Fruit picking Jobs

[billysboy]

With so many Fruit Picking Jobs available aibu to think that a few of the people already in this country would want to take them up

It feels as if we are paying 1m to stay at home rather than take up this work
Its hard work no doubt but also pays £10-15 an hour is it beneath too many people?

I did it in my teens, it's very fast paced and physically hard - absolutely out of the question for anyone who has any underlying health issue. The hours are also incredibly unsocial - 5am starts etc. And the pay is lousy. I'm not sure where they are advertising £10 an hour but I didn't get more than about £12 a day when I did it...

All jobs are skilled to a given extent, the point is you dont need qualifications to be a fruit picker.

What people fail to realise is that £10 an hour is a pretty crappy salary in the UK. Whereas for a Romanian that’s quadruple their minimum wage. It’s like a British person going to another country and earning £70k pro rata. People will put up with a lot of shit for that amount of money. I’m sure Brits would be queuing up to pick fruit if they got paid that much.

I did tattie picking and soft fruit picking as a teen. It wasn’t that bad at the time but 30 yrs later I’d probably die of exhaustion 😂. It was local so I just cycled down and the extra cash was useful. We all did it from my school.

£10ph isn’t a great wage but it is more than the minimum and the living wage and hundreds of thousands of people have been made redundant with out warning. Certainly on my local job Facebook page loads of people are desperate for work and scrabbling to get veg/fruit picking work but have been told that everything has been taken.

Not reading the full 10 pages but I think the hours, location and skill would make it a less easy switch than it would seem on the surface from most British jobs.

I can't help but think there could be a workaround here though. Could farmers not allow people to do shifts more in line with their normal childcare, allow a training period to get up to speed, making allowances for the fact that office workers will take time to compete with experienced pickers if they ever do.

Forgive my lack of knowledge but why do shifts have to start so early, is it the supply chain, so fruit can get transported overnight or something? Even if so, surely with such strict overseas transport limitations, it would make economic sense to get more fruit picked than less even if it isn't the full crop?

Most of these farms are miles away in the middle of nowhere. My student DS looked into it, but he doesn't drive and wouldn't be able to get there in public transport. For obvious reasons, he doesn't want to go and live on site in a crowded bunk house.

This "£10 an hour" is rubbish - yep based on hititng picking targets and working 6/7 days a week for many hours. Then of course take of the accomodation fee that the farmer charges.

I'd actually like to do this but unfortunately I'm not allowed a second job under the furlough terms laid out by my employer. I could volunteer but I'm having to be careful with money and the travel expenses are too expensive.

Well I don,t get £10.00 an hour, so to me thats a good wage.

@june2007 - you wouldn't get it fruit picking either that's the point unless you are actual machine

The fact is farmers only want eastern Europeans because they know they will not object to shit living/working conditions.

I suspect that's probably true :(. The last thing some of them want is students or office workers who are going to raise issues like minimum wage, working time etc.

But I also wonder how on earth this is still acceptable under 'modern slavery' rules?

But this isn't the only industry - construction is another I think. Wait by some roundabouts at 6.30 am with a hard hat/boots and a minibus will come to pick you up for labouring work, cash pay and no questions asked.

The last thing some of them want is students or office workers who are going to raise issues like minimum wage, working time etc.

I don't think it's that simple, farmers are being squeezed by retailers (and indirectly by all of us) to produce cheaply, if picking costs increase then the price goes up. We eat alot of fruit, berries etc nowadays and it's relatively cheap. As a child it was a real treat to have strawberries or raspberries because they were expensive.

I’m not proud to be British at the moment. Haven’t been for some time. We’re the arse end of Europe.

I remember, when being lucky enough to travel quite a bit in Europe (past 8 yrs) thinking how poorly we come across, the Brits. Abroad. And in our own country. Selfish. Lazy. Entitled. Arrogant.

And watching how Brexit plays out will be the final nail in the coffin for me.

Just as a point of information, that ‘rubbish’ £10 an hour on a 37.5 hr week is £375 a week or £19 500 a year. If it was a full-time, all-year round equivalent, which fruit picking does not offer. I think that that - personal guess - is probably close to the mode wage in the UK. Certainly around £20k is very common.

The op is another Mumsnet poster demonstrating its middle class bias then.

amp.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/17/british-workers-reject-fruit-picking-jobs-as-romanians-flown-in-coronavirus

Just like all those 'bring back national service' moans from those who never did it.

This

If we're going to look at modes, I wonder what the mode rent for a shitty caravan in the arse end of nowhere is? Is it £600-800 a month? Where I live you can rent an ok 3 bed semi for that. So why would I want to give my wages straight back to the farmer for the pleasure of a shared room in a caravan?

My friend's 20 year old DD applied but got rejected. She was not told why.

So why would I want to give my wages straight back to the farmer for the pleasure of a shared room in a caravan?
I suppose that's a big part of the attraction of migrant workers, they can be forced to pay to live in squalor = more profit for the food giants

that ‘rubbish’ £10 an hour on a 37.5 hr week is £375 a week or £19 500 a year.

It isn't £10 an hour, its paid on piece work. You would need to be doing very long hours and be fit and healthy and experienced to make £10 an hour. You then have to give a large chunk straight back to pay for the mandatory accommodation. In the mean time, you still have rent and bills to pay on your existing accomodation.

Lets stop propagating this idea that its reasonably paid really because the net pay is rubbish which is why its always employed students, itinerant workers and people from countries where the small take home pay here equates to a reasonable income back home.

" It feels as if we're being paid 1m to stay at home rather than take up this work".

That's exactly what we should be doing. And the reason why people have been unable to do their jobs. Why don't you get that?

I was stating a point of info to start from. I wouldn’t draw from that that it’s reasonably paid. I was thinking more that it is comparable to wages elsewhere. It isn’t popular because of other issues which complicate matters, like distance from homes, seasonality and so on. The conclusions I would draw are more along the lines of can we ditch this crap about the lazy British workers stereotype, who actually work quite hard for comparable wages elsewhere. It’s a myth to justify the excessive wealth of the richer classes imo. I would then go further and use it to show how low the normal wages are in Britain, particularly compared to its living costs.

They will get the minimum wage - I think people saying they earned peanuts a day are out of date. You will be on a piece rate and regulars can earn a good amount. The problem for the farmer could be someone not working fast enough to warrant a minimum wage, the farmer will have to make it up to min wage, so be out of pocket.
And accommodation is comfortable - too many postersseem to get their info from the sun 10 years ago

www.concordia.org.uk/feed-the-nation/
The farms pay minimum/living wage and are not allowed to deduct more than £53pw for accommodation, I think a lot of people have outdated views of these jobs, also much of the picking is at waist height not on your hands & knees.

The accomodation is not comfortable, where are you getting that from? There are plenty of ways to get out of paying minimum wage, believe me.