From when I cam to live in Dorset in 2009 until recently my employment history can only be described as chequered at best.
At 60 I’m not exactly a good investment in the longer term being a bit of a jack of all trades and master of bugger-all.
Landing in Dorset in 2009 I was unemployed from then until the summer of 2010 when I was able to get a job as a temporary counter assistant in a butchers shop. Run by a typical mercantile petit bourgeoisie I was pushed around from pillar to post not just by the owner but by the longer term employees as well. Having only recently been discharged from a lengthy stay in hospital I was vulnerable and not sure of myself. I need to build up a work history after a long lay off so put up with it until the contact finished.
This work pattern continued until late 2014. Periods of unemployment punctuated by crap jobs for a few weeks here and there.
I thought I’d really turned the corner when I managed to get a so-called proper job with a contract, basic guaranteed hours (12) with a branch of the Co-op food group. Ok it was only as a shelf stacker but the Co-op did at least give me some basic training along with banging its own drum about its ethical credentials, commitment to fair trade and ‘caring’ employment policies including union recognition for USDAW. Once I got to work this proved to be complete bollocks.
The branch of the Co-op I work at had a new manager with a point to prove. He pushed staff hard with production figures that seemed almost impossible to achieve unless you’re some kind of super being with a photographic memory. All we were hearing is faster this, faster that; never mind how you were shown how to do it do it this way because it’s quicker.
I tried to discreetly find out what all this pushiness is about. Rumour had it that the branch manager was on some kind of a bonus scheme. Of course like all of these schemes it may give something to the manager but it will give fuck all to the comrades that actually do the work.
I was told off the record (by a sub manager) ‘It’s not just us it’s all the stores’. When I asked how these production figures related to staff with specials needs I was told ‘same for everyone mate you’re not going to get away with that one’. He assumed I was going to fake a disability so that I could get some kind of exemption!
For 3 months I played the forelock tugging serf to get through probation but now it’s time to fight back. I have no intention of flogging my guts out so that some poncy manager can make an extra few lousy quid off of my sweat.
All this pushiness by management boils down to low-level bullying and it has to be challenged and will be.
When fighting this kind of crap it’s always better to be organized (in a union) than not. Strategy is the important tactic. A stand up confrontation rarely favours a worker no matter how just their cause. I will write further progress reports as and when the information becomes available.
Author’s name left out for obvious reasons.
