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February 05, 2008

Comments

ajay

I await the Tesco-Blackwater merger and its attendant exciting range of humanitarian military products with interest.

Close Air Support now comes in three exciting brands to suit every pocket!

Tesco Gourmet - as advertised by TV's General Wesley Clark, the Jamie Oliver of the Air-Land Battle. Heritage-variety satellite guided munitions are allowed to ripen on the pylon by one of our approved suppliers before being delivered direct to your door. All Gourmet products are guaranteed cruelty free.

Tesco Choice - for the discerning buyer; cluster munitions (soon to be renamed "bouquet munitions") selected by our own buyers from a number of suppliers in the former Soviet Union.

Tesco Value - iron bombs from a surplus B-52, repainted blue and white and flown by a disgruntled nineteen-year-old with an NVQ.

john b

They really have doubled their number of UK jobs:

1997: 143,694 UK employees, 89,649 UK FTEs

2007: 270,417 UK employees, 184,461 UK FTEs

septicisle

One wonders how many of those jobs they've "created" are employing those previously working in shops that closed down when the new Tesco turned up.

Chris Williams

"Tesco Value - iron bombs from a surplus B-52, repainted blue and white and flown by a disgruntled nineteen-year-old with an NVQ."

I have just found a handy shorthand name for the RAF's heavy bomber campaign against the Mau Mau. Thanks Ajay.

jamie

You've also got an opportunity here to recompense the collateral damage with clubcard points. Oh, what the hell: double clubcard points.

"They really have doubled their number of UK jobs"

Blimey: no wonder the government are so keen on them.

"One wonders how many of those jobs they've "created" are employing those previously working in shops that closed down when the new Tesco turned up."

Quite a few, I suspect. But they're probably working shorter hours for better pay with a pension scheme at the end of it. I think Tesco certainly bears watching, but considerations like these should be put into the analysis more.

john b

"But they're probably working shorter hours for better pay with a pension scheme at the end of it."

...not to mention a sizeable annual bonus scheme for all staff.

I always find it a bit weird that people with socialist leanings tend to favour small businesses over big companies, even though small businessmen tend to be worse-paying, more anti-union, more likely to break employment law, and more socially right-wing than big firms. And - per your carbon point - big firms are far more lobbyable into supporting good causes.

Alex

Tesco is unionised, no?

Chris Williams

I'd rather work at Waitrose than for Tesco's.

jamie

Full union recognition versus workers co-op: things to be said for both. Incidentally:

...not to mention a sizeable annual bonus scheme for all staff.

Not what I heard from staff - more like discounts on shares and products. People were slightly miffed that everyone was thinking that they'd had large wads of cash handed to them.

ejh

Bonuses. I was reading that piece John Lanchester wrote in the LRB about the City and his neighbour was talking about taking on graduates for a salary of whatever-it-was K* "plus a guaranteed bonus". Now if it's guaranteed, surely it's not a bonus, is it?

* I have never had a salary measured in K.

john b

hmm. dsquared may correct me if he's about, but AIUI the 'guaranteed' element in city bonuses is 'guaranteed if you're not in the bottom 10% who get fired'...

dsquared

No, they're actually guaranteed - usually agreed as part of a job move when you don't know if the new place will be a success and don't want to take the risk of getting zero, you agree a minimum level. The City is really a quite congenial place for workers, albeit that one does have to spend the entire day destroying the lives of ordinary people and personally causing mass redundancies, which is definitely what we do all day.

ejh

Do you not get lunch?

ejh

Actually I can't say I've ever liked the City very much, though I've never worked there. Some of the Wren churches (a mate took me on a tour) are superb, though.

Mind you I particularly like the way in which the Ten Commendments behind the altar always says "Thou Shalt Do No Murder" instead of the more familar and all-encompassing rendering. Good of the City to put God right on that one.

Dan

Hey up

Got to this blog via a google alert: twas a timely find coz I've been ranting about similar things today -

http://www.coveredinbees.org/node/165

I've snaffled from yer blog in this post. Cheers, an ace bit of writing.

Dan

Chris Williams

Dan's comment above looks like it might actually be spam, but not only is it not, it leads to the ultimate fucking pay dirt - a post about Stafford Beer, second or third coolest guy of the twentieth century.

Alex

Yes! Stafford Beer! Whoo!

*dances off with his laptop, for a moment half Che, half John Harvey Jones*

dsquared

wow talk about hands across the water - it's like a whole different Jamiesphere on the other side of the world!

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