What do remainers think of this!

[Corcory]

6 MPs, members of the commons select committee, paid a visit to Sports Direct's warehouse in Derbyshire the other day.
It is build in an ex mining area specifically to provide work for a community badly needing employment opportunities.
When the MPs were shown around the warehouse they had the opportunity to speak to many of the employees there. None of them were British all of them were Eastern European. Some didn't even speak English. So could easily be duped into taking reduced wages and a reduction in their employment rights! No unions are allowed there.
The taxi driver who took the MPs there told them there are never any jobs advertised around here from the warehouse and that people from the area would love jobs there - well provided the paid the proper wages and gave full employment rights!

minimum wage, maternity/paternity leave have all been improved by European regulation

Incorrect.

EU doesn't require a minimum wage - Sweden, for example, doesn't have one, despite being in the EU.

Our Maternity Leave and pay is way above minimum EU requirements.

It's true some EU equality legislation has been applied to workers - but this was largely in line with what we had already.

Most of the stuff about workers rights and the EU seems to come from people who don't actually know about workers rights.

" I don't think we get that much info from the EU with regard to criminals and terrorists"

ec.europa.eu/justice/criminal/european-e-justice/ecris/index_en.htm

europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-16-91_en.htm and they are improving it.

I guess no information will be received if it is not requested.

Alan Johnson pointed out that these criminals don't have to be let in. Of course, immigration from non EU countries is higher than from the EU. Entirely under the control of May. Wonder whose fault that is?

Mind you, I find it strange how nobody is saying much about a trade with India in the press now. You know the trip May made recently and was told in no uncertain terms that movement of labour for Indians would have to be a part of any agreement. Part of the Leave campaigns rhetoric was they would tell other countries how it would be. Strangely, other countries don't seem to be sharing the UK fantasies from a one sided UK perspective.

wasonthelist

What, like michael ford QC or Sean jones QC, Adam Wagner or Frances O Grady, or the gen secs of every union except the RMT and the bakers and allied workers union? All those people who don't know anything about employment rights? Yeah right.

www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/Brexit%20Legal%20Opinion.pdf
The EU has never claimed to regulate wage rates as this is a matter for member states. We also (currently) beat the EU minimum for mat pay.

However the EU provides a floor of rights not a ceiling.

Try looking at pregnancy protection, rather than just maternity pay.

Figment I am not sure what your point is. My post was in response to a poster who incorrectly claimed that the EU had given us rights like the minimum wage and Maternity and Paternity leave and pay. You have a go at me, then go on to agree with most points I made.

If the EU provides such wonderful workers rights how come the Philip Green pensioners and the Sports Direct workers are all getting royally shafted?

Because - it doesn't.

The EU provides important rights in a political environment that is hostile to collective worker representation.

There is no prospect of a national government being elected any time soon that is willing to restore the balance between labour and capital and little sign of support for unions among the voting public. So you pays your money and you takes your choice. Even strong unions like the RMT need the EU although they won't admit it because it is EU law that safeguards the right to be consulted collectively - by forcing employers to pay very large financial penalties (called protective awards) if they don't do this.

Sadly (and rather ironically) workers have come to need the EU in this country to protect them from a too powerful state.

It is interesting - and rather frightening!) to see that having fettered the unions, our government is now coming for the judiciary. The balance is all wrong. There need to be a mix of strong institutions for society to work fairly. After margaret thatcher's handiwork, the EU became far more important as an (imperfect!) institution protecting workers rights.

So, Figment, we have a democratically elected government that we can't trust to give us the rights we want - so we rely on the EU to give them to us?

That sort of logic is fine as long as you think you can trust the EU to do the "right" thing - but it is fundamentally undemocratic. As much as folk like me (and I am to the left of Corbyn) might wish it, we have to accept that our elected government should be the source of workers' rights, not the EU.

