Polish Migrant Workers In Llanelli

[deus ex machina]

Fudge,

Perhaps best to agree to differ but I think your Starbucks analogy suggests you may be a little unbalanced.

Despite the puffery of Nu Labour economics, it is fairly obvious that the UK, akin to the Franco German axis, has sacrificed growth for welfare. The auspices are not good but at least we are in agreement that it will get worse before it gets better.House price crashes are not a panacea, however.

[Fudge]

Fudge,

Perhaps best to agree to differ but I think your Starbucks analogy suggests you may be a little unbalanced.

Despite the puffery of Nu Labour economics, it is fairly obvious that the UK, akin to the Franco German axis, has sacrificed growth for welfare. The auspices are not good but at least we are in agreement that it will get worse before it gets better.House price crashes are not a panacea, however.

Yes perhaps best as you cannot put up a credible counter argument.

[SarahBell]

Your not self-employed are you?

I wouldn't expect to work in a factory as a self-employed person.

These zero hour contracts are great for companys. That doesn't mean they're good for employees.

[ILikeBigBoobs]

Sadly the people that are bearing the brunt of this mass immigration are, what the popular press would terml, the Salt of the Earth, cleaners, labourers, bus drivers, burger flippers etc. You may well deride them but these folk get up off their backsides every day to do generally unpleasant work for little return - now the little bargaining power they ever had is gone and their paltry wages are, in real terms, reduced.

Personally I'd love to see 100,000 solicitors enter the UK market from Eastern Europe and practise here for £5.50 an hour - our Members of Parliment would soon put a stop to that!

[Solvent Celt]

Your lucky - from an Englishman's perspective, Welsh nationalism still has a few vestiges of romance and nobility attached.

Sadly, being an English nationalist relegates one to bootboy status.

Well it all depends. Plaid Cymru are "Pseudo Cultural Nationalists" IMHO. They don't mind who comes into Wales as long as they learn to speak Welsh. They don't really subscribe to the concept of Ethnic Nationalism AFAIK. To them a Pakistani born in Wales is Welsh. Most Welsh people will tell you different.

[Solvent Celt]

Engineered by whom? Are you seriously suggesting a capitalist conspiracy is at the root of prevailing economic conditions?

Businesses are there not for altruism but to make a profit. No other factor is relevant.To increase competitiveness you reduce your costs wherever possible and to maximise profits. Cheap labour is good if you can get it.The market determines that.Why on earth should the UK be exempt from economic forces prevailing globally? Heaven forbid that British people should live in squalor.All right for Johnny foreigner but not for us,thank you very much, that's why we have a welfare state so that the great British worker can sit on his **** rather than engaging in mindnumbingly soul destroying etc., etc. Jesus wept.

I know this may come as a surprise to you but years ago people who wished to improve their lot hit upon an approach that these days might seem almost obscene.....they actually took 2 jobs.What about that, eh? Truly bizarre.

But as you indicate why on earth would anyone with any intelligence work for a living if taxpayers are compelled to support them? As long as this madness is considered acceptable we shall continue to see an influx of immigrants as long as the economic imperative suits them.

Anyway, cheap labour capitalising upon migrants has long been a feature of our economy since the Industrial Revolution and historically soak up the housing market at the lower end.

The influx of Poles, etc. is no different and I suspect that you will not hear them whingeing as they quietly establish themselves on the bottom rung of the housing ladder.

Any body with a basic grounding in economics will be aware of MARKET FAILURE. The market cannot cope with the social costs of immigration. Industry privatises the profits and socialises the costs. Do you think that the factories that initially used cheap imported Asian labour paid anything towards the costs of the Bradford Riots or the London suicide bombings? DO they pay toward the benefits of the 2nd and 3rd generation Asians? Of course not.

I think you'd be suprised at the British worker. I'm one. Used to work 2 jobs. 2 am - 7 am Nightshift. Then Home for Breakfast, shower & shave - suit on and in work for 9am and full 7 hour day. Did that for 3 years.

