Bloody Germans

Filling The Vacancy

We can all face the unemployment queue with an air of dignity, as long as we can face it from the window of a bus that is taking us to work.  But for those actually participating in the queuing and out of work, it is a different kettle of brass washers.

The working man, as he grinds away with beads of sweat dripping from his soiled brow, his hands tired, bruised and calloused from working the pick into the side of the mine, may imagine that the unemployed are a lot of lazy sods out for a good time.  I, having been many times one of those so unfortunate to become unemployed, can tell him that during those dark ugly moments, I feared the situation so much, my hands often shook leaving me in great danger of spilling my cup of coffee into my lap.  He may have to put up with his tiny problems of wet clay weighing down his boots, causing him to slip and fall thirty feet below into the murky slosh; breaking the odd inconsequential bone or two.  But that's nothing compared with the horrors of daytime television that we out-of-workers are many times subjected to.

Alright!  I can appreciate the dangers he may have to face deep down in that hole, with nothing but the sound of dripping water and his own heartbeat for company -- but it's a fact, that unless the unemployed have got a few negotiable notes in their pockets, it really isn’t worth getting up in the morning.  So as they lift him out of that pit, onto the stretcher and into the ambulance, I hope he soon realises our sorry plight and just how lucky he is to be able to say, "I'm a working man".

So let me take some time out here, during this most concerning part of my book, to consider the heavy burden that is so often placed onto the shoulders of the poor unemployed.  How can I help to remove some of their guilt and replace it with solid dignity, so they can face life.., but most important of all -- face themselves?

The biggest drag of being unemployed is not having anything to do.  Get up, eat, go to the lavatory and then go back to bed again, is often the only programme for the day. Some may find pastimes to fill in those long hours; some get drunk, some get high, while others just get arrested.

I fantasise that the best thing the unemployed can do is to cultivate a hobby, but what kind of hobby you may begin to ponder? 

In choosing one, one has to bear in mind our own personal character.  I mean, if you are a hulking six-footer, built like a brick outhouse, and are unemployed because you sent your foreman off the top of the scaffolding; with the help of a sledgehammer, then steer well clear of butterfly hunting, croquet and pressing wild flowers.  With your rugged outlook on life, you'd be far happier going off to prison to sew up the seams of mailbags.

On the other hand, if you are a skinny, frail weakling who's afraid of going out at night, then hang-gliding is not for you either.  Steer clear of anything too dangerous for your disposition, and that includes butterfly hunting, croquet and pressing wild flowers.

Once you have decided your own character and have chosen a hobby, the first thing to do is get out of bed.  This could be the make or break of your chosen hobby - - unless of course, you have chosen something you can do far better in bed.  This not only gives you a character that is at once imaginative, it also means you are downright vulgar.

If you choose reading as your hobby, remember you still have to get out of bed to visit the library. That is, unless you claim that reading is ‘food for your mind’ and so can convince ‘Meals On Wheels’ to deliver all your books.

Those really determined hobbyists might want to go for the more energetic outdoor scene.

Once you are out of bed, dressed, and there is still some daylight left, your first call should be to the library to discover more about your choice of mountain climbing, or potholing -- whatever. If however, in order to reach the library, you are perfectly able to pass by six public houses and two betting shops; without feeling the sudden urge to enter any one of them -- then in my mind, you are a strong enough person without any need for outdoor exercise, and so do not require to read any books either. 

You may go back to your bed.

Another pastime is Social Work, helping others without receiving any wage or reward. 

Once you have made this big decision, and your psychiatrist is happy with you, you can then join one of the many organisations.  With a clean driver's licence you could even help deliver books for ‘Meals On Wheels’.

Another movement taken up mainly by young people all over Europe, is the ‘Human Signpost Organisation’.  This is a band of dedicated unemployed, who I have many a time seen standing on the side of roads and motorways. They will hold up a card that exhibits the name of a town or city of certain destinations. I consider this to be a very helpful and generous cause that goes to great lengths; and in all weathers, to assist passing motorists to ascertain that they are on the right road. Many times I have turned off from a roundabout and wondered if I am still on the right track. Then I see one of these fine fellows holding up a card high enough for me to see large letters that spell out --

‘Southampton’

I think, “Brilliant, I’m still on the right road!”

