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Post by jimmy2020 on Jul 5, 2020 12:23:50 GMT
I have a large customer in Leicester, and the crew there are almost exclusively Asian. I became very friendly with the boss. One of the things they made was shoe furniture - the glitzy buckles and other crap you see on some shoes. After the initial production they went out for finishing and packing. The people who did that were paid piece work, and a vey high proportion of those were working from little 'workshops' at home and almost certainly had the entire family working, including children.
As an aside I did something similar when I was about 10. Me and my sis put salt into little squares of blue paper for a local crisp factory! Elf and safely? Don't be silly. I cant remember what we were paid, but probably three parts of bugger all. I gave up very quickly but she carried on for a while. Boxes of the bloody things a man would collect on a Saturday morning and then had over a few shillings. Ah, those lovely Smiths crisps with the blue wrapped salt. They had a go at replicating thee a while back but they were not the same People protest about child labour in foreign countries butt it has to be remembered that these children provide a vital and sometimes the only family income Wih regard to these Leicester factories, who are the biggest villains here. The owners who provide the business, the workers who are daft enough to work in them, or the customers who queue up at Matalan and Primark to buy the goods |
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Post by hild1066 on Jul 5, 2020 13:01:00 GMT
Or the local public services that ignore the regulations.
As to child labour in third world countries, we don't need it here because we pay adults enough to live on. The same applies to third world countries, pay the adults a living wage respective to the country they live in and they won't need to send their children to work. If that makes a Primark T-shirt £6 instead of £4, well that's the way it is.
They love their children as much as we love ours and they don't want them working in brick factories 12 hours a day. Helping out on a family farm is different if they still went to school in the day time.
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Post by jimmy2020 on Jul 5, 2020 13:29:24 GMT
I don't see anything wrong with "child labour", I believe it encourages work ethic. Jonjel reports himself wrapping blue paper round sale, I was a butchers boy, my children all had Saturday jobs. We have all worked since
I know the Victorians exploited children, sending them up chimneys etc but we have moved on from then, who decided that children were something special ad apart from the rest of us - is it another by product of the welfare state?
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Post by hild1066 on Jul 5, 2020 15:05:11 GMT
After appropriate legislation here children e.g. those under 18 are able to work. They can work full time from 16 but only part time before that.
There are regional variances but most employers won't take on some one under 12. There are limits between 12 - 16 in terms of hours, roles and environment e.g. working in pubs etc. You can clear tables, serve food, take food orders but not serve drinks etc.
It is now unusual for someone under 15 to get part time employment mostly because students often pick up this work and they can work longer hours.
What we were talking about was children working in the third world which in many cases is still at a pre-victorian level. This is the situation that needs tackling.
JJ talked about the salt packets but he also mentioned packing it in quite quickly. That's because he had a choice and children in the third world don't always have that choice.
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Post by aubrey on Jul 5, 2020 15:41:09 GMT
I don't see anything wrong with "child labour", I believe it encourages work ethic. Jonjel reports himself wrapping blue paper round sale, I was a butchers boy, my children all had Saturday jobs. We have all worked since I know the Victorians exploited children, sending them up chimneys etc but we have moved on from then, who decided that children were something special ad apart from the rest of us - is it another by product of the welfare state?
I'd have thought it was for education as much as anything - you can't go to school if you're also working for 10 hours - and the start of the Victorian period was very different from the end. We get a lot of our ideas about it from Dickens, but he died 30 years before Victoria did, and Harris, George and "J", and Mr Pooter, are Victorian characters as much as Oliver Twist and Magwitch are.
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Post by aubrey on Jul 5, 2020 15:53:06 GMT
I don't see why the customers of Primark and Apple etc should take the blame for the bad employment practices of a company's suppliers, especially when the company does its best to hide them. That allows the company to get away without a blemish, but no one forced them to - say - get their phones made in factories with anti-suicide nets under the dormitory windows.
Still, that's capitalism for you.
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Post by jimmy2020 on Jul 5, 2020 16:50:33 GMT
I don't see why the customers of Primark and Apple etc should take the blame for the bad employment practices of a company's suppliers, especially when the company does its best to hide them. That allows the company to get away without a blemish, but no one forced them to - say - get their phones made in factories with anti-suicide nets under the dormitory windows.
Still, that's capitalism for you.
It's because they buy the cheap clothes. If proper labour, wages, and conditions were enforced then the price of the goods would rocket. Who needs a new frock, pair of trousers every week anyway? |
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Post by aubrey on Jul 5, 2020 17:21:52 GMT
I don't see why the customers of Primark and Apple etc should take the blame for the bad employment practices of a company's suppliers, especially when the company does its best to hide them. That allows the company to get away without a blemish, but no one forced them to - say - get their phones made in factories with anti-suicide nets under the dormitory windows.
