Just a quick aside. Last night three goons from the big city thought it would be fun to come to the provinces and roll a few stores to see what the pickings were - and mine was one of them! No fun. Police poking around all night and the horrible feeling that somehow the bosses were going to blame me for not having every single door in the building secured like Fort Knox. Jesus - don't these clowns realise we have to move around in this place. Imagine trying to live in your house if you had to push a code into a pad every time you went from room to room.

Anyway, where was I. Yes - So I phoned up ACAS to find out what the deal about giving 'real' jobs to work-experience people at £2 per hour and the woman told me "This is not something we can comment on. We only deal in disputes. You need to speak to the Job Centre." OK - easily done. So I phoned the local centre and made the enquiery. "Why do you want to know." she said. WTF! Is this some kind of police state! "Because I want to know I said - why is it a secret." I told her I had been online looking for the criteria an emplyer had to satisfy to be able to employ a work-experience person and could find no information at all. What was going on? "I can't answer this question she said - you need to speak to ACAS."
"But they say I need to speak to you!" I cried. In the end she grudgingly volunteered that the Job Centre make no enquiery as to how the job in question has come about and that there is no obligation on the part of the employer to follow up the period of 'experience' with the offer of a full time job. "But doesn't it occur to you that an unscrupulous employer could just wait for his staff to go by natural wastage (which he could speed up in any number of ways, not least by holding wages down) and then re-fill the jobs (particularly if they are so-called 'unskilled'), with £2 per hour work-experience people, thereby effectively just side-stepping the minimum wage legislation. I almost heard the woman shrug over the phone. "Perhaps thats why people like Tesco's and all have pulled out of the scheme" she said disinterestedly. "Thankyou." I said. End of story.

Think about this for 24 hours and Tomorrow I'll go into what it means for schmucks like you and me. The great unwashed masses who actually do the work that makes this place go round.