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?

There are some big food manufacturers in my area and I don't know if this is still the case, as I think there was such bad publicity about it, but about twenty years ago they didn't even advertise their jobs locally, instead they partnered with recruitment agencies in Portugal and recruited from there. But then a few years later, when the EU expanded to include the eastern European countries, they left all the Portuguese workers high and dry and switched their attention to Poland and Romania. There have been terrible problems with migrant workers being victims of hate crime from disgruntled locals, but unsurprisingly the ones carrying out the hate crimes are almost without exception people who never had a job anyway, even long before the migrants supposedly 'stole their jobs'.

The whole system is a mess. The migrants are mistreated and instead of feeling sympathy, a lot of people's response is to hate them for it.

Actually a huge number of British people didn't take up the jobs when offered. Now actually I don't blame them I wouldn't want to move into a shitty caravan and spend years earning nothing until I get good enough to take home decent money. YOu can't simply blame farmers though. If you buy cheap veg in the supermarket you're feeding into the problem too. To add to that some people have no option but to buy cheap veg because otherwise they can't feed their families. It's more complex than British workers are lazy, or farmers are greedy.

Maybe we could actively choose fruit farms when we buy our fruit that are open and good practice in this regard?

Not everyone lives near a farm. Or can get to one. I used to work on the land (as we called it) when I was a teenager in school holidays. I hated it. It was very hard work for a small amount of money.
It was mainly women and children who did the work. They had to be very fit and healthy because it is a physically hard job and wouldn't suit everyone.
We were picked up in a van or bus because the farms were not really accesible by public transport.
In these times of social distancing traveling in a mini bus or van with lots of other people would not be advisable!

I doubt physical distancing will genuinely be possible, picking fruit and veg and living on site. I doubt workers will get PPE, either.

that really isn't an issue for healthy 19 & 20 year olds - they know their risk is minuscule, they want to work.

We all should know that Brexit will put up the cost of fruit and veg for this reason. The accommodation comes out of pay so that they can be paid less than minimum wage, the farm I looked at openly said they take out about £50 a week meaning that you make about £6.50 an hour - apparently up to £400 a week for highly skilled - that’s a lot of hours to get that! The picking season is too long for students too

The problem is, British people know their rights. I know people who have been in a job which deducts accommodation rent. One was for a boarding school. But she still had a damn good deal and the actual money she still received after accommodation, tax etc was still way above the minimum wage.

Plus.....most adults don’t want to live with strangers if they don’t have too! The thought of entering a portacabin or caravan and saying hi to 3 complete strangers and living with them fills me with horror and fear. Been there. Done that at uni. That was scary enough, at least I knew we were all young students.

PinaColadaintheRain That's a fair point, and I agree. But on the other hand, I've never known employers to be flexible in their demands. Most seem to prefer to leave jobs vacant and complain about lack of skills, rather than make an effort to train people. It doesn't make sense to me but I see it so often.

@isabellerossignol I totally agree. Yes we are partly to blame for allowing supermarkets to sell us cheap fruit. And immigrants are not to be blamed, on the contrary I think they are a vulnerable group here, and it encourages ‘work gang’ behaviour where there have been some worrying accounts of how this works.

It’s not good. And if we can help change it then we should shouldn’t we?

I don’t think the lazy brits argument holds water though. A bit chicken / egg.

@PinaColadaintheRain : I am also willing to pay more for decent work labour. But honestly, howmany people in the Uk would be in similar position? Most people struggle as it is...

If weare talking about a full redistribution of money, fair taxation, etc - Great! But thinking this is just about the priceof fruit is quite naive

The difference is people are expected to be outside in all weathers -freezing cold or nowhere to hide from hot sun and everything in between - while on their knees and/or hunched over for hours at a time doing their backs and knees in. 12 hours straight, essentially, 6 days running, for 3 months.

That would break a lot of middle aged people, literally. Damaged cartilage in knees and bad backs are already a serious issue for a lot of middle aged people ... this would finish those issues off.

£10 to 15 if you're fast. And that's what farmers want, fast, experienced pickers who will come back, day after day. And apparent;y thousand of Brits have applied. Look, you do it. Drop your family commitments, move maybe hundreds of miles to a fruit-picking area, live in a caravan. Then tell the rest of us about it. Just like all those 'bring back national service' moans from those who never did it.