I hold my thumb up high and garnish my face with a large smile --

“Thanks Mate!”

I mean, what more can I do?

Sometimes I find four or five of them all bunched up together; each one displaying a different town name.  That is what I call real team work!

It also seems that when too many of them get grouped together in one place, a car will suddenly pull up and pick a few of them up. I suppose they must take them off to another location where they are more needed.  For the unemployed to join this organisation, it would indeed be an ideal way to keep them off the streets. It also demonstrates a highly strong community attitude -- as many times indicated by the cheerful salutes they will frequently give to the passing motorist as they flash by. And all in a manner, that gives rise for me to believe, that this movement was first founded by Winston Churchill himself.

If however, you are not the type for hobbies, helping others, or getting out of bed, then perhaps you could try something really adventurous -- like looking for a job.

Unfortunately, future employers do insist that at your interview you are not in your bed, and you will stand a much better chance of impressing them if you are smartly dressed.  A ketchup stained singlet, with your stomach hanging out over your shorts, and a smell of yesterday's beer -- is highly unlikely to encourage any future success.  At least make the effort of combing your hair, having a shave and doing up your fly buttons.  After all, you will be selling yourself, and if you turn up looking like something that fell off the back of a garbage truck, they are going to be less concerned about you, than they will be about their office carpet.  You wouldn't even get to the  ‘We'll let you know......,’ -- you'll be just sprayed and removed.

If you cannot raise your dignity to pander to the capitalists and yet are in dire need of funds, then forget all about useless hobbies and become a capitalist yourself -- 

‘The shame of the unemployed transformed into the pride of the self-employed’. 

But in order to survive you will need to provide a service or product that is not already in abundance.  I mean there is little point in two and a half dozen ex-dole men becoming balloon sellers, in the same district -- in the same street!  You must get out amongst these people and sell boot laces, but be wary of the pitfalls of commercial success!  As you put on more staff, you will become subject to the government's Employee Act -- which means you will have to provide protective clothing, eye goggles and canteen facilities, and there just won't be enough room on that footpath, unless the two and half dozen balloon sellers have, by then, disappeared in a cloud of bankruptcy.  If this does happen -- then seize the market opportunity and quickly diversify into balloon selling.

But you really cannot sell balloons while you are still in bed, especially if you live in a top floor apartment -- lift or no lift!  In this hurly-burly, stab-in-the-back world, with its huge city business empires, university moulded whiz kids, fast deals, contracts..., you are not going to sell one single balloon from your bed -- twenty flights up!

Whatever, in the end, you decide to do, don't be embarrassed by your unfortunate position of  being in the dole queue.  It's not your fault you were born idle.  Be proud and say to yourself, "I think I am a human being".  No matter how you got onto the scrap heap, or how long you've been there, lie down and be counted.  Hold your head up high on your pillow and face the ceiling like a man!  Don't be dismayed by the moronic heckling coming from miners on stretchers -- they don't know what it's like to be down.  As long as you yourself know where you lie -- no man can put you down, because in your heart of hearts, you know if you are ever called upon to do your bit, you'll be lying in readiness, waiting for them to come and find you.  And when the chips are down -- you'll be down there with them.  Have as much faith in yourself as you do in the second favourite in the two-thirty at York, and think of the great work you are doing for all mankind.

Solid citizens like you are blameless of making lethal nerve gas and neutron bombs.  You're not ripping out the rain forests or widening the gap in the ozone layer.  How can you be accused of planning to invade some poor, weak country when all you have in your mind is getting out of bed to go to the lavatory? A guiltless action which, in no way, could escalate into nuclear confrontation.  You may not get a Nobel Peace Prize, or a State Funeral, but when you die you'll be helping your country even more by reducing Welfare payments and creating employment in the undertaking industry.

