Lithuanian shanty town... in Peterborough

[Mathom]

I misread your post slightly, pk - I was left with the thought that you were suggesting we employed Poles for jobs as police officers

 

Wait, that'll be next on the agenda, you'll see...

 

StarSparkle

 

In London they've struggled to recruit civil servants at lower grades for years - I'm talking at HEO and below, grades which people would love to get to 'oop north'. It's simply that people cannot afford to live below a HEO salary down south. Ring up a London office and it's odds on your call will be answered by a migrant worker or a temping foreign student.

 

It's coming to offices too. Be afraid...

[pk014b7161]

In London they've struggled to recruit civil servants at lower grades for years - I'm talking at HEO and below, grades which people would love to get to 'oop north'. It's simply that people cannot afford to live below a HEO salary down south. Ring up a London office and it's odds on your call will be answered by a migrant worker or a temping foreign student.

 

It's coming to offices too. Be afraid...

lets see how people view migrants then when their jobs start to go

[Strix]

Yes, and as I've already said, British people cannot afford to do these jobs. You have a choice - take the low paid job and then try to fund an impossibly priced home somehow, or stay on benefits and have your rent paid.

 

We might be nasty and characterise working class people as having 'poor English' and whatnot, but they are certainly not so stupid as to be willing to live in the conditions the migrant workers do, knowing that they are not here 'for good'. It's disgusting to expect British people to live in those conditions.

 

The migrants are indeed 'taking our jobs' but not in the way the BNP rant about - they're doing it by undercutting British workers and the employers are exploiting that. What's more the Government in complicit in this, and they are also making the situation in those countries worse. How would we feel if all our nurses, plumbers, etc that we'd paid to be trained for our benefit just decamped to France?

 

ah, so tell me how that works with the minimum wage?

 

I assume we're all entitled to have life handed to us on a plate?

 

perhaps we should encourage more immigrants, charge them income tax and squash them into substandard housing - all to fund the entire indigenous population in a free ride?

 

Now if somebody can explain to me sensibly how this 'taking our jobs' thing works, I'll happily change sides

[StarSparkle]

ah, so tell me how that works with the minimum wage?

 

I assume we're all entitled to have life handed to us on a plate?

 

perhaps we should encourage more immigrants, charge them income tax and squash them into substandard housing - all to fund the entire indigenous population in a free ride?

 

Now if somebody can explain to me sensibly how this 'taking our jobs' thing works, I'll happily change sides

 

Come on, Strix, you're an intelligent woman.

 

It's obvious employers will get away with paying as little to their workers as possible to maximise their profits. What does a minimum wage mean when you're 'employing' illegal immigrants, not known to the 'system', to do work that rightly should be done by locals. What tax? What national insurance? What pension rights? What health and safety?

 

Aren't you at all worried about all the social dislocation and alienation this is all causing? It scares me to death.

 

StarSparkle

[Strix]

oh hang on - I wasn't talking illegals - that's a different kettle of fish to just plain immigrants

 

way too many people muddle the two up!

[StarSparkle]

oh hang on - I wasn't talking illegals - that's a different kettle of fish to just plain immigrants

 

way too many people muddle the two up!

 

No, Strix, you can't have it both ways!

 

You were talking about the minimum wage, I was explaining to you why it's irrelevant!

 

StarSparkle

[Strix]

Mathom was outlining 'the system' and I responded - nobody mentioned the underworld of illegal workers SS (until you did )

[Mathom]

The minimum wage is irrelevant. It's not enough to live on in a lot of places. Nor does the status of workers make much difference. Legal migrant workers are also undercutting British workers' wages (in fact that's what I'm on about mostly).

 

Fact is, if you've been born and brought up in a lot of areas of Britain now, if you are an average jobseeker you are stuffed because you will never earn enough to live a decent life. You won't get a cheap rent council house because there are not enough to go round, so you must rent privately but this costs a bomb and you are better off on the dole.

 

The only people who can afford to do low paid jobs in a lot of areas now are migrant workers without living costs, wives of men with good incomes and the odd student or youngster still at home.

 

It's now having an impact on wider jobs than low paid fruit picking - on skilled trades, on office work...

[Strix]

right - so it's the minimum wage that's the problem? or the housing situation?

 

I'm sorry, but having seen what the Poles are doing for the same wage in railway engineering, how can you expect anybody with a 'the world owes me a living' attitude to be awarded a job over the opposite Polish culture?

[Mathom]

right - so it's the minimum wage that's the problem? or the housing situation?

 

I'm sorry, but having seen what the Poles are doing for the same wage in railway engineering, how can you expect anybody with a 'the world owes me a living' attitude to be awarded a job over the opposite Polish culture?

 

Are British workers able to afford to live on wages offered to them though, that's the problem. It doesn't matter if they are the same as what migrants earn, if you cannot afford a permanent home on them then they are no good to British people.

 

There's also the issue that it might look great that a migrant is willing to work 70 hour weeks for a brief time, after all, the quicker they do the job, the quicker they are out of that room they're sharing with five other sweaty blokes and on their way home with the £££s. But for a British worker who lives here it's not sustainable - people have families they need to go home to at the end of each day.