DS has applied for a farm near us but they have already filled their quota of people needed. He has been told to contact them again in May ready to work in June/July. This is the first year he has been old enough to work there.

They usually have Eastern European people working there all summer as even though they advertise locally nobody every applies....

Also I do think it’s important that this isn’t sidelined to a Brexit or racist faction - who will take it up if the more moderate people don’t and use it for their own ends.

Maybe we could actively choose fruit farms when we buy our fruit that are open and good practice in this regard?

If you have local fruit farms, just go and pick your own?

They don’t want British workers as Eastern European workers are much easier to exploit.

What is a disgrace is that people in the U.K. are applying but not allowed due to pure corruption from the farms themselves.

This is what people are against not the type of people doing it only that salaries and opportunities are written off immediately as soon as non U.K. people can be employed at standards below the usual expected for workers of the U.K. and at very low salaries.
It is corruption. It's not good for the fruit pickers personally and it's not good for the U.K. we can all sit with our smug faces saying oh but they come from poor countries so it is good for them but many of them will have been dragged here via gangs working to have a cut of their pay.

A lot of U.K. people would happily do this but the farms want to abuse people to get maximum profit. It was quite common when I was younger for a whole college of local students to have been fruit pickers. People in the U.K. are capable but they aren't chosen over someone who is forced to work in less favourable conditions.

Why is this any different to the farm jobs that backpackers do in places like Australia every year? I worked my way round Australia as a backpacker twenty odd years ago in all weathers and seasons and earned much less, lived in some very unlovely basic accommodation and had a lot more unpleasant insect life to deal with. But all that said it was one of the best times of my life and I had a fantastic time though it was often very tough.

I couldn’t do it now it would be physically too tough in the fields but I don’t think it’s worse here than other places.

You CAN pick fruit while on furlough.
See here. www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/national/uk_today/18386711.farms-across-uk-looking-take-furloughed-staff/

I find it odd that many who claim to be rather left wing side with industrial farmers who are moaning they can't get workers when offering crap pay and conditions, as the local population has rejected working at that price point. The price mechanism should mean that wages in this case go up substantially, however as so many of these employers are given moral carte blanche by individuals with a rather odd view about how no one is willing to do hard work (I guess the massive slag heaps i drove by put themselves there ), they instead mistreat many foreign workers who they know full well they can exploit.

Really, the majority of frontline healthcare workers - think nurses physios, doctors etc are on 12 hr back breaking shifts with travel and the added bonus of a small fecking virus that could kill them thrown in
Im a ward sister in the NHS on a designated covid19 ward I usually work 13 hours without a break in mentally and physically veyr challenging environment, as Ive said above Ive also lived on fruit farms so know a lot about it wouldn't do it for the money (you are not paid the minimum wage) they are paid and their working conditions.

Fairly obviously they want staff for the whole picking season to just those that want to dip in and out a it suits them.
If the alternative is fruit and veg not being picked, then surely anyone who can help is better than nothing. It should be all hands to the pump right now.
When I used to live on the farm fruit was often left on the trees as its cheaper to leave it than pick it if its not up to the required standard or you don't have enough pickers who you can pay peanuts too.

Most people have kids at home so until schools open it’s hard to work. I would happily lick fruit if someone looked after my kids all day.

I don’t think the lazy brits argument holds water though

I tend to think of it as the leftish version of the ‘lazy teachers with endless holidays’ people come out with. Both equally infuriating and unthinking.

If locals do the jobs, the gangmasters lose out on the skin they take from every pickers wages. The farmers lose out on the rent for mostly crap accommodation they take from every pickers wages.
Using the "lazy UK" narrative is a cop out.

When I lived in France, plenty of uni students/teens worked picking in vineyards, tobacco, oyster preps etc. My DH and I have worked in agriculture and are happy to take on work. I looked online and found the picking jobs in the UK are asking people to live in - that means I can't do it as I have kids that need me. Also, April is full already. DH says May is the big month for harvests... Another factor working against us is travel. So if I get a placement a long way away, I'd have to travel super early in the morning as often the working day can start at 4/5am. All these are important factors. I live rurally. If I could get a job within a 20 min drive that started at 6/7am and didn't need me to live onsite, I'd be happy to work.

@Justmuddlingalong
Steady on, you'll be taking away a smug middle class opportunity to have a go at the oiks who have work with their hands of you carry on like that