stevecook172001 wrote:Yes, they'll find work. They'll find it by undercutting the poles, who themselves found work by undercutting the English. And who benefits from this endless ruthless completion of the working man and woman against each other? That'll be the bastards at the top, who are also part of the same club as the policy-makers who allowed this insanity to happen. Nobody at the bottom, not even the immigrant themselves, in the long run benefit from this. I don't blame them for coming here and looking for work at lower rates than the locals. We'd do the same. But, it has to stop or there is going to be a dreadful backlash.
I'm not just trying to be argumentative but there is also the fact that people from these countries work harder than the Brits. I know companies paying higher than average rates for the trade but still seem to have a preference for Eastern Europeans. There's a reason for this and it's not because the owners of these companies are fuzzy liberals, they like workers who don't complain and work hard, turn up on time, don't get sick often blah blah blah.
I still acknowledge the problem of population growth though but it's important not to use the excuse "well they'll just do it for low wages".
This is misleading.
They are willing to "work harder for less money" only when you compare what they are doing to what the average working-class British person is willing to do. But from their perspective, another comparison is more pertinent, and it is to do with what they would get for the same amount of work in their own country. In other words, they are being paid a whole load more than a person working the same hours in some country in Eastern Europe which has a considerably lower living standard than others. Which means, as Steve has correctly pointed out, that the living standard of working class British people is being dragged down towards that of Bulgaria and Romania, and the only people benefiting from this arrangement are the bastards at the top.
I cannot imagine why anybody would think that what is about to happen is a good idea apart from the Eastern Europeans who are going to come to this country and a few very wealthy British people who will not be negatively affected by their arrival. It ought to (and apparently has) unite both the political left and the political right to oppose it by any means available. Admittedly it is for different reasons (the left are worried about the consequences for working class people and the right tend to dislike immigration in principle).
I was talking from experience, electricians getting more than the jib rate, quite a bit more. Ground workers on £12 per hour and paid 12 hours for a 10 hour shift. I've seen the payrolls.
Yes, they will work for less if less is what's on offer, but they are often preferred even when wages are good.
I can't prove it by showing you the actual data so take it for what it is. I'm am either lying or making a point of fact. Up to you what you believe.
The EU has a trite phrase spun to cover all this and more: 'removing the barriers to growth'. The topic of this thread is nothing. Wait till the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership kicks in. Monbiot gives you a taster.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
emordnilap wrote:The EU has a trite phrase spun to cover all this and more: 'removing the barriers to growth'. The topic of this thread is nothing. Wait till the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership kicks in. Monbiot gives you a taster.
Jesus f****** Christ, it just keeps getting worse. We are being governed by a corporate fascist dictatorship that is making a mockery of democracy and human rights, and our so-called leaders are complicit.
Steve Cook is right. We are now heading towards a war between the people and what is left of the State.
Britain does not do wars between people and state. Britain does wars with the rest of the world and when it is not directly fighting a war it will supply the arms to each side of the war.
However, when you evaluate risk you look to past events. Blokes tend to die at a certain age. Women tend to outlive blokes. Smokers tend to die younger. Young male drivers tend to have a greater propensity to die in car crashes and so on.
When it comes to revolutions, South American countries get really bored and have them every so often. African countries like an overthrow and either disintegrate and re-emerge with a new name, leader or constitution.
European countries over the last hundred years have had the odd civil uprising.
Britain over the last 300 years? Dim,zilch, nothing, nada.
A brief aside: the population of Poland is 38.5m, Bulgaria and Romania combined about 27.3m. 500,000 Poles came here over several years, and while it may have led to some problems in certain areas, they also contributed a great deal economically. They are most certainly not the reason we had a financial crash. Let's not kid ourselves that a million new people are likely to turn up in January, or indeed that they are somehow the biggest threat to our prosperity. They're just ordinary people trying their best in a crazy screwed-up system. There are far more important battles for us to fight, and people who are far more deserving of our ire.
European immigrants have worked hard but they have also remitted huge sums of the money that they have earned back to where they come from. That is money that is lost to the British economy. How is that good for the average Briton?
