It has been an introduction into how we treat the poorest working people in our community.The good thingsThe workers in the field are a great bunch and help each other every day in many ways. The low pay and low hours of work available mean we all face the same problems and therefore form a band of friends against a common enemy - low hours each week. The company wants to have many more people on there books than is required in order to always have workers available for sudden situations where an emergency requires many workers, such as burst water pipes etc.
The challengesThe company simply wants far too many staff and spreads the hours of work out among far too many. This is easily achieved when there is high unemployment. The entire industry is one which grinds the faces of the poor by giving only 20 to 25 hours work to each staff member. A full time job is 40 hours, but I have only ever had 40 hours once in the 6 months of working there. Many people move from one company to another in search of more hours but it is an industry wide scourge and therefore many eventually find better work else where, adding to the high turnover of staff. It is a cruel industry for people genuinely interested in feeding their families.