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Huffington Post is reporting a soon to be announced government scheme to recruit furloughed workers and students to take up short term seasonal work picking fruit and veg to cover a shortage of Eastern European migrants.https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/government-pick-for-britain-drive-planned-to-launch-next-week_uk_5e8b35fcc5b6e7d76c678a59 …
This was also reported two weeks ago in the Telegraph. In both reports, the inititiative (and the petty nationalist WWII nostalgia slogan "Pick For Britain") are directly credited to the National Farmers Union.https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/03/26/government-preparing-launch-land-army-style-pick-britain-campaign/ …
The National Farmers Union was on Radio 4 last week discussing agricultural labour recruitment issues and openly advocating scrapping the minimum wage for farm workers.https://twitter.com/MediocreDave/status/1245761925541224453 …
The National Farmers Union was last year petitioning to have greater access to the deeply discounted labour of prisoners (no minimum wage entitlement) to cover the recruitment shortfall that would be caused by Brexit.https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/06/01/farmers-say-prisoners-allowed-work-day-release-could-help-fill/ …
The NFU is aiming to come out the other side of the coronavirus crisis with a new long term settlement for making the profitable exploitation of labour easier. As an employers association, that is its role. And, it seems, the government will be entirely amenable to this.
In other news, I'm sick of hearing that Marx's analysis of labour exploitation and class struggle are relics of the nineteenth century because we all work in the service or communications sectors these days.
There is no national interest. There is labour and there is capital.
Still, nice of them to quietly confirm they've never been paying minimum wage to their workers all this time
Workers are paid on a piece rate. So if the worker produces enough stuff in an hour, they will receive more than the minimum wage. If they don't, the employer has to make up the shortfall. So it's a way to maximise the exploitation of labour while still abiding by the law.
Even if this situation produces some miraculous improvement in workers rights and unionising, it will require massive pressure to keep it going when they go back to using seasonal migrant workforce. It's not looking good imo
There is also no mechanism at work that might push us even vaguely in the direction of that miracle.
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