Strangely enough I care more for my fellow Brits than Johnny Foreigner I don't want to see Indian style squalor here. If companies want to exploit foreign workers then do it abroad.

Importing cheap labour into the UK allows companies to invest less in mechanisation and depresses GDP.

[deus ex machina]

Any body with a basic grounding in economics will be aware of MARKET FAILURE. The market cannot cope with the social costs of immigration. Industry privatises the profits and socialises the costs. Do you think that the factories that initially used cheap imported Asian labour paid anything towards the costs of the Bradford Riots or the London suicide bombings? DO they pay toward the benefits of the 2nd and 3rd generation Asians? Of course not.

I think you'd be suprised at the British worker. I'm one. Used to work 2 jobs. 2 am - 7 am Nightshift. Then Home for Breakfast, shower & shave - suit on and in work for 9am and full 7 hour day. Did that for 3 years.

Strangely enough I care more for my fellow Brits than Johnny Foreigner I don't want to see Indian style squalor here. If companies want to exploit foreign workers then do it abroad.

Importing cheap labour into the UK allows companies to invest less in mechanisation and depresses GDP.

Absolutely dotty, but sadly representative of the incoherence of most of the posts on this thread. If you guys had been around in the 19thC your railways and canals wouldn't have been built by my forbears. I am not surprised, however, by your pitiful lack of insight which only demonstrates the paucity of reasonable education in the UK, a deficiency which will paralyse this country more than all the dynamic processes of any economy that exists outside of the small minded shores of this sceptred isle.

Yes perhaps best as you cannot put up a credible counter argument.

Do you you know anything about Goebbels? It may be more enlightening for you if you became more acquainted with sophistry as opposed to garbled ersatz propaganda.Presently, you simply arn't worth it.

[El_Pirata]

Absolutely dotty, but sadly representative of the incoherence of most of the posts on this thread. If you guys had been around in the 19thC your railways and canals wouldn't have been built by my forbears. I am not surprised, however, by your pitiful lack of insight which only demonstrates the paucity of reasonable education in the UK, a deficiency which will paralyse this country more than all the dynamic processes of any economy that exists outside of the small minded shores of this sceptred isle.

Do you you know anything about Goebbels? It may be more enlightening for you if you became more acquainted with sophistry as opposed to garbled ersatz propaganda.Presently, you simply arn't worth it.

You're actually wrong - often a shortage of cheap and easily exploitable labour forces technological improvements and advances, rather than holding back development.

'Navvies working on railway projects typically continued to work using hand tools, supplemented with explosives (particularly when tunnelling, and to clear obdurate difficulties). Steam-powered mechanical diggers or excavators (initially called 'steam navvies') were available in the 1840s, but were not considered cost effective until much later in the 19th century, especially in Britain and Europe where experienced labourers were easily obtained and comparatively cheap. Elsewhere, for example in the

"United States and Canada, where labour was more scarce and expensive, mechanical diggers were used. In the States the machine tradition became so strong that [...] the word navvy is understood to mean not a man but a steam shovel."'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navvy

[2005]

Personally I'd love to see 100,000 solicitors enter the UK market from Eastern Europe and practise here for £5.50 an hour - our Members of Parliment would soon put a stop to that!

[deus ex machina]

Pirata,

Thank you for the thoughtful, sourced contribution.However, it doesn't alter the point I was seeking to make in that cheap, immigrant labour was used without the destruction of the host society.

Incidentally, what was the final death toll in the construction of the Panama canal when modern technology was at a pitch considerably higher than that prevailing at the time of the construction of the infrastructure of England in the 19thC?

[CrashIsUnderWay]

u r not a 'guru' by any chance are u?

[El_Pirata]

Pirata,

Thank you for the thoughtful, sourced contribution.However, it doesn't alter the point I was seeking to make in that cheap, immigrant labour was used without the destruction of the host society.

