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.

To add my two pennies. I saw a coach load of Eastern Europeans being dropped off at Tesco once and this was long before article in Daily Mail the other day, so reckon employers just expect/think it's easier to bypass the local community. Even one of the Labour MPs, Baroness Somebody-I- Can't-Remember, got into trouble because of something to do with her maid's visa requirements. And I've done cleaning/pot-wash/admin jobs with them and the Eastern Europeans and can be quite bullish and piss taky. They can be quite rude when you are a customer too...as one over-charged me for a cup of tea once. At the end of day if share price goes down the boss looks to make savings and you never know where axe is going to fall. I've known people who are experienced bank managers get made redundant to be replaced with less experienced, cheaper and younger staff. They got a year's worth of redundancy/garden leave and a top up being paid off their husband's books as well.

@DrMaryMalone

Really good, informative post. I wanted to say something like this but couldn't form it nearly as well as that.

They can be quite rude when you are a customer too...as one over-charged me for a cup of tea once

That's a batshit bizarre conclusion to draw, purely on the strength of having been over-charged once for a cuppa by someone who happened to be Eastern European...

Do not include me in your description of British people.

If I wasn’t a key worker, I’d happily pick fruit.

And I've done cleaning/pot-wash/admin jobs with them and the Eastern Europeans and can be quite bullish and piss taky. They can be quite rude when you are a customer too...as one over-charged me for a cup of tea once.

You do realise the same can be said about the Brits and virtually every single nationality? This has nothing to do with a person's origin. The casual racism towards EE nationals is truly alive in the UK.

@DrMaryMalone Thanks for your post. You say "supermarkets remain so stringent with their size, weight, shape and defect parameters". Are these foods still edible, is this what is sometimes called 'wonky'.

Bit confused, I thought you couldn't receive furlough pay and work at the same time?

@Rainbo83

You can't work for your employer while furloughed by them. Voluntary or otherwise.
You can work for another employer, but crucially, the employee has to sign to say they agree to the furlough and wage reduction - many employers have added a condition that you can't work for another employer while on furlough.

Many, many posters are totally and utterly ignoring this fact though and digging the boot in anyway.

I dunno if they are too lazy .... I think when immigrants come to this country (I work in a warehouse with lots of lovely people with all different nationalities) because I lost my job . I have liked it so far but it isn't the ideal work situation...often very low pay , impossible targets ...strict rules , no sick pay , very physically demanding work ....in crappy conditions with minimal breaks or none. Most British people would not be prepared to put up with all of the above. Perhaps we are pampered but as an overweight person I found it really hard ....! I don't do much exercise but I had literally not much choice and I work with clothes (and what woman doesn't like clothes) but I think that most people I know wouldn't do this...so much for my English literature degree!

And also those types of jobs don't necessarily require a good level of English and of you are working with someone of the same nationality as you they can explain the job more fully especially if their English is better than yours (which is what happens at my work ).

I am furloughed and looked into this but was told by local business chamber of commerce rep I would be emergency taxed if I did this so I would be working for potentially £4 an hour.

If people are billionaires why can't they use their own money ? No one NEEDS billions of pounds....no one ....no one even needs millions ...they just need enough...

Actually, I think what people mean when they say the furloughed is the mainly low paid hospitality, none essential retail staff, cleaners etc. And I think some people can't handle the idea that those same workers that normally get the short straw might have a better deal for once. agreed.

angelfacecuti75 your right it's not that the British are lazy it's that the rules in this type of employment re breaks, talking while on the job, timing each task etc have changed massively in the last 10 years or so. You still have bozos saying 'well I did it in the 80s/90s and we got good breaks and time and a half for Sundays etc' or 'it was hard but worth it for the pay' but that is not the case now.

Actually, I think what people mean when they say the furloughed is the mainly low paid hospitality, none essential retail staff, cleaners etc. And I think some people can't handle the idea that those same workers that normally get the short straw might have a better deal for once.

Oh absolutely @TrainspottingWelsh we should simply go and live under a bridge or something until places open again and we can earn and then just magically reappear. We've clearly got ideas above our station. I think if it were more respected professions in that position there'd be cries of how hard they worked and how they're tax payers! Hospitality workers etc of course are exempt from tax..... Even tax on tips, nope never paid that, and it's such an easy job, an absolute breeze being in a kitchen cooking for 12 hours a day to an exacting standard for every meal, or being sworn at and threatened because you didn't give someone more booze immediately when they demanded it, or had such poor customer service to refuse to break the law, or because someone has decided they don't want to pay or.... a million other reasons. All while being on your feet for 12 hours. Yup. Not hard at all.

"If I wasn't a key worker, I'd happily pick fruit"

Of course you would fave

Of course @Unworthie. A bit like fruit picking in the darling buds of may back in the day, many posters will have a short lived experience from 20+ years ago so know exactly what it's like to do the job ft now.

there is going to be a steep increase in food costs this autumn

God forbid the shareholders and company take a drop in profit

The whole economy is going to be a fucking mess. The price of a punnet of strawberries will be the least of our worries

The reality is that we will all survive without strawberries. Either we get people to pick the fruit or we pay a higher price or we invent a machine to do it. No one is going to die over this 1st world problem.

I did fruit picking when I was a teenager - really hard work and because I was so slow didn't make any money. I was really fit then, no way I would be any use to them now.

Funny how it drops that British are too lazy etc when nobody mentions the fact that when Eastern Europeans turned up essentially gangs run travellers and locals off farms who had ordinarily done the jobs and the farmers did nothing as it was cheaper to hire them...Of course it was, most money was being sent back home while children were being claimed for here in addition to most of the men would share accomodation with other guys to cut costs. Loads of properties were being built back in their homelands from doing things like this at the low end of the job market and employers loved it. I don't blame the Eastern Europeans that engaged in this, but the fact that it never gets mentioned is bizarre to say the least.

I'm not saying Eastern Europeans don't work hard, the first wave that come over here were extremely hard working but this mainstream narrative of lazy British workers is utterly abhorrent but I guess I will get in to trouble posting this post but it's the only way people will become knowledgeable about issues that the mainstream news conveniently ignore.

I wouldn't mind doing picking, although previously I've been turned down for such jobs...

we invent a machine to do it one of the UK leading universities for agricultural studies has invented a robot that can tell which strawberries are ripe and pick them. The future will be robots picking our fruit and veg, but it might take a little while!

How about volunteering to work in care homes etc? Or is that beneath you?

Volunteering?

So care home owners can turn a bigger profit?
So the people who make their living working in care homes are rendered unemployed?

This has been tried. Supermarkets eagerly took on people forced to 'volunteer for work experience' and didn't hire people who needed the money to live on. Or reduced existing employees' hours hours or let them go.

Stop begrudging the furloughed their income. They didn't choose to be in this position. And those who begrudge are being played by those pushing the scrounger narrative.

However those that don't live near to farms are likely to live near to some place that requires essential workers, care homes, hospitals, shops, recycling centres to name a few.

All those places currently employ people and pay them. What happens to those people when thousands of furloughed individuals rock up to the doors and ask to be taken on at no cost to the employers?

And the time and effort to train all these people - do you have any idea how this would be managed? Care home work probably looks as anyone could do it with their eyes closed and one hand tied behind their back to some of you.

There is a hopeless lack of joined on thinking going on here.

You all really, really want to live back in 1943 again. With you in charge of course, not being sent to some godforsaken cabbage farm for necessary work in