Still, that's capitalism for you.
It's because they buy the cheap clothes. If proper labour, wages, and conditions were enforced then the price of the goods would rocket. Who needs a new frock, pair of trousers every week anyway?
Yes they do, and no one needs that many clothes. But nowhere does it say in Primark's advertising that their prices rely on employment practices that would be illegal here; and while it is getting better - or it was anyway - their testing of their suppliers only goes one level down: IE, the factories they buy from directly, not the factories that supply those factories.
But, again, why should the onus be on the customer to check all this when Primark (and they're not the only ones) don't bother? Primark's own literature on their ethical practices gives a much rosier picture than ethical campaigning and information sites do. If you trust Primark you'd think there is no problem.
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Post by jonjel2 on Jul 5, 2020 18:21:50 GMT
I don't see why the customers of Primark and Apple etc should take the blame for the bad employment practices of a company's suppliers, especially when the company does its best to hide them. That allows the company to get away without a blemish, but no one forced them to - say - get their phones made in factories with anti-suicide nets under the dormitory windows.
Still, that's capitalism for you.
I was beginning to agree with you Aubs, then you spoilt it with your final line.
It is not to do with 'capitalism', it is to do with exploitation and greed, and the opportunity in many countries to allow those traits to flourish.
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Post by aubrey on Jul 5, 2020 19:03:59 GMT
I don't see why the customers of Primark and Apple etc should take the blame for the bad employment practices of a company's suppliers, especially when the company does its best to hide them. That allows the company to get away without a blemish, but no one forced them to - say - get their phones made in factories with anti-suicide nets under the dormitory windows.
Still, that's capitalism for you.
I was beginning to agree with you Aubs, then you spoilt it with your final line.
It is not to do with 'capitalism', it is to do with exploitation and greed, and the opportunity in many countries to allow those traits to flourish.
It was kind of a joke: but would you accept "unregulated capitalism"?
I don't mind capitalism as long as it's regulated.
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Post by hild1066 on Jul 6, 2020 12:39:43 GMT
This is apparently what has been happening in Leicester. Factories making clothes for UK retailers - who can then say all of their clothes are made in the UK and tick an ethical box. Boo Hoo the clothing retailers has done amazingly well over lockdown (it is only online) but shares have plummeted after it was disclosed that secondary suppliers were paying staff £3.80ph and making them work in unsafe conditions. They say they no longer use those factories and probably on their books they don't but the manufacturers they do use are sub-contracting the work out to less than scrupulous manufacturers.
Local H&S staff say that they regularly close these places down but they simply reopen within days in another location. As all the need is an electricity supply they can move their machines and equipment over night. Their workforce is often made up of local women from the Asian community who do not understand employment law or sometimes illegal workers and often people who do not speak much English (their preferred employee). If they regularly close them down then you would imagine that someone in Boo-Hoo is constantly updating the invoicing system etc. so somebody in Boo-Hoo must've known this was happening.
The answer would seem to be impounding the equipment and not letting them take it to a new address until the police have investigated, because it seems clear that even when shutdown there is rarely a prosecution.
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Post by jimmy2020 on Aug 3, 2020 8:17:23 GMT
How daft
If you live in Manchester from today you can go out to eat, encouraged by the government with half price vouchers, and sit near someone you do not know. Yet you cannot welcome your family in your back garden !
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Post by hild1066 on Aug 3, 2020 12:14:29 GMT
I think that is because if you invite people to your own home the social distancing rules are likely to be ignored, especially if you have a drink or two. That would be fine if the police were policing the pubs and restaurants that are flouting the rules, beer gardens and outside areas seemed pretty crowded when I drove past the sea front and there were packs, and I mean, packs of youngsters on the beach. I have been away. I had a social distanced holiday in a fisherman's hut in Northumberland. Off grid and so quiet. Only one night (the first one) where a toddler in the next hut didn't want to settle, but they were gone the next day. Then it was just me and a elderly couple in the next but one hut (there are only 3 huts), with their lovely border collie. So peaceful and right on the beach.    |
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Post by jonjel2 on Aug 3, 2020 13:22:16 GMT
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Post by jimmy2020 on Aug 3, 2020 14:06:10 GMT
I'm lost in the never ending sea saw of the rule changes
Can you still go to the pub, and if so how do you enforce social distancing after a few drinks
Still seems barmy that you cannot have your family in your garden
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