Global 'train wreck' coming

[DominicJ]

Snailed Off
If british minimum wage workers are so abused, why do so many poles come here to be one?

[frank_begbie]

The welfare state has been slowly dismantled for over 30 years if not longer.

While spending on it has been increasing all the time? they might have tried to dismantle it but weren't very successful.

The only difference now is they have a really good reason to put their foot down.

"We all have to make sacrifices, to get the debt down"

Get real Frank! Haven't you taken in anything on this thread? The whole system will soon collapse under the weight of users. A welfare system requires that there are enough people working to pay for those out of work. We have bred a whole generation of people who believe that it is not worth working when the "social" can pay you for doing nothing. That's why many of our employers prefer Poles to a Brit. A Pole will work for you while while a Brit will just moan. Poles have been sending money home while the government has been paying Brits to not work. Result? Net drain on the economy!!

That's nothing compared to what will come. With our national debt increasing it won't be long before we can't get any more credit and the whole welfare system becomes unaffordable. I'm not saying that it's a good thing, I just saying that it's a fact. Anyone who blames it on a particular government is a "DENIER" - there, I've said it - and deserves all the approbation that goes with that word.

Don't tell me to get real!

If you only increase spending on things in line with inflation, in effect that is a cut.

If you go back a few years you can see a lot the things you used to be able to claim for have vanished.

It suited the government of the time to let unemployment run riot and they got around the figures going through the roof by encouraging people to go on the sick.
And they paid for it all with revenues from Nationalised company sell offs and North Sea oil.

Now they have nothing else to sell off and the oil has run out they don't like it.

[frank_begbie]

Snailed Off
If british minimum wage workers are so abused, why do so many poles come here to be one?

If you live like a tramp £6 an hour is a lot.

[Ludwig]

Remember the welfare state wont pay your mortgage.....

Welfares great if you structure your life around it, bloody useless if you lose your job.

Have to agree with that one.

I was on welfare for several months last year, of different kinds. With my mortgage and bills, there was no way I could possibly have lived off it much longer than I did. And it's only going to get worse - much worse.

[Snail]

Snailed Off
If british minimum wage workers are so abused, why do so many poles come here to be one?

In international dollars (2009), polish minimum wage is $8, compared to uk's $22.
Our support systems are better.
Most poles are only planning to take the min. wage job as a stop-gap into moving up the wage ladder.
The system for poles moving to uk is almost automatic. Agencies take care of almost everything. For poles, the moving process is easy
As already said, living like a tramp for a couple of years and moving back is good for money reasons as well as personal development.
Employers here like poles, not because they don't moan, but because if they do moan they can get rid almost immediately. Always more poles, and agencies makes this easy. Pushing down wage costs also please employers.

[Snail]

I lost my job a few months back. The only benefits i can claim is jsa. By week 5, i was already 'santioned', not my fault. Imo i was tricked into it. Claiming jsa is a nightmare, I'm going to sign off in a couple of weeks and concentrate on self-employment. I'll only be making about £50 a week but this is livable because my costs are so low. There's no way i could have lived on jsa, being single, if my costs weren't so low (i live in a van).

[Lord Beria3]

Having become friends with poles who started in minimum wage jobs it is interesting to see how they have developed. Many, due to a strong work ethic, personable personalities and a 'can-do' spirit are in good white collar jobs or run their own businesses.

I have huge admiration of the poles and some of the assertations that they are only a source of cheap labour are insulting. There is a long-term problem of unskilled British youth with a very bad attitude who think they are above mimimum wage jobs which are the only jobs they are in a position to go for (realistically) yet would rather live on benefits as it pays more.

Employers, understandably, don't want these types in their busnesses and choose hardworking migrants instead.

The recession has confused the picture however. Many hard working graduate/young people who have left school have struggled to find jobs and employers, having had bad experience with the underclass, tend to generalise about all 18 year olds applying for jobs as useless, which is grossly unfair.

There is anather double-standard going on. British businesses are happy to hire graduate poles for unskilled work but refuse to hire British graduates, even through many are happy for any job as being unemployed is a horrible experience. The final issue is that british businesses hates training kids and then moan that there isn't enough skilled workers around!

So the bleating of British employers is self-serving at times, but they do have a point.

[Ludwig]

That's why many of our employers prefer Poles to a Brit. A Pole will work for you while while a Brit will just moan. Poles have been sending money home while the government has been paying Brits to not work. Result? Net drain on the economy!!

I really wish people would stop automatically saying this. Perhaps British workers wouldn't moan so much if their employers stopped treating ordinary workers with contempt and weren't so damn greedy. Minimum wage workers are generally treated as scum in this country. Are german workers treated so badly, or japanese. No! How do employers generally attempt to motivate staff in this country? By telling you how much profit they're making! Will this profit be shared? Of course not! Will an ordinary joe be included in decision making processes? Not likely. In tough times, what do upper management do, use accountants to cut jobs. Only limited and relunctant reduction of their own 'salaries' or 'bonuses'. In this country, setting the example doesn't happen. I've seen japanese owners of massive companies get down on their hands and knees and beg forgiveness. What do British equivalents do, shrug their shoulders and say 'not my fault'. It's not the ordinary majority who've repeatedly screwed this country, its the fuckers who think they're better. I get a salary you know, I'm the bees knees.

