20th July 2011, 11:09 PM
None of the companies involved are members of the IFA, and none (to my knowledge) have had to advertise on BAJR. This is perhaps the root of the problem - they've all been able to find people to work under these conditions without having to formally advertise vacancies, even when the hours of work or rate of pay have been explained up front. It's easy for me to sit here and say I'd have told them to shove it, as I'm currently lucky enough to have a job, but I'm not so sure I'd have wanted to turn down a job if I'd been unemployed for several months and needed to find something to pay the bills. Although I have in the past turned down work because I felt the wage was too low, and walked off sites where I thought the company was taking the piss as regards the treatment of staff, that was at a time when there was far more work available, and I could be confident of picking something else up fairly quickly. I know it would only serve to perpetuate the exploitation of staff, but I'm not confident I'd be so willing to walk away from a similar situation in the current economic climate.
You know Marcus. He once got lost in his own museum