Fruit picking? Are they f***ing serious?

[emmcan]

So whichever hapless muppet got dragged out today to do the daily lying to the gullible has suggested that furloughed workers could br picking fruit.

Fuck me, how fucking badly run is this shitshow?

The reason that we have had a two decades of migrant workers doing these jobs is because British people are too lazy and incompetent to do them.

And now they expect furloughed workers to head out into the fields and get their hands dirty?

It will happen, in a fashion, as they will just stop paying money to people who refuse to work, but it will be an appalling form of slave labour.

I am furloughed, if I take another contract I’ll loose my job. I love my job and have my own bills and two sets of carehime fees to pay. I’d rather keep my job.
I also don’t live anywhere near where they are fruit picking. So paying to get there and stay.... I can’t afford that right now.

British people used to harvest though, when did that change, I remember friends picking potatoes in the 1990s when I lived in the fens.

Nearest farms recruiting are miles away from us.

I don't think we'll starve but I do think food prices will go up next year.

COVID will push an additional 125 million people into starvation this year

Not in this country though

I am furloughed, if I take another contract I’ll loose my job. I love my job and have my own bills and two sets of carehime fees to pay. I’d rather keep my job.

No. You are allowed to take another job whilst you are furloughed. That is the whole point of this thread.

Will I have to strap my baby to my back and put my 3 year old and 7 year old to work as well?

I have no issue with being redeployed on furlough but where does the childcare come from? Furlough is about the fact that the entire infrastructure of our economy is broken down, yes their will be those who can do it but removing furlough for anyone who can’t will victimise the vulnerable in society who have no safety net.

@Justanotherlurker

I work in an industry that has been relying on EE labour for years. Because although we pay well above the minimum wage and provide benefits and perks, we just can't get staff locally. We rely on Rom/Bulg/Lat/Lith to do the work.

It isn't just this sector. I had a disagreement with a friend about her son wanting to train as a plumber. She wants him to go to Uni.
I tried pointing out that if he qualified, by the time he was 25 he would own his own house and be earning more than her. But she turns her nose up.

Yes everyone knows the british are lazy fuckers. Look around at the cities and towns where you live, everything the british have done in the world! Yes we are really lazy

A discussion on how to source farm labour for food harvesting is sensible. Your post is downright offensive, not to mention racist.

I am furloughed but I can't do this job because I'm a single parent of a 6 year old and I've got no one to do childcare. So that's that.

Why shouldn't people furloughed pick fruit? Are they too good for fruit picking? They are being paid to sit at home and do nothing.

Alternative is

1. Rotting fruit and veg.... price increase....end point is extreme and hopefully unlikely - starvation
2. Stop the furlough scheme and put same people on universal credits/unemployment benefit rather than income up to £2500 and then let them sit at home doing nothing
3. Lots of people are working really hard on the usual money whilst some people 'earning' almost as much/more not actually helping out at all ....
4. If not fruit picking why not volunteer - since when is anyway that is getting state funded income 'too good' to actually go something to help out?

Slave labour? But it's OK for Romanians to do it?

It's hard manual labour. I did it as a young adult in the 80s. But it's not slave labour.

I should have added some exceptions apply:

Those in the shielding group
Those caring for young children or elderly vulnerable

Dear Lord, the lazy Brit trope swallowed whole by some purporting to be on the Left, should serve as a litmus test of proper left credentials.

YABU. Thousands of people have already applied for it- more often people who've been completely laid off of course. It's a job like other unskilled jobs- it might even be more pleasant than the cleaning or carework I've done. There's nothing wrong with fruit picking- I did it as a teenager. Beats cleaning up incontinence or loos maybe.

I think most furloughed people are just taking the 80% IDK. Some companies are even topping up the rest of their wage so they get the same wage as usual.

Like all the "fruit picking" threads of late - they are 99% started by trolls or people who want a bunfight.

@Weallhavevalidopinions excuse me. Being furloughed isn't a choice. How dare you suggest that they should be put on Universal Credit instead for something that's beyond their control?

DP and I live in a farming community; one farm has been asking for volunteer labour for weeks. We've both said we are happy to pitch in if we can do anything (we're both still working full time). They would like the help but they were frank that it's no good - even if we were available full time, we're not fit enough.

I looked around my area for fruit picking jobs and there were none, so either they’ve been filled or they don’t want us as I read that they are flying Romanian pickers over to fill the jobs.

I mean, of course there would be British people “able” to do this.

However, all of the students about to hop off on a gap year to Australia could go and do it since that’s what they would HAVE to do over there to stay.

@Weallhavevalidopinions Why shouldn't people furloughed pick fruit? Are they too good for fruit picking? They are being paid to sit at home and do nothing.

Do you realise that two key reasons staff have been furloughed is because they cannot get childcare (so who would look after the children?) and because they are having to shield and cannot continue with their jobs from home (do you want to put them at risk?).

How offensive to those of us who've actually done picking, give it a try then say we're incompetent. Anyway there's only spuds and asparagus to pick at the minute round here as it's way too early for anything else because it's only April.

I dont think i could physically work that hard. I's have to if it was that or starve, but there are plenty of younger stronger people out there.

If you’ve been furloughed, don’t have any caring responsibilities, and live within travelling distance of a farm, why wouldn’t you want to help out our great British farmers with their great British food? That would be Farage’s wet dream come true.

t isn't just this sector. I had a disagreement with a friend about her son wanting to train as a plumber. She wants him to go to Uni. I tried pointing out that if he qualified, by the time he was 25 he would own his own house and be earning more than her. But she turns her nose up.

Your conversation with one friend doesn't translate across the entirety of the UK though, does it?

Likewise your inflammatory and misleading thread title ignores the fact that there have been tens of thousands of applications for fruit picking jobs from British citizens.

No. You are allowed to take another job whilst you are furloughed. That is the whole point of this thread.

You're wrong. Contractually a lot of people are not allowed to take on other work. The government is still paying furlough and people can work which is the point of this thread. But not if your contract says you cant. People can be unfurloughed at any time if employers have done the contracts correctly.