It might be argued that your post validates Kenneal's point - it's one long whinge!

I do think British people have become lazy and complaining, and I've seen several colleagues - I'm going to say it again, particularly younger ones - roll their eyes at being asked to do anything beyond the call of duty (and sometimes even things within the call of duty).

The fact that Poles work their socks off uncomplainingly shows that it can be done. And as Kenneal's post indicates, the result of that is that Poles get precisely that respect from their employers that you complain British people don't. Too many people in Britain start with the attitude, "Tell me why I should", and that is bound to get employers' backs up.

It's about give and take and if you don't show integrity and commitment to your work, you're not going to get much back in terms of goodwill or slack.

I'm not saying there aren't crap employers in Britain, but if you think it's bad here, try working in China - or, indeed, America.

[kenneal - lagger]

It suited the government of the time to let unemployment run riot and they got around the figures going through the roof by encouraging people to go on the sick.
And they paid for it all with revenues from Nationalised company sell offs and North Sea oil.

They didn't let unemployment run riot, they closed down loss making industries, which were paid for by going to the IMF for a loan, and invested in newer profit making industries which then employed those who had been made unemployed. North Sea oil was invested in the reinvention of British Industry. It could have been "invested" in subsidising British workers in unprofitable industries for a while. But when we joined Europe those jobs would have gone as it's illegal to subsidise jobs in the EU and our "investment" would have been for nothing.

[Ludwig]

I lost my job a few months back. The only benefits i can claim is jsa. By week 5, i was already 'santioned', not my fault. Imo i was tricked into it. Claiming jsa is a nightmare, I'm going to sign off in a couple of weeks and concentrate on self-employment. I'll only be making about £50 a week but this is livable because my costs are so low. There's no way i could have lived on jsa, being single, if my costs weren't so low (i live in a van).

AIUI the Welfare Agency now has draconian targets for getting people off benefits. The criteria for disability allowance have been tightened up so much that there are people with terminal diseases who can't claim it.

And yes, they do make claiming JSA as much of a PITA as possible. You sound like evidence that the strategy works - people just decide it's not worth the bother.

[kenneal - lagger]

I do have a great deal of sympathy for the recently unemployed as most people don't have any control over whether or not their employer goes bust or just has to downsize the business to keep going. Their plight is not a good one as I don't think there will be many new jobs coming up in the future but many people do find jobs, some quite quickly.

I also have sympathy for people in areas of high unemployment because employers are very reluctant to move jobs to those areas. It's far to "nice" and easy to stay in the areas of the country where there is high employment. The fact that there are high living costs in those areas does not seen to affect the decision in any way and neither does the fact that people have to commute vast distances into those areas to work. This is something the government will have to do something about.

[Snail]

My post did sound like a whinge, and i'm not picking on poles specifically. But in my opinion 40 years of British decline has more to do with greedy owners who ran their businesses like personal fiefdoms. And Governments always taking the easy option.I've always worked hard, and like working hard and keeping busy.

I am quitting jsa because my payments were stopped for no good reason yet still have to put up with their nonsense . This is only viable because of my unusal circumstances. I'm not stupid and have thought about self-employment for a long time. But if present government thinks people creating their own employment is the answer, they're wrong. Business opportunities are very rare in this climate. My local town is 3/4s empty, yet retail is a no go for example.

I've just seen 'planking' in action, so i've sympathies with people's views on young people. Yet the school system has been a mess for 20 years. Everything has been geared towards passing exams. So i have sympathy with them as well. They have been badly let down.

People in all walks of life need to stop taking the easy option. Royalty, Government, employers, employees, teenagers etc. Everybody needs to take responsibility, and when this doesn't happen i get annoyed. when only one group is repeatedly targetted.

[Lord Beria3]

Regarding exams, there are a number of reasons why our education system is a failure but the focus on exams is NOT part of the problem. The private school sector has long used exams because it focuses teachers, children on learning and is a useful way to compare how kids are doing.

Employers have their own share of responsibility but there is a tendancy, as shown here by a number of posters, to moan and have a victim mentality rather than a postive can do approach to life which the poles have in spades.

[madibe]

LB3.... please don't get going on exams. You are perhaps not qualified to make judgements on the merits or otherwise.

Educators only.

It could be argued that exams are merely a test of short term information storage and regurgitation; do not prove understanding, application or creative / critical real world process.

As a bench mark for teachers efficiency they may have a place.

But they merely stress out students, make learning into a competative blood sport and displace true deep learning.

As an educator I can honestly say how sickening it is to write a side or two of constructive feedback on a student assignment, only to have the student focus on the grade, rather than read the feedback and take their studies forward.

I have even had students 'be happy' with a grade because it is just enough to get them through... rather than look at how they can improve. Sad.

I could go on, but it gets boring LOL.

[Lord Beria3]

Well, I rather enjoyed exams and was good at the humanities so I may be biased but the private school system (which I went to) has always had a sensible approach to examinations - a very useful way but not the be all and end all of things.

Some state schools seem to go over board about exams. At the end of the day, exams are a important part of the overall educational package, which includes the encouragement of creative, critical and intellectual thinking as well as sports.