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 don't blame people for not wanting to do it. I grew up on a farm and it is hard work, monotonous, poorly paid and absolutely shit if the weather is bad. They're hardly being given 'handouts'. That terminology makes it sound like they're good for nothings.

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

@Haffiana actually I was talking about MY contract which states if I take another job I forfeit my furlough pay and will be made redundant.
So no I can’t just take another job.

Fruit picking is an honest days work for an honest days pay.

Not if the terms and conditions require you to live in a rented caravan on site.
Not if the that same rent is deducted at source and takes the hourly pay rate down to below minimum wage.

The only people who could realistically do this are young people without children who live within commutable distance to the farms. They probably won’t have their own transport so they’d need to be bussed in everyday with suitable social distancing on board. No one should have to be forced to leave their homes and live in shitty accommodation for weeks at a time to do back breaking work for minimum wage.

Those of you saying ‘other’ people should, go do it yourself! The ‘lazy Brits sitting on their backsides claiming benefits’ bullshit was made up by the rich so they can get away with exploiting immigrant labour and maximise their profits.

Low security prisoners would be a good idea especially as they all would go back to a contained prison at the end of the day so preventing spread of the virus being brought in by people of different households.

If you are furloughed from your place of work, can you then work somewhere else and get paid from there as well.

Presumably if you agreed to pick fruit/veg, then you would become a key worker and your children can then go into school.

The reason British workers don't want these jobs is that they don't want to live on site in shitty accommodation that they have to pay for out of their shitty wages. And that is also the reason why farmers won't hire British workers - they'd have to pay them proper wages. And then we'd all have to pay more for our food. The system is broken.

If furloughed workers are going to be forced to do this work, then the terms and conditions need to change radically. Ain't gonna happen.

DD is furloughed on full pay and cannot work anywhere else as company is paying her 20%.

@Gizmosnana it depends on your contract

I too have signed a contract that states I can't take another job whilst on furlough. I don't get what people aren't getting about this.

I'm self employed and my work is likely to have disappeared for the rest of this year. I'm eligible for the self employed grant, but it won't last for long. I'm not young, but I'm fit and well and I'd happily pick fruit if it's feasible for me to do it and be able to come home at night. I don't see why people would have a problem with this.

I live in the main soft fruit crop area of Scotland , I used to pick berries every year when I was at secondary school and as a student
We have a large fruit farm close to my house , they have about 50 large static caravans on site , each caravan houses four eastern European workers and they have £50.00 each deducted from their wages for rent - earning the farm about £10,000 per week - They have refused to employ locals for years.

It was very common in the 90s for British students to do fruit picking in the summer holidays. Funny how things change.

Absolutely thousands and thousands of british have employed, however-

Farmers are very keen to push people to self employed status (to pay a pittance)

They're asking workers to live on site, 4 strangers to a caravan

No personal vehicles allowed on sight (you're at the mercy of the work van)

British workers are outright ignored because they're 'too lazy' (i.e have the cheek to expect to be treated with some decency and not be given slave wages)

"It will be compulsory. No furlough pay if you turn down ''essential work''.*

It doesn't need to be compulsory, for people like me anyway. What needs to change is businesses being allowed to write into the furlough that you can't work anywhere else.

I tried volunteering for a local farm and care homes - told to apply for the jobs. I can't without breaking my contract.

I have no objections to doing it. I do have an objection to losing my job for a temporary one.

No one should have to be forced to leave their homes and live in shitty accommodation for weeks at a time to do back breaking work for minimum wage.

And it often works out to less than that because they all want people to live on site and then take rent and bills out of their wages.

Those of you saying ‘other’ people should, go do it yourself! The ‘lazy Brits sitting on their backsides claiming benefits’ bullshit was made up by the rich so they can get away with exploiting immigrant labour and maximise their profits.

This! They always have an excuse, though, why it applies to someone else.

As the employer pays the 80% and then claims it back some weeks later, it will be hard to stop the furlough pay - the whole point of which is to keep the economy going when/if lockdown ends.

Most UK workers wouldn't be able to do hard physical work for 10 or 12 hours per day, 67% of us are over weight/obese and if you aren't used to it, you'll have a bad back and blisters within a day.

This is why farmers don't want uk workers.

God how gullible. You really think farmers want Eastern Europeans because the British are lazy? So fucking offensive and ignorant. There are some thick people around ably demonstrated on this thread.

@Gizmosnana nope, my contract states I will lose furloughed pay and be made redundant. So no I can’t get a second job.
But it’s not all just sitting around the house, i might not be at work but still have things I have to do.

I've even heard of 'apprenticeships' popping up so they can pay something like £100 a week.

Funny to hear these farmers crying to the press when they voted out of the EU en masse

Farms have had disastrous experiences with local labour in the past as they were not fit and were incapable of doing the work. There is now a strong likelihood of food shortages as supermarkets cannot meet the demand for groceries.

TimesArticle

Would furloughed workers be fit enough and willing enough to do this work? If so, are they living close enough to these farms to make it a workable solution.

of course they aren't serious.

but it's an attempt to avoid saying "our anti-foreigner stance has damaged the country, as expected"

I agree that this type of work really only suits younger people that live nearby. I did this the first summer/ autumn I left school at 17. It was bloody hard work not great pay but a lot of fun. But definitely a young persons job IMO

You really think farmers want Eastern Europeans because the British are lazy?

Yep.
A Farmer in Cornwall tried it in an experiment with a local Uni, few lasted the day and no one came back the next day, supposed to be for 5 days.