Hmmm, do charity shops really need slave or enforced labour? Doesn’t this rather undermine their ethos and degrade, somewhat, the meaning of charity, and what is meant by being charitable.
Enforced labour is not voluntary labour, it is slavery, it is unethical and it is wrong.
In my opinion, of course.
Forget second hand furniture – the British Heart Foundation is the place to go if you want to understand the reality of workfare. I popped along to my local store this afternoon in the hope of speaking with someone about their experience of workfare. The policy director of the BHF had announced that every store had people on work placements from the government’s various schemes and so this seemed like a good place to start. Speaking with the manager, she looked around the room and counted those on Mandatory Work Activity, ‘1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 today’ she informed me, adding ‘we do have pure volunteers as well’. I certainly had come to the right place to witness workfare at work. Three men were at the back of the room hammering at a wardrobe, a young woman was answering the phone and arranging for donations to be collected by the van, another woman was…
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