Looks like mistreatment of factory workers has caused the spike in Leicester

[Tellmetruth4]

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/30/some-leicester-factories-stayed-open-and-forced-staff-to-come-in

It’s unbelievable that unscrupulous employers can get away with paying their poor mainly immigrant staff below the minimum wage, force them to come to work even after they’ve tested positive telling them they are not to tell their colleagues and board up factory windows so passers by can’t see the factory is open.

Surely massive fines and imprisonment for the owners should be considered?

*Fast fashion causes this - they costed products at an ethical factory which pays min wage. A dress for sale for £6 oh boohoo would cost over £6 to make in legal conditions.

People need to stop buying this shit and a special unit is required to prosecute these immoral owners*

Totally agree. This is something affecting women and largely caused by women/girls desire for cheap disposable clothes that are not designed to last. How can we convince them all not to buy the crap?

For those who think learning English is as easy as just popping into a college and attending a course can I just run a scenario by you.

You're new to England, living with family in a community where everyone speaks your language. You can socialise and shop in your native native language.

You work sun up to sun down, then return home and cook, do the housework, look after the children and such.

You don't understand speak or read any English, so can't read any flyers that may come through your door, or posters, don't use things like libraries as you know you won't be able to access the facilities.

You stick to your small community because you can converse with them, they understand your culture, your faith.

So given the above, how do you ever find out that Leicester college run an ESOL course and where would you find out about it, and how would you enrol even if you had the number?

Add in that for some there will be cultural and religious reasons why they would be unable to attend or strongly discouraged from attending a mixed sex course.

I hate to think where Primark make their clothes.
Boohoo need to make some changes in the company policy for manufacturing, they need to get more hands on and not turn the other cheek. You can’t tell me that they didn’t have a tiny clue that this was happening. Sickening.

There are many barriers to learning English, many. One of them is a sort of catch 22 situation where you often have to be a certain level to attend but how do you get to that level? At the very least you would need reasonably supportive family, bus fares, time and motivation. There are , by the law of averages, people who have additional learning needs in their native tongue, where are they supposed to go?

*You're new to England, living with family in a community where everyone speaks your language. You can socialise and shop in your native native language.

You work sun up to sun down, then return home and cook, do the housework, look after the children and such.

You don't understand speak or read any English, so can't read any flyers that may come through your door, or posters, don't use things like libraries as you know you won't be able to access the facilities.

You stick to your small community because you can converse with them, they understand your culture, your faith.*

So what was the point of coming to the uk?!

How have you reached the conclusion that I said it was easy? I just said there are courses available. I do appreciate it's not easy, one of the reason I won't move to China for example!

However a lack of English means lack of integration and has led to ghettos of people basically living in the UK, wanting all the advantages this brings but not wanting to live by their own rules and not even bothering to even learn the language.

No I don’t buy “fast fashion” but I do want to know which retailers use these suppliers in case it’s not just the cheap stuff they are churning out

It isn’t. But it suits the stories pushed by people looking down on companies which provide cheap goods (and the people who buy them) to always make it seem like sweatshops are the preserve of fast fashion. Remember the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh. Every headline referred to it as a “Primark factory” Only later in the story (if at all) did it mention the factory supplied the likes of Benetton, Versace, Prada and others. The fund set up to support workers and families, paid in to by some companies sat at less than $5 million until Primark alone put $12 million in to it, they were also the first to pay out emergency funds. They have also put in a whole lot of processes to try and ensure factory workers are properly looked after. But still, they are considered to be evil sweatshop users but Gap, Versace, Prada etc are never tarred with that brush.

I do appreciate it's not easy, one of the reason I won't move to China for example!

That and the gulags, prisoners executed to sell their organs, factories with suicide nets, being called a foreign devil, total lack of animal welfare, wanton destruction of the environment.

Not to mention foreigners cant ever really move to china, not permanently. They don’t allow it.

I appreciate all of that, TorysSuck, but I was responding to the suggestion that free English courses don't exist - no more, no less

one might say that institutional misogyny is the police's problem.

I agree. I've always thought the situation in Rotherham was that the police and social workers basically had a similar opinion of those girls as their abusers did.

Where I grew up out wasn't uncommon for 13, 14, 15 year old girls to have boyfriends aged 18 and older, early to mid twenties say. No grooming gangs, but nobody batted an eyelid at a 24 year old man in a 'relationship' with a 15 year old. And if she got pregnant? Well nobody expected any better of her. It was depressingly common.

@TorysSuckRevokeArticle50

For those who think learning English is as easy as just popping into a college and attending a course can I just run a scenario by you.

You're new to England, living with family in a community where everyone speaks your language. You can socialise and shop in your native native language.

You work sun up to sun down, then return home and cook, do the housework, look after the children and such.

You don't understand speak or read any English, so can't read any flyers that may come through your door, or posters, don't use things like libraries as you know you won't be able to access the facilities.

You stick to your small community because you can converse with them, they understand your culture, your faith.

