Critics slam new BBC programme pitching minimum-wage workers against each other as ‘sinister poverty porn’
The show which the BBC is describing as a 'serious social experiment' will see the least productive worker fired after every 'shift' of menial labour
THE BBC has been slammed over its latest reality show, which will follow low-paid workers as they compete against each other in a series of menial jobs.
Tasks will include cleaning hotel rooms and going through dirty nappies in piles of waste.
Critics have described the social experiment as a “sinister example of poverty porn”, accusing the BBC of exploiting misfortune.
The show, which will air every night next week, will follow 20 volunteers carrying out minimum-wage jobs.
The least productive worker will be fired after every “shift”, while the most efficient will be crowned Britain’s hardest worker, taking home a £15,500 prize.
The show was criticised when it was announced last year, with some labelling it a real-life version of the Hunger Games, in reference to the film franchise of the same name in which children from poor areas fight to the death for a TV show.
Over 20,000 people signed a petition for the programme to be axed.
But the show, called Britain’s Hardest Workers: Inside the Low Wage Economy, will still air, with BBC chiefs describing it as a “serious social experiment”.
Chris McGovern, of the Campaign for Real Education, said: “It is a dumbing down of the BBC’s role in quite a dangerous sense, and is quite a sinister example of poverty porn.
“It’s the dregs of entertainment.
“We should not make a spectacle out of people’s misery and package it as serious.
“We need to have more respect for people in those situations.”
Volunteers on the show include a fisherman, a Bulgarian migrant, a charity worker and a former graphic designer.
The first episode will follow them as they work as cleaners in a Liverpool hotel where they attend to food waste, urine on the bathroom floor and a blow-up doll.
Countryfile host Anita Rani presents the show, providing context on the minimum wage economy in general.
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At one point in the programme she asks the secretary of the national trade union centre: “Aren’t some jobs just so basic that actually they don’t deserve to have higher pay?
"That actually minimum wage is what they’re worth?”
Many of the volunteers are shown crying on camera as they struggle to come to terms with the reality of minimum-wage work.
Ex-mortgage advisor Judy, who lost her £40,000-a-year job following the recession, says: “I feel my house is crumbling a little bit like myself.
“I feel completely lost, and, knowing I have to take any job that’s out there, I can see myself having to do factory work, or cleaning, because these are the only kinds of jobs that perhaps are open to me.”
Meanwhile, Kevin, 48, a fisherman whose earnings fell £8,000 a year due to Stockport’s declining fishing industry, says: “I work between 15 and 18 hours a day, certainly six days a week but sometimes I have to go into a seventh day.
“My take home pay is £663 a month.
“If there is no food in your cupboard, you’ve got children, if a cleaning job comes along you’ve just got to do it.”
Speaking ahead of the show’s premiere, the BBC said: “This series is an innovative social experiment exploring the challenging world of the low wage economy.
“Job insecurity is a real feature of people’s working lives and the purpose of the series is to reflect that.
“The welfare of those taking part is of paramount importance and it is a misinterpretation of the concept of the series to suggest it is exploitative.”
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