CANON

After about 3 months out of work I finally got a call from one of the employment agencies I had signed up for offering me 2 days work at Canon. The concept of being employed for just 2 days was a bit strange but under the circumstances I would have taken anything they offered me.

With no transport it was a 75 minute walk each way to Bardon industrial estate, I did the two days work and that was it.

However I was still unemployed and claiming benefit so I was wondering how things would work out with the 2 days income. I had no choice but to declare these earnings to the benefits office as it was all official. I was told that I would get my benefit as usual but the money I had earned would simply be deducted from my benefit. I was “allowed to keep” 5 pounds of it. I got paid 81 pounds for that 2 weeks instead of 76.

I had done 16 hours work and walked for 5 hours just to be 5 pounds better off than if I had stayed at home and done nothing. If I had worked for 1 day or three days I would still only be this 5 pounds better off. If I had paid for public transport and food I could have actually been worse off!!!!!!

Something is seriously wrong when it’s possible to lie in bed all day and get more money than someone who makes the effort to go out and do an honest days work. I pointed this out to the woman at the benefits office her reply was “I know it’s stupid”.

It was pointless doing any work less than a couple of weeks because of this, during 1996 I turned down at least a months worth of work because it wouldn’t pay any more than staying at home.

About a month later I got a breakthrough when I was offered a whole months work at Canon. I could sign off benefit, work for a proper wage for a month then sign back on again when it was over.

The place itself was just a giant warehouse, I was just a spare pair of hands that did what I was told whenever I was needed. Some of the work could be boring like the 2 whole days I spent putting computer disks in envelopes. Overall it didn’t seem a bad place to work and I got on ok with the other people I worked with.

As pointed out above it was two and a half hours walking a day getting to and from work which could be a killer if I had been on my feet all day as well. This was noticed by one of the forklift drivers who lived in Whitwick and offered to pick me up the following day.

I waited at the pre arranged point on time for ages, he didn’t turn up, I ended up walking again and arrived at work over an hour late. The reaction I got off both the manager and the shift supervisor was unbelieveable, they treated me as if I had endangered someones life. Worse still they didn’t listen or want to listen to my explanation of why I was late. By the time I was getting the “you young people have no standards” speech I was more than ready to walk out but didn’t. I only had a week to go so managed to hang on until the end.

In those days agency workers had absolutely no workers rights at all and were often treated as subhuman by management and the regular workers. I got a phone call offering me work again a few weeks later but it came with the message “I heard your time keeping was poor last time”. Likewise he didn’t want to listen to why I was late..........

I seriously objected to my commitment being questioned for being late once through no fault of my own. The walk I did in itself was more than any of my friends would have got out of bed for. Later at Charnwood elastics I worked for 7 years without clocking in late once. The whole incident put me off working at the place again so I turned down future work until I got a two month spell at the sock factory in the run up to christmas.

I never trusted anyone to take me to work again after that!!!!!!!!!!!!!