is this a racist view or justified economics.

[ilovebabytv]

Mother is worried about her job. She left school aged 15 (as you could years and years ago) and worked in a fish hoose (as we say in Scotland :)) Then she became a SAHM for the best part of 20 years. When little brother was older he went back to work, first in local factory and then for last 8 years as a cleaner for a subcontractor. So pretty much always unskilled manual labour. Recently through a disability (she has suspected arthritis in her hands) she has became unable to do heavy lifting which has affected a small part of her cleaning. Was left a written letter from her boss to the effect of if she couldn't do all her job then she had to get a letter from her gp to sign her off. Mother is now panicking as she is just under the threshhold for sick pay and thinks that she is going to lose her job and as she put it "so they can replace me with a polish person". So (sorry thats a long back story) is it racist to think that someone should not get an unskilled job because they are an immigrant? At first I did think it was racist, not getting job based on your nationality but the more i thought about it, the more I agreed that unskilled jobs where there is no shortage of unskilled local/british people, well that job should go to them. I dont know, which is why I am asking you lot!

If you're in hospital, or your children are in school, or if you need to use the loo in a train station, would you rather it was covered by an british person who couldn't do a full cleaning job or a polish person who could (if they were the best applicant)

Yes cleaning is an unskilled and unglamorous job, but it is an important one so I personally would rather the services I use to be given to someone willing and able than someone british just because they're british.

Sorry OP

In your mothers case she is quite justified to question why there is economic immigrants being allowed to the level that they are, when there is a rising economic crisis and rising levels of unemployment in the UK.

There are opt out clauses but the UK hasn't opted for them. This movement of economic immigrants can be cut down on, the law is there, it isn't used.

Your mother isn't being racist.

Brits cannot take a lot of the jobs because they cannot afford to house themselves on min wage. Many of the polish etc doing cleaning jobs etc are in shared houses.

Interestingly enough when the are doing investigations into the amount of immigrants being given in the Olympic village, there is no justification for it. I think we shoud be able to questuion this when so many are being hounded for not having a job.

If she is a 'cleaner', why is 'heavy' lifting involved?

It's simple logic, if a country (any country) has too few jobs and too many people competing for those jobs, increasing the unskilled population is only going to raise unemployment, and burden the economy. It's nothing to do with anyone being afraid of a race, or thinking they are second classed citizens, its just unfortunate fact. They could be polish, Chinese, American, Irish or from planet zogg

not all working immigrants pay tax. every morning when i drive past wickes i see dozens of eastern europeans waiting to be picked up to do cash in hand work, work that once would have been given to some chap registered at the job centre. also, alot of working tax paying immigrants send most of their cash back to ie poland, they can save money by having lots live in one house.....

These two points about are very real economic problems during this worrying time.

Racism is not the issue.

Rule Britannia, dm works for a subcontractor for Asdas, heavy lifting is when she has to clean ovens (I think used for cooking the chickens etc) and she has to remove certain parts of it. It wasn't part of her original duties but she was asked to do them and she has for the last 5 years although she told them at the start she struggled with this, now to the point she physically cannot do it. Everything else within her job she is capable of.

I think I also to need to clarify that I myself am mixed race (although I prefer to class myself as 100% scottish through and through :)) but my dm was practically outcast from her family when she became involved with my father as he was a foreign student from China although he left when I was a baby hence why i consider myself 100% Scottish so she really does not think that non British are less human etc than herself.

How is immigrants not paying tax relevant to the issue?

immigrants not paying tax is only an issue if it is a cash in hand job, in which case the not paying tax of the monther of the OP or whoever else might have the job is the issue and the guilty party is the employer, and the employees are often more victims of it than equal conspiring partners.

If the mother of the OP pays tax, then anyone else who does that job would pay tax

it's ridiculous how these threads snowball!

