would benefit all of UK society rather than getting food processors out of a short term labour shortage problem. If processors need labour then offer higher wages and better working conditions, those vacancies would soon be filled - supply and demand / market forces will always win through.

Exactly

 

[Turnip]

I would rather the government used community based or charity based employment for prisoners which would benefit all of UK society rather than getting food processors out of a short term labour shortage problem. If processors need labour then offer higher wages and better working conditions, those vacancies would soon be filled - supply and demand / market forces will always win through.

Keep in mind that market forces work both ways, if the food processor starts offering higher wages their products will become more expensive. This will in turn result in lower sales numbers negating the need for the higher paid worker, same supply and demand function at work. There needs to be a balance in the whole supply chain and currently the consumer end has too much influence to drive prices down. Its tricky as prices going up will require consumers to earn higher wages to pay for their groceries etc, which will force their employers to pay higher wages making products more expensive. Very tricky to find balance especially given the race to the bottom for prices that has been written about since 2014.

 

[TechWise]

Like much of the benefit system, all it's doing is subsidising multi-billion pound organisations through cheap labour. We're seeing much the same thing with the sortage of HGV drivers. Why would these profit-driven organisations pay to train an apprentice driver when they can import one ready to go from eastern Europe?

Pay decent wages, offer fair terms and decent hollidays and you might find people actually want to work for you.

Edit - It's being reported today that McDonalds can't get milkshakes into their stores because of HGV driver shortages. There's two options there then:
Option A - They'll announce a new apprenticeship scheme to train up new drivers and pay their driving tests for them, with some sort of clause that they have to stick at the job for a period of time. Costs? Apprentice wages, HGVs to put them in, experienced instructors, test fees, fuel...
Option B - They'll up the drivers wages 50p an hour and offer £500 cash bonus to new joiners to try and steal the existing pool of drivers from Tesco. Costs? 50p/hour/driver + £500/driver. An easy to calculate figure on a spreadsheet.

I wonder what one they'll go for eh?

 

[TechWise]

Keep in mind that market forces work both ways, if the food processor starts offering higher wages their products will become more expensive. This will in turn result in lower sales numbers negating the need for the higher paid worker, same supply and demand function at work. There needs to be a balance in the whole supply chain and currently the consumer end has too much influence to drive prices down. Its tricky as prices going up will require consumers to earn higher wages to pay for their groceries etc, which will force their employers to pay higher wages making products more expensive. Very tricky to find balance especially given the race to the bottom for prices that has been written about since 2014.

Absolutely agree with you, which is why I would oppose a Universal Basic Income, because if everyone's better off, then all of a sudden there's a lot more disposable income floating around and I think we'll see prices start to rise.

That being said, I think what we have at the moment supports an egregious divide where you have workers at the bottom on minimum wage being subsidised by the benefit system while those at the top are laughing all the way to the bank.

 

[GeorgeC1]

Absolutely agree with you, which is why I would oppose a Universal Basic Income, because if everyone's better off, then all of a sudden there's a lot more disposable income floating around and I think we'll see prices start to rise.

That being said, I think what we have at the moment supports an egregious divide where you have workers at the bottom on minimum wage being subsidised by the benefit system while those at the top are laughing all the way to the bank.

Well TBF most proposed UBI systems just provides enough just to buy food, clothes and basic utilities there will always be a need to find some form of Paid employment imo

But yeah I agree if you are in full time work you shouldn't need the benefit system but we do due to stagnant wages and high costs of living.

 

[PSQ]

We're seeing much the same thing with the sortage of HGV drivers. Why would these profit-driven organisations pay to train an apprentice driver when they can import one ready to go from eastern Europe?

Pay decent wages, offer fair terms and decent hollidays and you might find people actually want to work for you.

Hauliers up here are crying out for drivers. I suggested to two of the larger firms that us arable farmers could retrain and do shifts over 10 months of the year, both seemed delighted!

Bloody good money at £40k to £52k, not to be sniffed at.

 

[Lowland1]

What a fantastic idea. Obviously you’d need to check that you weren’t taking a poisoner on day release. But then again it would make buying something from Greggs quite exciting.

 

[Velocette]

Can't see the problem. We used to have prisoners from Thorpe Arch cycle about 8 miles each way to the farm at potato picking time in the early 60's. Ex post office single speed bikes too ! A bottle of cold tea and a jam sandwich was all they were sent out with so they ate with us. Only problem was that couldn't leave boxes of matches alone and would relieve you of any they saw due to some institutional shortage of them ! This was just before any mechanisation and meant following a spinner, then an elevator lifter along with hand baskets. Standing on a turntable machine was an impossible dream. Fortunately there were few arsonists at Thorpe Arch, they were all over at Whixley where a stack was always at risk.

 

[daveydiesel1]

There really is no punishment for crime is there nowadays? Basicly go steal somethin worth alot of money and hide it, if ye get caught u go to prison where if ur well behaved for a few days theyl offer u a job where u get paid same money as every1 else and nothin kept of u for ur keep and will develop workin relationships with co workers which means ur not really isolated from society. The only difference is u cant go out after work. Am i missin somethin here or does that sound like punishment?

 

[puppet]

Served half your sentence for GBH?

Get down to the abattoir where they'll give you a nice sharp knife and a meat cleaver!

At half your sentence you will be out. I read that prisoners had done 58,000 days of work over 6 months. In a 4 day week that would be 600 prisoners - out of a population of 80,000. Hardly exploitation.
The prisons are full of the feckless, mentally ill and drug addicts. If you are none of those you are unlikely to have been caught in the first place. The taxpayer is paying £1000 a week to keep you there so maybe you can do some unpaid work which will look good after release and give you some purpose. I do around 100 hours of voluntary work a year to save local groups having to pay others.
Timpsons shoe repair and key shops employ a lot of ex -prisoners very successfully.

 

[TechWise]

At half your sentence you will be out. I read that prisoners had done 58,000 days of work over 6 months. In a 4 day week that would be 600 prisoners - out of a population of 80,000. Hardly exploitation.
The prisons are full of the feckless, mentally ill and drug addicts. If you are none of those you are unlikely to have been caught in the first place. The taxpayer is paying £1000 a week to keep you there so maybe you can do some unpaid work which will look good after release and give you some purpose. I do around 100 hours of voluntary work a year to save local groups having to pay others.
Timpsons shoe repair and key shops employ a lot of ex -prisoners very successfully.

I absolutely agree with using prisoners for the public good. By all means, have them painting, litter picking, trimming hedges, digging flower beds etc. Anything that contributes to the public good that the councils are cutting back on to divert money to other areas.

However, getting prisoners to work in the meat industry is surely subsidising private, profit-making industry. It's putting cheap labour in at the bottom end of a chain an industry that ends with multi-billion pound retailers like Tesco/Asda/Sainsbury's etc.