How will your life be better after Brexit?

[BertrandRussell]

?

The flip side is that we have had EU immigrants who are homeless and live on the streets

Tiny percentage and if we enforced the rules, could send these people back.

If eu migrants are in work and we ve record low unemployment, then these are jobs that need doing.... unless UK employers have suddenly become charities?

Of course they are working in jobs which we need - that’s why they are working. There is nothing to stop a UK born person applying for the jobs. Immigration has been a huge benefit to the UK and continues to do so. We need to ensure freedom of movement continues post Brexit. Even if EU citizens are prevented from working in the UK, the rest of the world can still come and compete for UK based jobs. It’s called competition in the workplace. The best get the jobs.

The Polish builders are great anyway.

Yes and no. They certainly work hard, and for very little. The quality of the work is reasonable but not necessarily to UK legal standards in all cases. I know people with fab new extensions that have not been legally signed off and the builders vanished into thin air.

Its also not so great for local builders who cannot compete with their prices.

They certainly work hard, and for very little. The quality of the work is reasonable but not necessarily to UK legal standards in all cases

Here in Ireland we seem to manage them just fine. No issues with quality.

And they do very well money wise. No one is ‘cheap’ in construction in Ireland.

Never - not signing off work isn’t just from Polish workers. UK workers are just as bad in poor paperwork and trying to cut corners - our kitchen extension as an example.

Mama My brother has been a builder for 38 years.. Have you not considered while ranting about immigrants, that the vast majority of building materials are made in the EU?
The cost of these raw materials will dramatically increase, meaning less people will be able to have building work done! Therefore less work around obviously!
My brother is very very concerned..

PARKER again not quite true!

A disproportionate amount of car washes has sprung up. Some of these are genuine but some use actual slave labour and directives have gone out to be observant when using them.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-47829016

Nearly 1,000 reports of potential human trafficking were made in the first five months of an app enabling hand car wash users to report concerns over workers.

The Safe Car Wash app was launched by the Church of England's anti-slavery arm, the Clewer Initiative, and the Catholic Church last year.

Users of the app have flagged up fearful workers, lack of protective clothing and workers living on site.

These are among the signs people might be working in conditions of slavery.

The Home Office estimates there are more than 10,000 victims of human slavery in the UK - people being forced to work for little or no pay in a variety of industries. One area where exploitation is thought to be widespread is hand car washes.

Three months of non-stop work for £300

"If it was busy it was non-stop work. No breaks from 8 o'clock in the morning until 6:30 in the evening," says Stefan, who came to the UK from Romania and ended up working outdoors, in all weathers, at a hand car wash in the North West of England.

Stefan is not his real name. He was rescued by anti-Slavery charity, the Medaille Trust after being exploited for months on end.

"The conditions were hard because there was no safety equipment. At the end of the day your hands were really damaged because of the chemicals and the soap."

He says he was bullied and told he would not be paid if he did a bad job.

"I work at this car wash for three months and at this car wash I got £300."

Its also not so great for local builders who cannot compete with their prices.

It’s all about demand. If demand is Hugh, there’s lots to go round.

Protectionist policies don’t increase demand. They’re usually detrimental.

Again, down to a complete lack of enforcement by UK authorities.

Never - my example related to the building and construction industry.

www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/16/true-human-cost-5-pound-hand-car-wash-modern-slavery

The death of the 40-year-old Romanian labourer renewed concern about conditions at thousands of hand car washes across the country. The washes, which have mushroomed in petrol stations, car parks and empty forecourts, offer cleaning for as little as £5. Often they employ as many as a dozen workers and are open for up to 12 hours a day, seven days a week. There are suspicions of minimum wage, environmental, planning, and health and safety violations, tax evasion – as well as labour exploitation and modern slavery.

Last year, Nimani received a four-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to manslaughter. But, three years after Laurentiu’s death, and more than a decade after car washes started to become a common sight, the response to the problem is only now gathering pace. Last month, the environmental audit committee (EAC) heard the first oral evidence at an inquiry into hand car washes. MPs will spend weeks hearing from academics, industry representatives and regulators.

@Jellykat - I hadn’t thought about where building materials originate from. Am struggling to check our favourite foods and which are and aren’t imported from the EU.

NeverAgain and no British employer ever exploited their workforce, deliberately paid them less than NMW? British nationals are also involved in human slavery, both as perpetrators and as victims. The solution here is to tackle exploitation, increase the workforce in HMRC to ensure illegal working practices are dealt with harshly and improve workers' right further.

Your car wash example is indeed dreadful - but if British people didn't want the cheap car wash, there wouldn't be the demand. If you want to look at low wages and exploitation, don't blame the EU - blame unscrupulous employers and greedy shareholders.