So given the above, how do you ever find out that Leicester college run an ESOL course and where would you find out about it, and how would you enrol even if you had the number?

Add in that for some there will be cultural and religious reasons why they would be unable to attend or strongly discouraged from attending a mixed sex course.

Okay this will be outing but I don’t care. I come from the North Evington area. Every person, every last one of them, has English because it is required to get the visa to come here. If you go to that area there will be half a dozen languages spoken from Punjabi to Pushtun to Urdu, Arabic, Hindi, Khuchi, Gujarati, and now even Tamil / Telagu / various Eastern European languages. English is the language they all use to communicate.

Of course there are pockets where people like to use their language but they do speak English there too. The problem you have is that there is a huge cultural pressure to keep working / provide for family in the UK and ‘back home’ / save every penny of the remainder to buy a house, and on top of that their kids are so bogged down by housework that they often leave school without qualifications and so can’t do anything other than work in the local factories.

This is a horrific cycle that needs breaking through effective education. A lot of the mosques there have created sub-cultures even amongst Indian muslims because local planners didn’t think when they agreed to them. You can literally have 3 mosques on one road and each of them supports a different community.

My take on it is that this is 100% not the fault of BAME women or communities. It is the fault of the people who are responsible for checking these company's books, performing external safety and quality audits, the local authorities etc. As someone who moved to a foreign country without the language, I know how hard it is to get any job, let alone a decent job. If you are relying on income from day 1, you are going to take whatever you can get. It's pure exploitation and it shouldn't be happening in the Uk or Italy in 2020. We should all feel ashamed. I feel ashamed. It's not quite slavery, but it is modern serfdom.

I've just seen that there have been 28 cases at the Walkers crisp factory in Leicester. I would have expected to find decent hygienic working conditions there.

I can't believe that evry single person in North Evington has decent level of English?

But you can't also say that no-one speaks English. Most will be bilingual. They might speak their first language when with family, but many will also be perfectly capable of conversing in English. Some will work in jobs where they deal with people from all backgrounds and use English routinely with them.

Barbara - that's not my experience both working as a volunteer and for a local council, there are many people who cannot speak or understand English. Often it is the older women, obviously the younger generation who were born here can. If most people could there would be no need for the masses of translated notices we see everywhere.

I didn't say noone speaks English?

In my neck of the woods ESOL provision is massively over subscribed and not free. It is very difficult for people to get on these courses in the first place. There are so many barriers.....you must have access to the internet, you must be able to type in some details, you must enrol, you must travel, you must find childcare....this is without additional cultural factors and the fact that you may be illiterate or have had little schooling. A person may have undiagnosed learning needs.

If you move to a new country to live it is your responsibility to ensure that you can integrate/participate in that country.

randomer your posts seem to imply that it is everyone else's responsibility to put everything in place for people who settle here that cannot speak English. Why is that? It is their responsibility, I think it's great there are things in place to support this but, as others have said, why move somewhere where you can't speak the language, expect all your cultural needs to be met etc?

randomer your posts seem to imply that it is everyone else's responsibility to put everything in place for people who settle here that cannot speak English

Not randomer, and while I agree that if you move to a country to work and for a better life you have to make an effort to learn the language, in some cases it doesn't work. You have arranged marriages, you have elderly relatives coming here to be near family, they are vulnerable and cannot really pick up English easily. Also, women are more vulnerable, they are the ones staying home or working low paid jobs with other women like them. Sometimes the family don't want them to go to ESOL classes, sometimes they cannot afford it.
It's really complex.

I understand all that and that it is complex however my view is that if you choose to move to a different country to live you are responsible for doing these things. If you can't then perhaps you should not move. If I chose to move to Australia my parents could not just come over to be near me. I just don't understand why people expect to move the UK and have everything put in place to support how they want to live their lives.

" if you choose" exactly, it isn't always a choice. Its very complex.

Were the Mensahibs fluent in Hindi?

As someone who lives nearby these sweatshops are an open secret. They are owned by Asians and staffed by Asians many who have grown up in thus country but still speak very poor English as there is little integration.
Of course the local council don’t do anything about it, they are shit scared of being called racist. Don’t want to lose their seats which depend on the Asian vote.

Yes, people should learn the language of the country they live in (and we should make it cheap and easy for them to do so). However, we have a public health emergency here and it is in everyone's interest that everyone living in Leicester understands what is happening and what the restrictions are. Paying a small amount for translations of relevant documents is worth every penny.

No, I don't buy fast fashion.

Yes, this is what I usually respond with when people congratulate themselves for having toppled a statue.

Modern slavery is here, wherever you are in the UK you are close to it.

If you want to make BLM specifically meaningful in the UK look at your local takeaway, small clothing factory, food processing plant etc. Unfortunately you'll be horrified!

@randomer

" if you choose" exactly, it isn't always a choice. Its very complex.

Were the Mensahibs fluent in Hindi?

Quite. That’s (partly) why it was so wrong!