Slavery of Citizens Is Promoted by British Government

British citizens are now in a terrible cycle that’s leading to the virtual slavery of more and more people—and the government is behind the schemes.

by Heidi Stevenson

Slavery of the people is becoming a reality in Britain as the government itself sets up schemes for forced labor. The issue has gone to the Supreme Court, which has utterly failed the people

Job Seekers Forced into Slave Labor for Corporations

Job seekers are forced into unpaid labor, generally for enormous corporations doing unskilled mind-numbing work, or lose their benefits. It’s presented as a benefit to the job-seeker, described as on-the-job training. Precisely how is stocking shelves at Poundland, an everything-for-one-pound retail store chain, supposed to provide job skills for someone with a degree in geology? That is the situation of Cait Reilly, who took the case to the Supreme Court.

In making his ruling against her, Justice Foskitt stated that, “characterising such a scheme as involving or being analogous to ‘slavery’ or ‘forced labour’ seems to me to be a long way from contemporary thinking.”

Apparently, contemporary thinking has nothing to do with logic or reason! Cait Reilly, who has done that sort of work as a student working her way through college—obviously negating any claim that this is a training position—is being told that providing free labor to a for-profit corporation is not forced labor or slavery because it’s not “contemporary thinking”?

It is, of course, what passes for thinking in the United Kingdom government, one that obviously values citizens as nothing more than slaves to be forced into work to avoid losing minimal benefits that are far below what’s required for survival—and the taxpayers must foot the bill.

A spokesperson of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which oversees the forced labor program stated:

We are delighted, although not surprised, that the judge agrees our schemes are not forced labour. Comparing our initiatives to slave labour is not only ridiculous but insulting to people around the world facing real oppression.

Thousands of young people across the country are taking part in our schemes and gaining the vital skills and experience needed to help them enter the world of work – it is making a real difference to people’s lives.

Those who oppose this process are actually opposed to hard work and they are harming the life chances of unemployed young people who are trying to get on.

Not only does the DWP run a slave labor program, it is now defaming those who are against slavery as simply “opposed to hard work”.

Can they explain how stocking shelves benefits Cait Reilly? Can they explain how it’s better for her to provide free labor to an enormous for-profit corporation instead of spending her time searching for the employment that she studied for? And can they explain how it benefits the people of the UK to support free labor for corporations?

Prisoners Paid £3 a Day to Replace Regular Work Force

In Wales, inmates are bused from a low-security prison to a call center work site.  The company, called Becoming Green, is paying them 3 pounds per day, 6% of the minimum wage.

The Guardian reports that there are currently 23 prisoners doing the call center work. A month ago it was 17 prisoners. According to former employees, the company fired 17 workers. Of course, Becoming Green claims that the firings were pare of the “normal call center environment”.

In typical slippery gamesmanship, the prison agreed to let the company pay only £3 per day for 40 days. However, they’re allowed to continue that pay rate as long as they want. Clearly, the 40-day “limit” was nothing but a ploy to give the impression that it’s work training, not slavery.

At the moment, the call center is allowed to take “only” 20% of their entire work force from prison. The only real question here is: When will they start using only prison labor?

Justice Secretary Ken Clarke, has stated:

The public wants a penal system that properly punishes offenders, and protects the law-abiding citizen. Yet, our prisons are not delivering as they should. The first thing we are doing is introducing a full working week to get more offenders off their beds and into purposeful activity.

Right now, prisoners are simply a wasted resource – thousands of hours of manpower sitting idle.

In other words, according to Clarke, the purpose of prison is to provide free, or nearly free, labor to corporations.

Of course, it’s the taxpayer who pays to maintain the prisons. And equally true, it’s those same taxpayers who lose their jobs when prisoners do them as slaves.

Whatever one’s view of what prisons should and should not be, the simple fact is that prisoners who do real jobs that had been done by citizens means that the cost of prisons is paid by an ever-shrinking pool of citizen workers. As more prisoners perform jobs that had been done by citizens outside of prison, more “free” citizens will lose their jobs. The more people lose their jobs, the smaller the pool of people who must pay for the prisons.

Equally obvious is that more and more pressure is brought to bear on people who lose their jobs to prisoners. Where exactly does the government expect this to end? As more people end up behind bars and forced into slave labor, and more people on unemployment benefits are forced into slave labor, more jobs are lost to people on the outside, putting more and more pressure onto more and more people.

Yet, in its servility to the ruling elite, the Supreme Court has decided to turn logic on end, declaring that up is down, in is out, and forced labor isn’t slavery.

Sources:

• Unpaid work schemes ruled lawful as high court rejects Poundland case
• 6 August 2012 – Judge rejects claims that work schemes are forced labour
• Prisoners paid £3 a day to work at call centre that has fired other staff
• Ken Clarke to double number of prisoners working full time

Tagged britain slavery, british slavery, modern slavery, politics, poundland slavery, poundland work scheme, slavery, uk slavery