I don’t want to make this a dispute about buildings, but I work in the construction industry too, and I’ve yet to see a brit actually working, on site. In London. Maybe they’re all out of London, dunno.
The Brits I see do the project management (between cups of tea). In my opinion, in general some people just don’t want to do the hard work anymore. It’s the same in other sectors, in nursing, in cleaning, in factories. Even the architects and engineers of your iconic new buildings in London are in extremely large % non British. The company might be, but staff is mostly international, there are just not enough graduates to fill the roles (I believe the mix of cultures really helps creativity and innovation, btw)
On this note, my life is NOT going to improve (amongst all the other aspects) if for every engineer I hire I’ll have to pay extra 5K visa fee like for nonEU. A tax on hiring, which will do absolutely nothing to help forming local engineers. That’s assuming that my company will still need to hire, of course, which is not really my forecast.

Because it is you bert
I will say, I am assuming you will be predictably annoyed, but knowing you it will be important to avoid a bun fight.
My life (and yours) will improve in the following ways;

1. We can make rapid flexible deals quickly, the current wait time for a deal with the EU is ten years and counting. We will effectively be the fast pass country.

2. I am looking forward to refusing the useless laws from the pointless European courts and deciding our own laws.

3. This country is desperate for a points system that allows those industries recruiting to choose the best from the world, and to stem the tide of those that are unskilled. We will in time become a powerhouse in this way.

4. I love the fact we can be nimble, change things with the times, and not have to fight the commission all the way for even the smallest insignificant change.

5. We will have true accountability. No UK government will ever hide behind the EU mass. All future policies will be delivered for our country, and it’s needs not the 28.

6. My deceased Grandparents would never ever forgive me for handing over our independence, they were in the war camps and suffered to the day they died for our country to remain independent. The betrayal of this would be too much for me to bear.

7. the future: the EU intend to be a full federalist state with shared currency, banking and one parliament, army etc.
   No one in this country could ever support the plans in the EU to have ever deeper union. Despite the pain now, it will be even harder to break free in a few years.

I fully expect my post to be ravaged, but I do know that deep in your hearts you know this too remainers, which is why you are so afraid.
We have to brave this out. It will be worth it.

Are low wages why there's such shortages in the construction trades? Will Brexit fix the shortages?

A group of construction bodies has joined forces to call for 18 severe shortage roles in the industry to be added to the government’s Shortage Occupation list.

Nine federations and representative bodies are working together to accelerate recruitment for the roles after research among the members of each organisation identified which are the hardest to recruit for.

The roles are:

Acoustic engineers
Bricklayers
Carpenters
Ceiling fixers
Chartered surveyors
Civil engineers
Construction and building trades supervisors
Construction project managers
Design engineers
Dry liners
General labourers (this is a low skill job, right?)
Groundworkers
Mechanical and electrical engineers
Planners
Plant and machine operatives
Production managers and directors
Quantity surveyors
Structural engineers

The Australians are coming (no offence Australia) - Britain ‘will aim for freedom of movement deal with Australia’
Tories’ Liz Truss expects UK to secure two-way trade and visa-free work deals after Brexit

Jasjas1973 - What's BXP? You've lost me there.

My husband and many of his colleagues were affected by the influx of immigrants bringing down wages in the construction industry. I'm not talking about someone being self employed doing domestic building work, I'm talking about the large building projects. Can you remember all the protests and the promise by the Government of British jobs for British workers.

Xpost, Thegrasscouldbegreeener talks rubbish.

@Thegrasscouldbegreeener. I totally reject your comments. Freedom of movement and trade must be protected.

The UK won’t be able to do quick trade deals. Well they might but they will be worse than we have now. Most non EU countries are already tied into the most favoured nation terms with the UK and then can’t offer a non EU country preferential deals.

Mama I remember it suddenly became OK to slam Young British boys and call them work shy.

Sorry - typo - most non EU countries are already tied into the Eu not the UK!

Grass - which EU laws would you reject.

Working time regs, maternity and paternity, employment protection on sale of business?

Pointy, aside from the the human cost to being part of the eu which has been considerable.

Why on earth is the UK in a position of using precious resources to fight crime (which its failed to do) and rescue vulnerable men trafficked from the the eu?

The car washes of course are also literally used to wash criminally generated cash.
They barely existed a decade ago. We shouldn't have this issue to deal with.

We should not have had to deal with any extra burdens on the NHS or police. We have enough home grown domestic problems to deal with.

@Jellykat I am in construction too but all the discussions we have had from our European suppliers is that prices will be held and many are even setting up UK based warehouses to prevent any drop in supplies reaching the UK.

We have secured contracts to see us through the next 2 years and new tender enquiries are still coming through.

It’s not all doom and gloom here yet.

The scaremongering can unfortunately cause a self fulfilling prophecy