Anyone watching "The Day the Immigrants Left"?

[JollyPirate]

Not showing the British workers in a good light at the moment.

Yeah I spose so.....

That lad who didn't turn up for the potato packing job was the one who made me really mad- he'd been unemployed for 5 years and he was 26? He had no motivation at all- it looked like he was quite happy to sit on the dole indefinately. God knows what his 'ideal' job would be!
On the Indian restaurant thing, I did think it was a bit unfair to put an English bloke in there, although he could have shown a bit of initiative! Another point that has been made in relation to Indian restaurants is that the Bagladeshi community in the UK (many of whom are British born) has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the UK, yet restaurants still employ migrant workers from India. I think they forgot that British doesn't always mean 'white' and there are ethnic minority communities that have the same issues that need to be dealt with.

Yes he was the one that had me wanting to shake him!!.

The lad in the indian restaurant really tried imo and I think it was a difficult job to start with especially with the language/manu thing.

I was a bit cross at how this was portayed it had the potential to actually enlighten some people insterad it just showed the British as incapable.

And I think they bring people in from India as they know they will work doubly harder,if you knew that living in a foreign country and working hard would pull your family out of the shit youdwork your fingers to the bone,and this is what they do.

Me too - what on earth were his parents doing, letting him stay home all day playing computer games? I'd confiscate, and boot him out to get some skills and confidence doing voluntary work. Charities are crying out for people ....

(dear me, I do sound like a DM reader)

Portofino, I know what you mean but believe me I used to have a taste of this kind of life (I'd work in factories and do manual work in between holidays from college/uni) The foreigners were treated really badly by the lazy British workers who would turn up when they wanted to, I saw it in almost every working enviroment I was in.

My parents were very canny, they knew I'd find it back breaking and it would spur me on to work hard so I wouldn't have to do it for the rest of my life, bless them.

Shows why our social system is screwed up - if you get offered a job you must take it (OK the job must be suitable) and there should be a training period where the employer could get subs from govt to make up for any productivity / costs. Then at the end if th eperson just jacks the job in for no good reason the benefits should be cut for a period of time. Also if the job taken means they would loose financially then again for a period say 1-2 years even the govt would fund the difference - this gives both an incentive to get people mback to work and would overall reduce the benefits cost.

When I finished uni and applying for jobs I ended up working in a large soup factory not far from there - I even used my middle name as people could not get used to my first name (its Irish). Did this than go on the dole and actaully was quite good money on late shifts.

SDD, if you walk out on a job for no good reason, you can't claim benefits for 2 months I think it is

It's not just the benefits system that is bad, it strikes me that there is something wrong about how we educate and bring up our children. As soon as something becomes 'hard' we give up.

I run my own business. I was really worried taking maternity leave three years ago due to the poor quality of my staff (all from the UK). Most of the time they are lazy and have to be watched with an eagle eye because they could not be trusted. I could not take a day off because I knew that things were bound to go wrong although most people had an excuse or an explanation why this was the case. People spent more time trying to get away with being lazy than doing their jobs. On a Saturday, I knew most of them will not turn up after having a few beers on a Friday night.

Two years ago, I started to employ a Latvian woman in a manual role. It turned out that she had a business degree. She was happy to help out in the office and when my workers drifted off or did not turn up to work she was able to find replacements. Productivity has risen massively and now the majority of my employees are Eastern Europeans or foreign born. I was able to profit share and increase wages due to the productivity rises and am happy to reward those who have helped with my success. I was able to take (almost full) maternity leave leaving Anna (from Latvia) in charge and my turnover has increased each year. The English workers were happy to try and run my business into the ground and take my cash for the privilege. Now I will never employ a local worker as I do not want to have that stress again. It is a bit sad but we live in a competitive world enironment and to compete we need workers that can compete in the world workplace. Some local people feel that having a job is a right. I have no sympathy for people who think that it is their right to do a job badly just because they are born here. If we all had this attitude most British businesses would fail.

Wow that's a really interesting post.

it's sort of depressing that they have to come over here to make money, what's gone so wrong in their own countrys?

I found this a very accurate view of what is really going on. I work in manufacturing in the East. Nearly every day we need to use temp workers as we can't fill positions from the local population.