So go tell the hassler’s you will sleep on their suggestions, and whatever happens -- take it lying down.  And you, the smug, self-satisfied worker -- give up the rat race and join the unemployment movement. 

With government assistance -- we’re getting bigger and bigger every day.

Employment

Wages in Germany are far higher than Britain -- this is a well known fact and the main reason why many people, especially the young, come to Germany to seek work. They are not the only ones -- people from all over Europe and other parts of the world, come to Germany to work.

Many organisations, not necessarily operating within Germany, that obtain some German contracts, have been known to misuse foreign employees by paying them a far lower than average German wage, and without giving them proper working conditions that allow any protection for both their safety or insurance. Such rogue employers have also been known to set separate pay-rates, that are determined solely on the country the prospective employee derives from.

I’ve met quite a few young British workers on the ferry returning to England, who had to work on construction sites that had no proper safety equipment -- some did not even provide any scaffolding.  Also several of these short contract employees, were not offered any adequate accommodation, as they were first promised. And in quite a number of cases, others were not even paid for the whole six months or more, that they worked.

This practice of cheap labour has angered the German government and they have now set-up several ways and means to prevent it from happening. The German workforce, are also up in arms about it, because cheap labour can also put them out of work.

In Germany, employees who work for twenty five hours a week, are classed as part-time employees. They are entitled to all the same benefits and conditions as a full-time worker.

In Britain, sixteen hours per week, entitles a worker to pay a part-time contribution, but that will only allow them a small part of the full-time benefits.

Also in Germany, sickness and holiday pay are statuary for all employees who work both part and full-time. Employees are entitled to 6 weeks sick pay and five weeks holiday a year. The payments are at the same rate as for normal employment.

In Britain, statuary sickness pay has a set allowance that is allocated by the State in much the same way as other statuary benefits, such as Income Support. However, the first three days of sickness, does not have an entitlement for any benefit at all.

There has been a recent slight change in how the sickness benefit is paid in UK; the employer now directly pays the sickness allowance to the worker, instead of the worker claiming it from the State. The employer then claims that allowance back from the Governments Sickness Benefit Scheme  -- but at the end of the day, it is still all basically the same thing.

Holiday pay is treated in much the same way; in Britain, unlike Germany -- it can be optional; all depending on what kind of Contract, or Terms of Employment, as it is so often called, an employee is on. If they are classed as a full-time worker, then they will be entitled to full holiday pay -- but only for four weeks. But there are many loopholes within Britain’s employment rules, in which an employer can so easily put a employee outside those statuary conditions, by classing them as a temporary or contract worker. In those circumstances, no conditions,  such as holiday pay, need ever apply.

Temp Agencies in Germany, have by law to pay their employees the full statuary rate of sickness and holiday pay, plus meet all over statuary working conditions. In Britain, the temp agencies are exempt from this. Which is why many firms in Britain use them to make up their workforce; they can all escape having to succumb to any statuary pay or employment conditions for their employees.

It is just another form of cheap labour.

Unlike it is for the average German workforce, only a selection of  Britain’s employees, usually the higher paid salary workers or professional classes, are often allowed full-pay during periods of sickness, or better and longer full-paid holiday schemes. For the ordinary or unskilled British worker, these same conditions do not have to apply, as they are not statuary --  and many times, they don’t.

Further up the scale, or professional employees, will also often receive their own pension and private medical schemes, as an extra bonus or perk of the job. But for the ordinary worker, they are at the mercy of whatever the employer sees fit to allow them --

Need I say more?

The German worker, is far better off than their British counterpart -- with both pay and employment conditions; much of this arrangement comes within the framework of the EU Social Contract,  in which Britain is at the moment refusing to sign, or join.

The Needy

Go to any town or city throughout Britain, and you’ll see nothing but an abundance of charity shops, almost next door to each other and on both sides of the street. In my young days, and up to my teens, I cannot recall ever seeing any charity shops about. If they were in existence, then they must have been very well hidden.

When the charity shops did first start to appear, they opened their doors within the same run-down areas as the second-hand shops -- but they still stood out like sore thumbs amongst all the other tatty shops around them.