Incidentally, what was the final death toll in the construction of the Panama canal when modern technology was at a pitch considerably higher than that prevailing at the time of the construction of the infrastructure of England in the 19thC?

1. I'm not trying to say that cheap immigrant labour causes the destruction of the host society, but rather that it is a benefit to some sectors (the bosses) and the detriment to others (local-born workers, tied into the local cost base). What I wanted to point out was that the availability of cheap labour is not a prerequisite for progress and development.

Another example - when did the feudal system end in England? After the decimation of the population by the Black Death. The subsequent scarcity of agricultural labour enabled peasants to demand better conditions. Now I'm not suggesting that another plague would be a good thing! I'm just trying illustrate the forces at work in society regarding the availability or non-availability of labour.

And what effect does mass emigration have on the countries of origin of migrant workers. There is a good case for saying that the exodus of so many talented Irishmen over the centuries held back the country's development. The same could be said about the region of Galicia is Spain, which provided Argentina, Cuba and many other countries with much of their population. It remains a backward region today. Now there are worries in Poland about the demographic impact of the mass exodus (although I think these are fairly groundless as much of the modern migration is extremely temporary in its nature).

2. As I understand it, much of the death toll from the Panama Canal was through malaria, so not entirely relevant.

[Fudge]

Do you you know anything about Goebbels? It may be more enlightening for you if you became more acquainted with sophistry as opposed to garbled ersatz propaganda.Presently, you simply arn't worth it.

No funny enough Goebbels is not on my favourite readers list.

Sophistry, I prefer to stick to the truth.

The need to measure worth and value in people are required in professions that involve

the buying and selling of people.

Your not in the EU recruitment agency business are you?

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

'Businesses are there not for altruism but to make a profit. No other factor is relevant."

Deus, even Milton Friedman might disagree with that statement! - he believed that businesses must conform to ethical custom.

By claiming that only one factor is relevant, are you claiming that businesses have no social responsibilities and that moral rules have no place in relation to business practice? Ever heard of CSR? Ftse4good, SRI, etc.

Edited January 3, 2006 by gruffydd

[deus ex machina]

Gosh, not sure what points are being made here.

3 million Britons, either by design or through some sort of incapacity, have excluded themselves from the job market. This vacuum has been filled to a certain extent by migrant labour, legal or otherwise, to the benefit of employers.In the food processing industry,as an example, this has resulted in stable prices and handsome profits for the retailers.Is this some sort of poison pill? Or is it simply the result of economic forces at work in the way they have always operated.

Free movement of labour in Europe exists whether anyone likes it or not. It is a function of democracy and existed previously as another manifestation of the economic imperative. Now, it is legal there are no restraints save for the individual making his choice. An unemployed welshman makes his choice, a pole another.The point being, everyone can take a position. Hey, we used to call it accountability.

The historical perspective I shall leave alone.......still conjuring with the notion that the paddies were actually holding back progress by digging away at those cuttings in Little Warton by the Bog when dynamite etc was obviously the way to go as if little old W.Sussex was really another Kansan plain. Oh c'mon Pirata, you can do better than that!

[deus ex machina]

'Businesses are there not for altruism but to make a profit. No other factor is relevant."

Deus, even Milton Friedman might disagree with that statement! - he believed that businesses must conform to ethical custom.

By claiming that only one factor is relevant, are you claiming that businesses have no social responsibilities and that moral rules have no place in relation to business practice? Ever heard of CSR? Ftse4good, SRI, etc.

Capitalism wearing it's hair shirt may make the PR guys go warm all over but the bottom line is profit. Government intervention through whatever mechanism, viz trade pacts, subsidies and the like jigs the market to a certain degree but businesses within the framework are generally answerable to shareholders and not to social obligations. Next thing you are going to say is that Nike et al will be handing out Xmas bonuses to all those Thai and Rover can come back because the Brummies are feeling nostalgic.Get real.

