Sports Direct 90% of staff on 0 hour contracts

[Staunton]

That's the important part, they are operating in the UK when they could just as easily operate somewhere else, give them enough reasons to leave and they will.

 

Sports Direct is piled high with famous Western brands, bearing labels indicating manufacture in the Far East (Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia).

 

The last book to cross my desk was written by a European academic, published in the UK, printed in China.

 

I learn from this very thread that Amazon has an enormous warehouse in the Midlands. However, their financial transactions are administered in Luxembourg.

 

These 'dollar a day' production and offshore financial arrangements, operating from UK based out-of-town warehouse outlets and giant online distribution centres, all seem to be staffed by low- wage personnel. These enterprises are lucrative operations that have been boasting of record profits in the financial year to 2013, but the ordinary people who manufacture and retail the product don't seem to be getting much out of the enterprise, and UK Revenue and Customs aren't seeing a great deal in terms of taxes raised.

 

Effectively they are operating somewhere else angos, the global South and offshore.

[I1L2T3]

That's the important part, they are operating in the UK when they could just as easily operate somewhere else, give them enough reasons to leave and they will.

 

No they couldn't in every case. If Tesco relocated its supermarkets to Belgium could you pop in for a pint of milk on the way home from work?

 

Anything else in your script?

[taxman]

That's the important part, they are operating in the UK when they could just as easily operate somewhere else, give them enough reasons to leave and they will.

 

Rubbish, they need gullible Brits to buy their substandard tacky sportswear.

[Staunton]

The system is well organised - sweatshops in free enterprise zones in China, Indonesia or Thailand, exploiting cheap labour and enjoying tax breaks in these countries; financial arrangements administered through the Cayman Islands, Jersey and Switzerland to avoid UK Revenue and Customs; high pollution low-cost unregulated container shipping; big profits for City executives.

 

The only difficulty seems to be the means of getting the product to the end customer – hence the creation of the low-wage, flexible workforce, the zero-hour contract, the insecure seasonal employment, the recruitment of migrant workers.

[angos]

No they couldn't in every case. If Tesco relocated its supermarkets to Belgium could you pop in for a pint of milk on the way home from work?

 

Anything else in your script?

 

That's right, in every case they couldn't and I didn't say they could in every case, but in some cases they can, so should we have one set of employment law for the ones that can and a different set of employment law for the ones that can not, or just the one set of employment law and accept that some employers will just up sticks to a different country.

[Staunton]

These issues, the exploitation of workers in the global South, the deregulated shipping, the offshore financial arrangements, the low-wage retail sector here in the UK, the recruitment of migrant workers, they are structural - they are integral to the multinational business model.

 

Ordinary people in Thailand and Sheffield are doing all the work and the City executives are making all the money.

[I1L2T3]

That's right, in every case they couldn't and I didn't say they could in every case, but in some cases they can, so should we have one set of employment law for the ones that can and a different set of employment law for the ones that can not, or just the one set of employment law and accept that some employers will just up sticks to a different country.

 

In which cases? Name some companies that use zero hours contracts extensively and tell me which ones could move abroad.

 

Care homes?

 

Sports Direct?

 

Buckingham Palaces?

 

Stop and think carefully about the companies that use these contracts. They can do it because of ever laxer employment law and because the companies and their workers can simultaneously suckle on the teat of the taxpayer.

 

If you want to talk about relocation for tax avoidance that's a different topic, for another thread.

 

Anything else in the script? Not doing well are you?

[angos]

In which cases? Name some companies that use zero hours contracts extensively and tell me which ones could move abroad.

 

Care homes?

 

Sports Direct?

 

Buckingham Palaces?

 

Stop and think carefully about the companies that use these contracts. They can do it because of ever laxer employment law and because the companies and their workers can simultaneously suckle on the teat of the taxpayer.

 

If you want to talk about relocation for tax avoidance that's a different topic, for another thread.

 

Anything else in the script? Not doing well are you?

You are asking me to provide evidence to support something I haven't said.

This is the post I responded to, you should try and follow the discussion.

I would like to suggest that there are large private enterprises operating here in the UK who reward their executives with huge salaries and bonuses simultaneously with structuring an employment policy that leaves their front-line staff dependent on state funded subsidies (that means the taxpayer picking up a hefty bill).

 

I am also suggesting that such companies seem to have a habit of avoiding their own tax obligations.

[I1L2T3]

You are asking me to provide evidence to support something I haven't said.

This is the post I responded to, you should try and follow the discussion.

 

I was replying to your response to me.

 

Look, if zero hours contracts were banned or at least better regulated all of the companies that have been given as examples in this thread could continue to operate. There is no doubt about that.

 

The separate point about companies moving abroad for tax reasons is really a different topic. Companies won't move abroad because zero hours contracts are stopped. They may move certain operations for other tax reasons but if they are big companies they are almost certainly doing that already.

[angos]

I was replying to your response to me.

 

 

Which didn't say anything about zero hours contracts.