Eastern Europeans threaten British jobs?

[bubble99]

My arse, they do.

We recently sent out four invitations to interview for a nursery assistant's job at our nursery. Three canditates were 'native English' and the fourth was Polish.

Of the three 'English' -

1. Didn't turn up.

2. Didn't turn up, and when we phoned to find out where she was, were told she'd moved to Bradford.

3. Turned up and when asked to email a CV (after informing her that the Job Centre would help her with this, if necessary), didn't.

4. Polish girl, turned up 10 minutes early, pristine and with CRB check, references etc.

Guess who got the job?

yup.

that's about the state of it

Nice one, soph.

I was expecting an instant ruck about this one.

What is it? Is it the 'empire thing'? Our non-English employees (can I say that? Is it PC? ) understand that -

1. They do the job 100%

2. We pay them 100%

Our two 'natives' often give us the impression that they are doing us a favour by just being there.

At the risk of sounding bigotted, in my opinion being Polish goes in your favour. I have worked with at least 10 Polish girls and they were without exception polite, punctual, intelligent, tidy workers, concientious, friendly and very hard working.

Who the hell wouldn't prefer them to the senseless twats that are young English girls?

'Polish people stealing british jobs' suggests that we have zero employment which we all know we don't. Its not that they're stealing the jobs its just they actually want to work as opposed to sponge off the rest of us.

Whoops have I gone too far?????!!!

Ok so to clarify that should say unemployment!!

maybe their enthusiasm will rub off onto our slackers

I've nothing against Eastern European people, but I think it's unfair to tar all British people with the same brush.
My dd 'dropped out' of university in March and spent months trying to get a job, any job, with little success. She is an intelligent, personable girl who turned up for interviews and received knock back after knock back and that's not counting the numerous employers who didn't even bother to reply to her applications. Fortunately she has now managed to get a job in a bank (through an agency) but she spent a fortune, which she certainly didn't have, posting applications and travelling for interviews.
Also, in my own job I visit a lot of companies many in the care industry and find overseas workers who are, to put it bluntly, taken advantage of by employers. Given minimal training and left in fear of being thrown out of work if they 'kick up a fuss' about what is going on.

We have no gripes with our non-English staff. They come to work, on time and do their jobs well.

We have a cleaner every evening to clean the nursery. Our staff clean the toys etc on a weekly basis or more often, if necessary.

Last week, our (Lebanese) manager asked all of the staff to stay behind for a (paid) hour to do an extra 'spring-clean'
One of our native staff apparently said that she 'didn't see why she had to do cleaning'.

WTF? Where does this attitude come from? I'm the (heavily pregnant) owner and am seen to mop the kitchen floor every day.

Am I missing something?

people who want to work & do a good job - whats the problem?

bogwobbit, our staff, irrespective of nationality are paid a generous salary.

bubble, I'm sure they are and tbh it's nursing homes rather than nurseries that I'm talking about. Also, it's not even pay that's the issue although usually the overseas staff are only paid minimum wage. It's the fact that they are put in a position which would be difficult for anyone far less someone in a foreign country without support systems and (sometimes) with a less than perfect command of the language. Such as being left to care for residents on their own, at night with poor training and little support.

Shame on those employers, then.

We pay over-the-odds and expect 100% commitment from our staff in return. So far, so good.

What I'm trying to say is that our 'native' staff (if left to it) would give 50% but expect 100% salary.

That P's me off.