We can usually be sure that if there is a "British" name on the list from the agency that they will wither be late, not turn up at all, walk off the job after a few hours or have to be sent home as they break rules or just don't work. It is embarassing and frustrating

And no we don't pay less to "immigrants" our customers have very strict ethical rules and we are audited every year to check there is no discrimination going on. More to the point it would be immoral for me to work for any company that did that.

"if you knew that....working hard would pull your family out of the shit youd work your fingers to the bone,and this is what they do"

why doesn't this seem to apply to the british workers portrayed on the film?

Because I think without being controversial we have the back up of the benefit system.....in Bangladesh and other places no money=no food.

Well, I think it is also the fact that if you come from a country where wages are lower and things are cheaper all round you would be thinking of the money in terms of what it could buy if you sent it/took it home.
However I agree about the back-up of benefits having an effect.

The thing that amazed me with the asparagus cutting bit was the fact that it was piecework so you would think they would have wanted to be more efficient - if it was me doing this job and not picking as much as the others I wouldn't be taking umbrage at having it pointed out, I would be asking the others for tips as to how I could go faster.

However when I picked apples as a teenager the other workers (who were mostly middle-aged British working class women trying to earn a bit of extra money to pay off credit card debt) worked hard, and that was only 20 years ago.

I was actually quite depressed after this programme. I know they would have used extreme examples to make "good" TV but even so. The attitudes of the public interviewed in town were equally depressing in seeing the migrant workers as a drain on UK resources when in reality they are working hard and propping up our workforce.

I know there will always be those who are unskilled and there will always be jobs which don't require skill, however, when did our unskilled workers become so bloody unemployable?

southeastastra - not sure about all the countries but the Portuguese workers I have seen tell me that they would love to go home for good but that there is little work for young people there - even those with good degrees apparently and so they migrate to the UK, France, Spain or anywhere that can offer them work.

I found it quite pathetic that everyone in the Indian restaurant was gushing about how how wonderful the 'indian restaurant experience' was with the 'proper' indians working there, but they would be the same people to be rascist and offensive anout other migrants. Living in East Anglia, we do get a lot of 'attitude' from people about 'furrins taking our jobs'

It was to be expected really. My OH has a business and all the people who work for him are Brazilians. They work hard, always turn up for work, (no weekend hangovers) and stay with him for a long time.

Like someone said in the programme, the British somehow feel they're above menial jobs and expect better more interesting jobs, even though they may lack the skills and qualifications.

This is why my parents came to the UK in the fifties, to do the dirty, uninteresting work the British wouldn't!

hmm, i am English 35 and have worked since i was 14, i've worked hard and this forum is insulting, and full of racist idiots.
Ive worked with a lot of lazy english people but also a lot of lazy polish people as well in my life.Most of the english people i've worked with in my experience have been hard workers and professional.

A population of a country due to many reasons have a certain percentage that is lazy, not interested in work whatever , that percentage is most probaly the same regardless of the country, when you say english people are lazy your just being racist and stupid to be blunt. The polish that come to the UK most probaly want to work but you forget there a reason why why the UK has most probaly the highest hours per week work edin the EU, and the majority of poles who dont come to the UK and are most probaly not working
The imigrant population just say 10% of the UK, so what are everyone else doing, the jobs that 'English' people dont want to do are in reality , done by english people.

Basically the BBC gets total twats who don't want to work as a result of a Labour Goverment , who have been denied the proper education, training and social skill's and makes then representative of the English people.
Fishie, JollyPirate,Heated,thehillsarealive are you lazy workshy, benefit cheats, why is everyone apart from the english noble workers and the english are just lazy scum. This is a site to give advice to new mothers and the poison that comes from some of the posters here is sickening.

I dont know why a lot of the people of this site hate the english, any other nationality and you would be the BNP, so the question here is not whether the english is lazy but why are there so many prejudice , racist idiots on this site.

Remember blame Labour, dont blame a 15 year old kid who hasn'nt had the proper education, blame the Labour party who has denied this to them , a party of 'equality' and should of known better, they have been in power for 13 years , this is the generation they produced, this is what they will do to your children.
Go vote for them if you want the same for your child.