Previous | Next :: Youth : Liverpool : North of England | February 16, 2012, 9:39 pm

Today in the UK there was controversy over training schemes for unemployed people....... Some' training schemes' for the super market giant 'Tesco'..... appeared to be just working the night shift for free ...... stacking the shelves for the company ....... without getting paid........ There seemed to be very little element of training and a serious element of exploitation..........

I also heard on Radio 4 discussion about 'unpaid internships'....... this really has been imported wholesale from the US...... Internship was never a big feature of the UK...... I had literally never heard the term until Monica Lewinsky hit the big time .... but now it is a massive phenomena in Britain ....... and it really appears to discriminate against poorer youth........ whose families cannot support them while they work for free......... so they never gain the experience that lifts them into actually getting paid work.........

Life is tough for youth in Britain today ........ It reminds me of a similar time under Mrs Thatcher....... with recession and austerity........ just as I started out on my photographic life ....... Unemployed youth were forced on to YOP schemes and YTS schemes....... YOP schemes were the most notorious......... nominally 'Youth Opportunity Schemes' that were almost universally regarded as exploitation by the young........ Mostly people on the programs were given unpaid manual work to do ......... and they lost their benefits if they refused to do it ..........

I shot this picture back then in Liverpool at the time of mass unemployment under Mrs Thatcher........ an unemployment that then...... like now...... disproportionally affects the youngest in the workforce.

I don't want to be too cynical...... maybe some of these programs move people from the world of unemployment to the world of work...... and make the long term unemployed employable again....... hopefully ....... but the Tesco night time shelf stacking shift ...... without pay....... from the company that just made 3 billion pounds profit........ seems kinda too close to exploitation to me.........

Cheers Jez XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

www.jezblog.com