“LONG-serving workers at Birmingham chocolate giant Cadbury are being rejected – because the company claims they cannot spell. Dozens of so-called ‘temporary’ staff, who have been employed at the Bournville factory for up to 14 years, were forced to sit literacy and numeracy tests and told not to return to their jobs if they failed”.

Basically, this story was about how Cadbury’s recently sacked a whole raft of ‘temporary’ (some of whom had been working there ‘temporarily’ for 14 years) staff for not being sufficiently literate or numerate; they were all forced to sit literacy tests, and those who failed the tests told not to bother coming back to work.

The excuse given by Cadbury’s for this was ‘health and safety’ – apparently not being able to spell antidisestablishmentarianism and be able to calculate in one’s head the square root of 51 constitutes a health and safety risk in the modern confectionary industry. Whether this is the case or not, compare the behaviour of the modern Cadbury corporation with the beliefs and actions of its pioneers, George & Richard Cadbury. As well as the whole innovation of setting up the factory-in-a-garden and the building of Bournville Village in the first place, they were also prominent in the Adult School Movement, whereby workers were given paid time off twice a week to attend night school classes to improve their, erm, literacy and numeracy, and also allowed to study other subjects at the Day Continuation School (sited in what is now part of UCE BIAD, next to the Quaker meeting house).

I think this behaviour is worth a boycott of their products. It’s a shame really that doesn’t leave much left for a correct-thinking leftist liberal such as myself to eat in the chocolate department, what with also boycotting Nestl� and all for their socially irresponsible corporate behaviour. Looks like I’ll just be left with Green & Black’s.