[El_Pirata]

Gosh, not sure what points are being made here.

3 million Britons, either by design or through some sort of incapacity, have excluded themselves from the job market. This vacuum has been filled to a certain extent by migrant labour, legal or otherwise, to the benefit of employers.

Something of a chicken and egg situation this. You also say:

"As many as 3 million Britons have been priced out of the labour market by cheaper immigrant labour that is not tied into the local cost base, and have been shepherded onto incapacity benefit to allow the government to hide the real unemployment figures."

Take office cleaning. The going rate is not a living wage for a single mother paying a standard rent. She'd be better of on benefits - council tax and rent paid for a start. But for a Brazilian sharing a room with 5 other people (I have seen it) and converting any savings into reais (4 reais to the pound but a real in Brazil buys almost as much as a pound does in the UK, in fact much more if you are talking property), it is just about worth it. It probably beats his prospects in Brazil in the short-term, even if he is reasonably well-educated.

Now, take him out of the equation, and the employer will have to offer a wage that is worth the while of the single mother, or the job will go unfilled. The companies employing office cleaners on a large scale could afford to pay them this if forced to. Have you seen the profits the banks have been making recently?

So who benefits?

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

CSR (CC / CR) is nothing more than window-dressing then?

[deus ex machina]

By all means let us all go back to direct labour for everything. Whether it be cleaning staff, reprographics or call centre bureaux. I have no complaint with that and I agree that everyone earning a comfortable living is a just and equable aim.But it isn't going to happen because the world is not like that nor has it ever been. Our biggest problem is that 3 generations have grown up with the welfare state and folk have saddled themselves with an attitude that they only have to work "if it's worth it" and if it aint then the state can pay.

If people think that is going to last for the next 3 generations, then they are deluded. Just wait until the Ukrainians,Turks,Romanians and Bulgarians join the fold, it can only get better. I'm afraid our 3 million may just have to price themselves back into the fold.Hunger is a great motivator but of course the modern Brit isn't allowed that particular reality, is he?

[OnlyMe]

deus ex machina.

What are you talking about? The state, or should I say the taxpayer does pay and the cost will continue to erode our competitiveness, you can forget all the 3 generations malarky as well as recent moves by the state to flood the market with cheap labour (even illegal labour outside of the system) menas that it is not just those who are willfully creaming off the taxpayer - it is and will contnue to affect the jobs and livlihoods of many oterhs until they too become dependent on taxpayer handouts. Why on earth do you think the majority of West European countries said no to uncontrolled economic migration, they are not that stupid or wilful in undermining their own workforce.

[AgeingBabyBoomer]

By all means let us all go back to direct labour for everything. Whether it be cleaning staff, reprographics or call centre bureaux. I have no complaint with that and I agree that everyone earning a comfortable living is a just and equable aim.But it isn't going to happen because the world is not like that nor has it ever been. Our biggest problem is that 3 generations have grown up with the welfare state and folk have saddled themselves with an attitude that they only have to work "if it's worth it" and if it aint then the state can pay.

If people think that is going to last for the next 3 generations, then they are deluded. Just wait until the Ukrainians,Turks,Romanians and Bulgarians join the fold, it can only get better. I'm afraid our 3 million may just have to price themselves back into the fold.Hunger is a great motivator but of course the modern Brit isn't allowed that particular reality, is he?

deus ex machina,

You have it all wrong.

The problem is that British children have elected to remove

themselves form the labour market and instead are spoiling

themselves with 'free at the point of use' education.

Back in the day, when 'Britain really was Great', they used to

do a lot of the jobs that the adults didn't want to do.

(e.g.Coal mining, chimney sweep, picking over the rubbish dumps etc)

I think the only way to fix it is to ban education fo rchildren and force

them to work for their pocket money - let's see the Eastern Blockers

undercut that!

