The Thin End Of The Wedge Essay — страница 2

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only one is usable; the other collapses sideways if I open the door, and the flood has left an unspeakable black sludge in its base. Once I’ve unpacked, the place looks reasonably homely. Next door to me is Susie. She lives with her elderly mum and five or six fluffy white dogs, each of which sports a little pink bow in its hair. She’s been here a long time, she says, and it suits her fine. Her van has its own little garden with a cherry tree and a clematis climbing along the fence. Susie says it’s a close-knit community where not much happens without someone noticing. When I call round to introduce myself, she already knows my name. Susie is the kind of neighbour who makes a point of popping round to let you know it’s bin day tomorrow, or to make sure you’re settling

in all right. There are about 80 “vans” in all, and some have exotic names like “Dominica” or “Rio Vista III”. Mine is the basic model, however, and has “Mk II Tyne” stamped on the front. I phone Temps R Us again, with my address. They confirm I can start at Bramwells Sauces on Monday. There’s no need for an interview. The basic pay is minimum wage an hour, plus 20p extra per hour if I turn up regularly and on time. I’ll work a week in hand and will be paid for 41 hours a week, including five hours’ overtime at a higher rate. I should earn about £180 a week before tax. I’ll be picked up by the Shell garage up the road from the caravan site. The driver’s name will be Colin. A few days later, I’m standing on the dual carriageway out of town, scanning

the traffic. The battered red minibus is half full when it stops to pick me up at five to one, but by the time it reaches its destination, almost all the places are occupied. I expected most of the workers to be women, but I was wrong. About half are lanky lads aged between 16 and 20, with spots, short, slicked-down hair and tracksuit bottoms. The rest are an even mix of women, aged between 16 and 50, and older men. At about 1.45pm we pull into a car park in front of the series of grey sheds with brightly coloured trim that is Bramwells. Within seconds, everyone has piled out, rushed into a hut by the car park, changed their everyday shoes for workboots and galumphed off again, leaving me alone with a plump bloke in his late 30s who tells me his name is Ken. This is his company,

he says, and in a minute Colin, who drove the minibus, will be along to give me my training and show me around. It’s several weeks before I realise that Ken isn’t the owner of Bramwells, but of Temps R Us, or possibly of the branch of Temps R Us that seems to run Bramwells’ personnel office. I won’t be working for Bramwells, he explains. For some purposes I’ll be self-employed; for others I’ll be employed by Temps R Us. Anyway, I don’t need to bother myself with the details, because they’ll all be sorted out. He sits me down to watch a series of safety videos and asks me to complete a health and safety comprehension test before declaring me “capable of higher mental processes”. I also get a pair of steel toecapped boots, for which £15 will be deducted from my

wages. According to my information, the law says employers should provide such safety equipment free of charge. Then again, I’m not an employee. Or am I? I never really get to the bottom of this issue, or find out how being an agency worker affects my rights. I do discover, though, that there are little fleets of minibuses ferrying agency workers all over the area, from the old industrial towns where unemployment is high to the more prosperous towns where there are labour shortages. Whatever the legalities, factories around here seem to find such casual labour a useful way of keeping their labour forces flexible. Inside, the cavernous shed-like factory is like a cheerful vision of hell. Hulking cauldrons hug their loads of sauces, pickles and ketchups. Bottles jostle as they

inch into coolers the size of single-decker buses. Huge clouds of steam rise up, denoting unseen processes: filling, labelling, shrink-wrapping. Everywhere is stainless steel. There’s a chest-stopping mix of sauce and pickle in the air. The activity is frenetic. Colin leaves me in the care of Lara, a pale girl of about 20 with a huge lovebite on her neck. She’s only been here a week or so herself. She didn’t used to work, but her fiance left her a few weeks ago and she has £70 a week rent to pay on a two-bedroom house with a leaky roof. She couldn’t understand it, she says. She did everything, all the cooking, cleaning, shopping. Men, she says. Treat ‘em mean and they’re soppy as hell. Do the right thing and they bugger off without so much as a “thank you”. I