Migrant workers

[4foxsake]

I saw this on the BBC and thought you should see it:
AIBU to think that any unemployed person who voted for Brexit on the basis that 'immigrants are coming over here & taking our jobs' should now step up to the plate...

Fruit and veg farmers facing migrant labour shortages - www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40354331

People can't afford to take these jobs unless they have very cheap housing/ live in a caravan.

I suggest you try living in a caravan/ mobile home outside May & June if you think people should actually wnat to live that way forever, and are ungrateful if they don't.

I'd love a job like this but without farm tied/ cheap housing I would find it impossible financially.

If you are sending money home to Poland or similar it is worth it because even a small amount goes much further there.

Unemployment rates in the south east where the farm they featured on the news is are at 1% or less. No one to do the work unless they ship in people from areas of high unemployment?

Not sure if it's because they want to or because they feel they can't say no.

From what I gather, there's a significant difference in cultural working attitudes between Eastern Europeans and the British, particularly when it comes to factory work. Eastern Europeans still carry the cultural baggage of Soviet attitudes to factory work, coupled with the collective anxiety over high unemployment rates in their home countries, whereas the British have seen decades of focus on employment rights and health and safety issues, backed up by more confrontational trade unionism.

It is notable that Gate Gourmet, the site of the famous industrial strike on the part of South Asian heritage women workers in Southall back in 2005, is now almost entirely staffed by Eastern Europeans.

Bits a bit of a dodgy one this. I believe that travellers used to do the picking near here. There's no doubt we need migrant workers but I can't help but feel that the glut of cheap labour has weakened employment rights (not the migrants fault of course) My DH is senior management in a large manufacturing company, he was shocked when he started to find that 80% of the workforce on the shop floor were Eastern Europen. All brought in by agencies under shot contracts.

It's not bits.

Controversial opinion ahead

This is where a minimum wage doesn't do people any favours. Why do fruit picking when you can do something easier for the same money? If they can ship migrant workers to the farms and house them why can't they move unemployed people round the UK to the posts for the season?

Just to add ... I think part of the problem is a kind of wilful blindness in many political circles to recognise that British people actually worked in factories, mills, and industrial floors, and on the land, in the 80s and 90s and that many Brits still do.

When Tony Blair said "we are all middle class now", I think a lot of people actually believed it and assumed the shop floor had disappeared sometime around 1979 .

I do think the working class have been shafted though, hence Brexit. I'm a remainer but I can still see the source of the anger.

When you don't get penalised for taking temporary work

If they can ship migrant workers to the farms and house them why can't they move unemployed people round the UK to the posts for the season?

Benefits.And the pain in the ass it is to sort out a change in circumstances,income,signing off,signing back on. And that's just the paperwork, without the usual fuckups and confusion that occur,leaving people with no income at all for weeks or months.
It's seasonal work.
Add in childcare,housing ,support that might be necessary (MH for example) and you can't relocate or just send people off for months at a time.

Many of the Eastern European farmworkers near me, live in caravans with a stand water pipe and no cleaning or shower facilities. There are about 20 caravans in a row on one of the local farms. They live there all the year round. I can't imagine many people from the UK would be prepared to live in such conditions, especially those with children.

Illegal workers are rife on farms. Around 10 years ago I worked on a flower farm down south. There were a few English people but the majority were Russians or Ukranians on fake student visas. They enrolled into college courses, but never had to attend. The also got paid more than the locals because students didn't have to pay tax! I also lots of Chinese workers arrive in mini buses with dodgy looking gang master types.

Looks like a nice summer job for students. Fed up with people blaming Brexit for everything. Grow up and get over it - we're leaving.

DH (a Non EU immigrant/ now citizen through marriage) is a health professional in the NHS. At the interview for his last position there were no native British interviewees.

There was something like South African, Portuguese, Irish, him (middle Eastern) and others. I remember remarking on it at the time. The job paid about £21k (grade 5 NHS) with obviously potential for promotion and increased pay. So it's also skilled work that British people don't seem interested in/ trained for.

Where are the natives?!

Russia, Ukraine and China are not in the EU . It will be interesting to see who takes these jobs. We need better employment laws all round to prevent a race to the bottom with wages it seems and borderline illegal practices.
Here are some Black Country ladies on holiday picking hops in the 30s
fairlawns.co.uk/news/harvest-in-the-home/420.htm

Looks like a nice summer job for students. Fed up with people blaming Brexit for everything. Grow up and get over it - we're leaving.

Except that the fruit season is now much much longer than student holidays, requires you to live in shit conditions and work from early morning (5-6 a.m starts where I worked), and students would be much better off doing bar or waiting work or retail.

I remember myself and a group of kids sitting on blankets under tree's while our mums worked up and down the field picking asparagus!

Happy days!

I work with a lot of immigrants from African countries. They seem to be working here a couple of years then bring all their kids over from Africa and are able to claim tax credits etc. I just don't understand how they do it. Surely there are people here willing to do these jobs ?? I worked with one the other day who had arrived from Capetown 3 weeks ago and was working as a health care assistant for an agency. She said she her husband had come to the UK a number of years ago and was now a student here. She had also brought over 4 kids 2 of whom were adults. Can whole families come to work here that easily under spousal rules?