ABB

[Wayo]

Gosh, not sure what points are being made here.

3 million Britons, either by design or through some sort of incapacity, have excluded themselves from the job market.

Nothing of the sort - simple market economics. For design, read real wages, net of lost benefits, childcare etc are neglibile or negative, so they won't take jobs. The normal market response would be for wages to rise until the positions are filled, but once the government / EU opens up a new pool of cheap labour this doesn't happen. The bus companies, supermarkets and banks could afford the higher wages of Britons, but of course don't have pay them. Any SMEs that genuinely can't afford to pay real wages is in effect being subsidised anyway and should close or move offshore to find lower costs. If this is not practicable and the product / service is really required by the economy it would be paid for by higher prices or productivity.

Instead working people and business have to pay higher taxes to fund anything as much as 10% of the working age population being economically inactive, while unskilled migrants fill 'employment gaps' in 'economic blackspots.'

Higher wages may or may not be inflationary depending on market competitivness, but so are higher taxes. Migrant workers do contribute taxes, but in low paid jobs these will not be great. But when our governments roll out statistics on how much they 'contribute' to the economy there is little mention of the debit side in terms of health or eduction costs etc.

We are never going to compete as a low wage, low productivity, low skill economy and shouldn't pretend that we can. In a 'perfect' EU labour market, average EU wages will be equal to average wages in each of the member states ie. far below UK wages.

Unless we can pick and choose key skilled migrants which our education system is unable to train or our living standards retain, we probably have little to gain from uncotrolled EU economic migration.

The idea that this arises as a function of any form of democracy is highly contentious!

[Michael]

yes , picking and choosing which immigrants we have in ....which many other countries do is far preferable to the current arrangement......The income differential between here and the accesssion states is as great as that between the Us and Mexico......and the Us for all the reasons the above post has stated is in no hurry to open its borders to Mexico's 100 million people..................

Like you say the effect is to drag the average wage here down to the EU average which since May last year with the accession is far lower than our own............

THIS THREAd demonstrates what a complicated issue immigration is.........but the reason the Poles and Balts were let in by Blair and Brown was to boost tax revenues and stimulate economic growth.........

Edited January 6, 2006 by Michael

[The Masked Tulip]

THIS THREAd demonstrates what a complicated issue immigration is.........but the reason the Poles and Balts were let in by Blair and Brown was to boost tax revenues and stimulate economic growth.........

Another reason, perhaps, is that the Poles and Czechs who settled in the UK at the end of WW2, about 250,000 all told, simply integrated into British life and, if anything, became as proud, if not prouder than some, as many British born people of being British.

Despite such a large number arriving all at once there are no Polish or Czech 'ghettos' in the UK, no demands for separate Polish or Czech schools, demands for their languages to be used, etc, etc. Many years ago I made a TV series on the different cultures that had arrived in the UK post 1945 and an expert whom I interviewed on this subject said that the Poles were the most successful group to integrate fully into the British way of life.

Perhaps this is the thinking about what is going on now. The UK needs more people as the population is falling at the fastest rate since the time of the Black Death. Getting Poles, Czechs and others from central Europe, whilst sensitive, is not as sensitive as getting people from Asian, Africa and Middle Eastern Countries. At the end of the day, whilst the British are an extremely tolerant people, there is still a hardcore of people who, when they feel threatened, allow racist undertones to surface.

[Fudge]

Groups of immigrants to the UK have in the past usually had specific skills that contributed

to the economy, the irish for example building roads and french hugeunots professions, trades, and handicrafts.

The sole intention it seems nowadays is to bring people in to do the lowest paid jobs even cheaper.

These recruitment agencies have a lot to answer for, I know a local agency that gets paid £10 an hour per worker, passes £6 on to the agency worker.

The agencies are making a fortune for doing very little at the expense of the worker

whose conditions have been reduced to no job security, safety training, holiday pay, sickness etc.

Its a disgrace.