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.

Seems to be an awful lot of people on here who are fairly sure that they will never be ‘forced’ to pick crops saying that someone else should do it...not them

And a few that would obviously be DELIGHTED to pick veg IF they were furloughed...unfortunately they havent been

Some people have really short memories.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1409863-To-be-purple-with-rage-over-workfare

FOOBYDOO
Less about greedy farmers, please. Do you actually know any farmers at all?
And the rest of your post is a bit of old nonsense too.

Its just dying for an Eastern European journo to go undercover for a Dispatches expose.

@HelenaDove, there's already been a show about this, I believe BBC Panorama, recently.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-48736957

I have offered to pick crops and been told that they have enough workers until June.

I also don't agree that British workers are lazy. This is an unhelpful slur on the British, who work some of the longest hours in Europe.

@canklekitten there’s a massive difference between volunteering in your community or supporting a public service, and working for free/a pittance for a profit making organisation. The farmers need a new business model unfortunately. They may have to pay decent wages this season and ask the government for a bailout.

Why does everyone mention shopping and prescription collection as though it's a difficult and time consuming role that demonstrates the volunteers massive contribution when it's nothing of the sort?

Is it really even worth mentioning that you basically put some extra things in the trolley as you went round or called at a pharmacy? And I imagine most will be nearer shops and have more chance of delivery than we have here.

Perhaps we should all get big fuck off badges saying 'I use more than one divider at the checkout' so everyone knows the blood, sweat and tears involved to buy more than one brand of coffee on the same trip.

Why does everyone mention shopping and prescription collection as though it's a difficult and time consuming role that demonstrates the volunteers massive contribution when it's nothing of the sort?

i know, they are little heroes in their own minds- and if they can do all that, why cant furloughed workers travel hundreds of miles to pick fruit for 8 hours a day?!

If I were young, childless and furloughed, I would go fruit picking. The pay can be better than you think, lots of sun, fresh air and exercise and lots of people your own age to hook up with hang out with after hours.

As an employer, I’d look a lot more favourably at an applicant who’d helped out with fruit crops for a summer than sat on their backside doing nothing.

You read, 'If I were . . . ' and invariably it's about how the poster cannot but others should do. LOL at this idyll or lots of sun and fresh air (polytunnels, they are thing!), and energy to bloody hook up 'after hours' after you've done 12-14 hours of backbreaking work in a polytunnel and then queued up another 2 to get a wash and cook something to eat.

I've picked potatoes along with my brother when he was made redundant. It was hard back breaking work but you could earn quite a bit if you worked hard. The farmer used to bring tea and biscuits to the field for our break! I loved it, we were on the coast and used to stop in an old pub for a shandy after work. Plus the farmer used to give us as much produce as we wanted at the end of the day. Wish I was young enough to do it again, I'd be there like a shot

@peppermintcapsules You forgot the lashings of ginger beer.

I was about to post "they will be calling for National Service next" Then i went on Twitter and see that they already have.

Except this time you would be required to pay from your wages to live in a clapped out caravan with strangers, susan, paid by piece and if the farmer found a single fault with one crate could reject the entire thing and not pay you for it (but still keep the produce that you picked, of course), possibly also required to pay for food out of your wages, no time for shandies as you'd be at work from 6-6 at least and then have to queue up to use the cooking and washing facilities and you might also be in a polytunnel for work. But hey, if you could you'd do it 'like a shot' but of course, there's always a reason why others should do it besides oneself .

Windowboxgardener- my employer (ie the one who put me on furlough) doesn't give a damn what I'm doing so long as I'm ready to go back to work the moment I say so. I am employed. Just not allowed to work through zero fault of mine

The moment they say so I meant!

Snap post, Helena, and the shandies!

The way the past is being romanticised by some people on here is nauseating. We live in the present. This is the reality. Accept it. People have been furloughed through no fault of their own - that is bad enough. They should not have to deal with more upheaval.

Of course certain elements in government will be watching forums like these and seeing the growing appetite for making the 'others' work for benefits. Workfare Mark II, bigger, uglier and coming to a farm near you.

Exactly helmet.

window Really? So under normal circumstances you prefer sahps returning to work to spend a summer fruit picking? Those that leave teaching at the end of summer term? The redundant that don't find a suitable role straight away? Those taking retirement from one role and looking for another?

Or do you just mean people you feel might be getting something you aren't? Fwiw I've spent a lovely afternoon being paid to sit in the field with a drink watching the horses and preventing twats trying to feed them.

peppermintcapsules

Wind your neck in please, you can’t possibly know what revolting, difficult and low paid jobs I did when I was younger, childless and at a loose end (voluntarily or otherwise ).

Not all farmers and growers are greedy exploiters, not all picking jobs are beyond the pale (or in poly tunnels). For obvious reasons it’s not for the physically infirm but for the young and fit it could be a whole lot worse.

All credit to the people on this thread and their relatives who have applied to pick fruit.

It's not necessarily the farmers but the big supermarkets - whatever happens there is going to be a steep increase in food costs this autumn. Enjoy Brexit lite folks right now!

midnightcircus

Given your employer is not paying your wages at the moment, the taxpayer is, I suspect the Government will have some say in this.

I would expect the Government will offer protection to furloughed staff temporarily doing jobs deemed to be of national importance - and it sounds like they think fruit picking is in that category.

Wind your neck in please, you can’t possibly know what revolting, difficult and low paid jobs I did when I was younger, childless and at a loose end (voluntarily or otherwise ).

Nor do I care, nor does anyone care what revolting jobs I've done in my life. It's neither here nor there. It doesn't signify. Volunteering others for jobs you won't or can't do yourself is a twattish form of virtue signalling and anyone can see right through it.

'If I were a millionaire I'd give every penny away. So someone should give away all their money.' 'If I owned multiple properties, I'd let people live in them for free during this, to help out . . . ' It's mighty simple to be free and easy with other peoples' time, money, person, etc as long as it doesn't apply to you.

@Peppafrig Ok so that would be a three hours there . Three hours back and a 9 hour shift So all farms are 3 hours away from any population? And all shifts have to be 9 hours long?

Yet schools will only be open from 9 -3 So millions of furloughed workers only worked during school hours? I dont think so.

Never mind the 15 hour days for 80% of minimum wage I am sure the pay could be topped up by the farm to at least national living wage if not more.

We need solutions not excuses why people should be paid to sit at home while food rots in the fields.