Greeny News

USDAW wants to keep the chains Sainsbury's and Waterstones and to end long-term unpaid work for young unemployed

Unions have called the greatest

Britain chains of high street to retire from government programs that make the arrest up to six months without pay or risk losing their benefits.

The call comes as Sainsbury, one of the largest retailers in the UK, told the Guardian that left branch managers to take on job seekers in the program of work experience.

The move follows that of Waterstones bookstore chain, which last week announced it had withdrawn from the program because they want to "promote unpaid work."

Under the plan of work experience, hundreds of thousands of young job seekers in large part to work in charities and private companies for 30 hours per week for eight weeks, without pay, and can be eliminated if their benefits are withdrawn. The government also introduced a host of other schemes, such as mandatory work activity, academies sector work, and community action program, which may require job seekers to employment not paid for a maximum of six months as a condition of its benefits.

Plans are currently running in more than a dozen well-known chains such as Boots, Tesco, Asda, Primark, Argos, TK Maxx, Poundland and the Arcadia group of stores managed by billionaire Sir Philip Green, which includes Top Shop and Burton.

store employees USDAW Union, which represents over 400,000 workers at points of high street retail, said he is currently in discussions with a number of large companies on their participation.

John Hannett, USDAW general secretary, said: "USDAW not opposed to plans that actually aim to provide young people with appropriate work experience or long-term reintegration assistance the unemployed to work, but plans must be voluntary, participants must receive the rate for the work, and there must be checks and balances in place transparent.

"We are in discussions with companies that have agreements with participants to review its continued participation in the programs [...] variety."

Hannett said: ".. The unemployment crisis will never be solved by forcing people to work for nothing that this country needs is an appropriate strategy for growth and employment "

The TUC has called on companies to do, and warned that government-mandated schemes were encouraging unpaid work rather than creating real jobs.

"Some large companies are waking up and turning away from the legislative work unpaid. We wrote a number of major retailers involved in the work-plans-for-profit and your requested s' they intend to continue in light of what The Guardian reported, and we have brought to the attention of the courts.