However, in fact, the EU hasn't actually been much good for UK workers' rights at all. If it was so wonderful, how come we have Philip Green and Mike Ashley, oh wait, only the bad things are the fault of the UK government, everything the EU is for good - sorry, doesn't wash with me.

The EU is an imperfect institution but it is not undemocratic.

Institutions must evolve to be responsive. Democratic nationalism (your system of choice) belongs to the 19th - 20th C.

It's hardly surprising that the politics of the nation state is not equipped to deal with some of the global challenges we now face.

Acknowledging this is not undemocratic.

The EU never set wage rates or work pension requirements and is not a panacea for all ills. Why do you think the EU should take responsibilty for Green and Ashley??

I do accept that since 2008 the EU has done a lot of harm dismantling collective bargaining institutions in countries like Greece, Spain, Portugal etc, but the bottom line is that we are not Greece, Spain or Portugal, and our collective bargaining coverage is so low since Thatcher that these EU actions have no practical relevance to the pay and conditions of UK workers.

My own view is that the next stage in our evolution will be a resurgence of fascism - and a degradation of employment terms and wages - not the democratic 'taking back of control' that many hoped for.

If the left were more effective and more trusted, things might be different - indeed we may have avoided brexit altogether - but they are not.

My own view is that the next stage in our evolution will be a resurgence of fascism - and a degradation of employment terms and wages

I reluctantly have to concur. McDonalds rushing to relocate here etc. The place will become a low-/no-tax haven and a paradise for companies that are happy to do away with workers' rights.

Well, not reluctantly – unfortunately maybe?

But Sapphire what has McD's relocating their HQ to the UK to take advantage of lower corporation tax got to do with companies 'happy to do away with workers rights'?
If Brexit means having fewer people coming here to do the poorly paid jobs then they are hardly going to be reducing workers rights to encourage Brits to take the jobs.

Having your own national government isn't "Democratic nationalism", it's just democracy, and it's in use in plenty of non-EU states around the world.

I resent the implication that a failure to believe in the EU is somehow being "stuck in the past". It really isn't, it's just having a different view of our future.

The fact is, it's foolish to rely on the EU to get rights your fellow citizens refuse to vote for - as I said, it's fine when you're getting the rights you want, not much fun when you aren't - and it's way less reliable.

It's also a fallacy (as evidenced by Green and Ashley) that the EU has been effective in any useful way at delivering decent conditions for workers.

You go round in circles! Collective ideas like 'democracy limited by nationhood' are just that - ideas. They are enduring, but they are not immutable, any more than animism, belief in witchcraft, Christianity, communism or whatever are written on tablets of stone for ever and ever.

The fact is that states all around the world, in and out of the EU, limit their decision-making power in all sorts of sensible ways - (and also in not so sensible ways eg by committing economic harikiri!)

Anyway, enough. I'm not going to repeat myself as you clearly have your set views as to what is right and wrong in relation to the EU.

Corcory which economist has ever suggested that Brexit will lead to improved terms and conditions for UK workers?

Have a look at eg 'Rise of the Robots' (2015) by Martin Ford - in the private sector the most likely response will be automation.

And in the public sector, lower tax receipts will mean lower wages and worse terms and conditions, even in sectors like social care, where automation is very difficult.

as you clearly have your set views as to what is right and wrong in relation to the EU.

As do you

Figment - I didn't say it would improve workers rights. I said they wouldn't 'happily do away with workers rights' as Sapphire suggested.
However I do know that it has been reported in Scotland that produce producers have seen a drop of 6% in EU migrants coming to take up seasonal work so they have improved their T&Cs in order to attract other workers. Production has gone up by 5% in the same period.

corcory Fruit and vegetables - especially soft ones - are described by Martin Ford as among the last non-automated, 'non-personal' tasks left in our economy, but it's only a matter of time. He gives some good examples of processes in development - eg an automated orange picking machine in Israel I think - that picks 12 at a time around the clock, and a strawberry picking machine somewhere else?