Their appearance was far worse than the junk shops, and they frequently gave out a typical stale stench that could only belong to a charity shop. Old-fashioned, well worn, dishevelled items of clothing and footwear, sat languishing in their front windows, looking so sad and unwished-for -- it would have been more humane to have had them all put to sleep. Objects inside and around, such as kitchen utensils, LP records, crockery and dull glassware -- all solemnly pleading to be rescued to the safety and sanctum of a museum. And no matter which charity shop I went into -- for some unknown and very strange reason, they all boasted a legion of multicoloured crocheted items; crotchet covers for beds, chairs and table tops -- teapots, toilet rolls and even eggcups.., but not one cover to be found that would enshroud all the bloody crotchet!  Everywhere I gazed -- crotchet hats, jackets, body tops and wraps, I thought, --

“Who the hell is making all this stuff.., and why doesn’t somebody remove them from all that wool?  To track them down shouldn’t be so difficult -- all they need do is look out for a house that has a large bright multicoloured crotchet cover, right over the top of it!”

The seedy charity shops of that time, also held a stigma -- they were considered by most, as places where only the very poor would be forced to shop -- folk wouldn’t dare mention that the bright new jumper they adorned, came from a charity shop -- it would be far more dignified for them to say that it was bought at a junkshop -- or they found it in a rubbish  bin.., than dare allege it hailed from a charity shop. In some uncanny way, most people considered the charity belonged to the buyer and not to the cause a kind purchase would be donated.

During Britain’s late 1980’s recession, select shopping areas changed drastically when many small and respectable stores were forced to close down. Almost immediately, there came a great sudden surge from the many charity organisations, upon those empty and forlorn premises, and they began to open up their doors again -- but as Charity Shops; charity for children at home or abroad, for the elderly, lifeboats, the blind and disabled, for cancer research and so on.

Charity shops, were fast becoming a part of the normal and traditional shops in and around every main shopping street in Britain, and stood proud alongside the other large popular stores such as, Woolworth’s, Marks & Spensers, British Home Stores, W.H. Smith’s and so forth. Today, wherever I go within Britain’s busy town areas, I will always find plenty of these charity shops all huddled together, almost on top of each other, and right next door to all of the other fine stores, large and small.

Nowadays, many of those charity shops appear just as exciting as all the other outlets around them; their goods are professionally flaunted in front window displays, they have all sizes, sexes and age groups of mannequins; heads that exhibit hats and scarfs, half-sized figures for jumpers, shirts, blouses and jackets, to full-scale figures wearing the lot. These stores are also now fitted with modern shelving, fancy lockable glass cabinets and fine counter displays. And not everything they sell today is as old and discarded, as some of their volunteer shop assistants, or as comparable to when they first began. Now they have new items up for sale, that have been specially designed and created exclusively for their own charity shop.

This significant growth of charity shops in Great Britain, has fast turned them into a main shopping industry for all.

Some of these charity shops have a tremendous amount of organisation going on behind the scenes. It begins with the general public donating their unwanted items to the shop, either by handing them personally over to a counter assistant, or dumping them at the shop doorway during shop closing hours.

It’s a bit of a mystery what happens to them next, as many of the charity shops differ in their procedure; some will immediately sort them out in a back room, determine their worth and attach price tags onto them, prior to putting them up for sale in the shop.  Others will store them until they are collected and taken to a main evaluation depot -- where they will even have antique experts on hand. Items, such as blankets, will be put to one side, as their use has a more direct demand. Everything else will be assessed, priced-tagged, then dispatched to their designated localities -- which could also include the ragman. 

So if you have recently donated any of your old clothing to one of these charity shops, you’ll be wasting your time if you go sifting through their racks the following week to try and discover how much they think they are all worth -- by now, somebody living over two-hundred miles away, could be running around jubilantly in your pants!