@Morebeta. I'm surprised by that, it's somewhat at odds with my own experience - I've had no problems getting a job in France myself, my department employs many foreigners and I sit on hiring committees where foreign workers are routinely candidat, where I have never seen any evidence of discrimination against them. I also know many expats who live here, mostly employed, in both skillled and non-skilled work.

And I liase with the local union reps in cases involving defending immigrants against workplace discrimination. I have many complaints against French unions, but on this topic I have always found them just as willing to defend any worker, whatever his nationality.

I'(m not claiming the attitude your friend mentions doesn't exist,but I certainly haven't found it to be general.

I think whoever is best for the job should get it, but I think we have to be careful not to let immigrants get taken advantage of. There have been several cases of people paying the worker under the minimum wage by claiming that they are also providing accomadation - which turns out to be a bed in a multiple occupany room which they can only use when they are off shift as someone else gets it at another time, or it is a dirty matress in a caravan.

However the FA have admitted they want a British person to be manager and will give an advantage to any British person over non-british, and no-one thinks that is racist! So apparently if you run the FA or are a multi-millionaire footballer racism against foreigners is OK, but not if you are an elderly cleaner in terror of losing your income.

potoroo,
People studying here, even basic qualifications get an automatic work visa for twenty hours, and I am certain that if you get a degree here you automatically get a workvisa even if you are not an EU ctizen or resident.

I have heard anecdotally that employers tend to pick Polish workers over UK workers in some low paid jobs as they believe they are more likely to turn up, be better motivated and have generally attained a higher educational standard

You probably find that a Polish cleaner 'back home' is no different from his/her Brit counterpart.

Many of the Eastern Europeans I have met in the UK have found that their qualifications aren't recognised here or at least as respected as the UK equivalent. As a result many minimum wage EE workers here have A level-type qualifications. One Czech window fitter I met had a degree and back home he worked in a bank.

So of course that Polish worker is going to better educated than his fellow minimum wage Brit co-worker.

But why is OP's mother signed off sick? She is not sick, she has a physical problem which prevents her performing part of her role.

If I were the employer I would expect the employee to still turn up and discuss what they could do. I would probably want to replace someone (within the legal boundaries, of course) who was absent because of "suspected arthritis".

I am certain that if you get a degree here you automatically get a workvisa even if you are not an EU ctizen or resident.

Not true. Having a degree will help your application but you do not get a visa automatically (I got non EU student mates)

pushy,
I know people who got their masters here who automatically got a visa. Maybe it is just for masters, or they have ended this practice in the past year.

I don't know what the circumstances surrounding the people you know are but based on feedback from non EU mates and from my experiences in IT, a degree doesn't guarantee you a Visa. Otherwise the UK work place would be flooded with degree holders from India, China, HK, Pakistan, Africa, Syria etc etc :)

It is easier to secure a Visa, providing you are sponsored by an employer, if you have a degree but the degree doesn't guarantee anything.

I noticed that no one is complaining about the consumer goods that are cheap because they are being made by cheap foreign labour. But as soon as that cheap foreign labour threatens YOUR job ......

In the USA some states have passed tough anti-immigration laws in the past couple of years. As a result, many immigrants have fled those states. Now some farmers are finding that their crops are rotting in the fields coz all the immigrants are gone :) and the white population would rather cash welfare cheques and collect food stamps than work in the fields for minimum wage.

Their racism has come back and bit them on their economic butts :o

There was a recent story in the London Evening Standard about how they couldn't recruit enough qualified staff from the East End to fill the jobs near the Olympic village. An inability to have enough maths to make change was cited as a major complaint from employers.

You would have thought that the minimum wage legislation would made eliminated the 'foreign workers who work for peanuts are nicking Brit jobs' argument that gets rolled out by the Daily mail and friends eh?

gramercy, dm is not signed off sick, she was going to work as regular, but was just not doing the heavy lifting. When she went into work on Monday i think it was, she found a letter had been left for her by her supervisor saying that if she was not capable of doing her job she would have to get a sick note from her gp signing her off. Will actually need to ask dm what the gp said.