He's the same author who writes about eg 3D printing of complex patisserie designs etc - Farewell Great British Bake Off. Scary stuff. I was in Paris at the weekend looking up at Notre Dame cathedral. Today, the complicated bits would be produced by a 3D printer - is this an advance? Eek.

Figment - I think my example of a 5% increase in production would have little to do with proposed automation.
I find it odd that people use the idea that it might not be a good thing for certain work to be automated and suggestions that it would reduce work opportunities. Surely automation has happened in all industries over time. I really don't think we are now suggesting we should put a stop to it.

As for the assertion that because care work is difficult to automate then wages and terms and conditions would be driven down! Why would that be?
If FOM is removed then the easy source of labour is removed and employers will have to think of other ways in which to attract workers.

I didn't say that. Care workers' wages will be driven down (just as they are at the moment) because they are funded by local authority tax receipts - and because outsourcing has enabled local authorities to effectively wash their hands of the terms and conditions offered by care provider companies. Nothing to do with automation.

You can't 'put a stop to' automation. Yuval Harari's new book is very good on this, although not at all optimistic.

Of course the article is about Brexit. It's what many leavers complained about to the deaf ears of the government There jobs were being taken by Eastern Europeans prepared to work for lower wages.

As a Leaver I have no objection to eu members working here provided they are paid the same wages and given union rights as uk citizens would expect. Or am I wrong in expecting a level playing field?

Not an expert on this so apologises if this is wrong, but wages (apart from minimum wage) are not set by the government, it a 'free market' situation. So employers are free to set the wages as they see fit for their businesses. I assume all EU workers have the same right to join unions. In a free market it would be considered wrong for governments to intervene in the workings of businesses, as to set wages. But if they did, under EU rules, EU workers (including British) would be paid all the same, as part of the deal of EU membership is there can't be discrimination between EU nationals.

Are you a leaver based primarily based on your concerns over high immigration? If so, how would you feel if FOM is kept unchanged?

The point of the thread was Nearly, that the workers at Sports Direct's warehouse in is that the staff, most of whom speak little English are agency workers on zero hours contracts. They are not paid for a variety of mandatory time they have to be on the premises so are effectively paid below minimum wage.
I know a local firm to me own offered my cleaner £5 an hour 'because that is what the last Romanian cleaner was prepared to work for'!

I think that both Remainers and Leavers think that exploiting people is wrong. Don't blame the EU for it. Blame shit employers, or blame a Government which has deliberately set its stall out to destroy Trade Unions, and sees things like working time directives as 'red tape' which stop their wealthy chums taking as much money out of a firm as they can get away with. Blame a Govt who has cut back on Civil Service posts so the necessary HMRC officers are not there to enforce the Law.

Or put it another way, if you blame the EU for it, wait to see whether conditions suddenly improve once we Leave. I would not be holding my breath to see decent work conditions.

This had nothing to do with 'blaming the EU' Peregrina. it is also nothing to do with government cut backs on civil servants as it's not against the law. It has to do FOM and the use of foreign nationals recruited directly by agencies from their country of origin where our min. wage looks very attractive indeed thus it is very easy for the likes of Sports Direct to 'stretch' these contracts as far as possible and 'use' these very venerable people many of whom are also given accommodation as well as the jobs as part of their employment which can muddy the water even further.

The minimum wage is the law, and enforcing it should be the job of HMRC, but they haven't got enough staff to do so.

Shit employers where shit 150 years ago, they are today and they will still be in 150 years time. Legislation could prevent the worst excesses, but Governments have chosen to do away with as much of this as they can get away with.

People from E Europe are now getting the message that they are not welcome, and with the value of the pound dropping, the money doesn't go as far. We already have fruit farmers complaining that E Europeans are not returning, so let's see if suddenly, a reduction in Freedom of Movement does make the country a haven of well paid work. As I said, I am not holding my breathe.