Many people did at first assume that these charity shops were for the poor and needy -- but they thought they were talking about them; the unemployed, the low-paid, hard-up or single mum with fifty kids. But they were soon to discover that this is most definitely not the case. Once a price-tag has been firmly attached onto any garment -- that price will hold unyielding far beyond the end of time. There’s no point in anybody haggling or telling a long sob story -- those grey weary old dog-eared worn-out fluffy undergarments, are gonna cost you £2.99, even if hell does freeze over. In fact, if it gets that cold, the price will go up even more.

But I don’t think the stigma of the charity shops has really changed that much since they first began, if you watch some of the customers, after they have purchased an item at the counter and prior to them opening the main door and setting off up the busy street, you’ll see many of them purposefully take out a previously arranged emergency brightly-coloured posh carrier-bag -- the type that bears a swank name such as, Charlotte's Boutique or World of Fashion. Then hastily, they’ll ram-in the ugly brown charity paper-bagged item, that exhibits large crude bold green words that declare, For The Poor. 

They’ll do this to quickly and neatly, hideaway their embarrassment and shame!

Myself, I have no need for all that palaver -- I just take out my long black wig and dark sunglasses -- I bought them from a charity shop, only last year.

Apart from the rise of Britain’s many charity shops, parallel to this, there has also been an incline towards a mammoth accumulation of what we so lovingly call, Tin-rattlers!

Tin-rattlers, are the people from the many charity organisations, who stand in busy main shopping precincts, and rattle a bright-red, eye-catching plastic money-donation container in front of shopper’s noses as they walk by.  Many times, they don’t even wait for folk to come to them -- they move out from their designated spot and head them off at the pass. They could very easily be considered as Highway Robbers, except the only thing they threaten to attack -- is our conscience.

When they first began to appear on the streets of Britain, there were just a few of them who popped up now and then on certain designated days -- and they never approached the public head on, as they do today. But now, they are coming out in droves and they pounce from all sides -- I cannot escape them, they are practically everywhere I go. If I try to dodge one, I run straight into the rattling arms of another!

It’s terrible and has got way out of hand!

I mean it’s okay if whilst coming out of the local supermarket, I happen to pop my loose shopping-change into one of these either manual, or automatically operated containers -- I see nothing wrong with that at all. But most of these tin-rattlers will get me long before I even make it to the shops -- and there are so many of them to worry about  en-route. Not only that, but apart from the ravenous packs of charity tin-rattlers that one has to worry about everytime they go out shopping.., there is also a strong presence from a steady growth of beggars and street entertainers -- all despondently ascending on my person from all directions, demanding -- via my conscience, that I open up my purse and jettison it all their way.

By the time as I reach the supermarket, I haven’t got the price of a book of matches on my person -- I’ve given it all away!  There’s nothing left for me to do, but go home again. But on my return journey -- they’ll all lunge on me again. Even when I  get down on my knees, cross my heart and swear to die that I’m truly sorry, but I really have no money left at all to spare -- they’ll look at me as if I’m mean and nasty and don’t care two hoots about the starving millions around the globe.

I feel damned and cursed all the way back to my fodder-less home.

Sometimes I feel that all of the street beggars and down-and-outs living in shop doorways -- are really just ex-shoppers, who were once stormed upon by a cluster of tin-rattlers and sadly, never made it to the stores.., nor could afford to pay for the rent back home.

Nowadays in Britain, it seems that the only safe and secure way to ensure I have at least a half a pound of mince or a few sausages in my fridge, is to plan my shopping route via the underground sewerage pipes -- hoping that very close to the supermarket main entrance, there will be a handy and easy removable exit.

But I wouldn’t mind betting a pound to a penny, that as I slowly made my way through that dark, dank and murky tunnel, feeling engulfed by the narrow curved Victorian brickwork -- with no other sounds around me, but for the sloshing water at my feet and the constant echoes of ploink, ploink, ploink, from some unknown and far off dripping source.., that at the end of that cold and moist rat-ridden orifice.., just as I am about to grasp hold of one of the rusty iron ladder rungs, that would lead me to daylight and freedom -- I’d be greeted by some cheerful sod in a frogman’s suit --

‘Would you like to give a donation towards the oppressed and intimidated?’

Rattle-rattle-rattle!