Polish Thoughts on Britain and the British

I jus find it rude as I will be talking to a polish worker about work related stuff and then another polish person will come along and they both start talking in polish. I find this extremely rude and would also find it rude if 2 English people did the same thing.

It probably is considered rude if one person was in conversation with you at the time. However, I know that I am guilty launching into English at 100 MPH in a Scottish accent whilst Polish friends are present. Sometimes it's just natural to slip into your own "tongue".

so tell them that it is rude ... and you feel offended. becuse you are repeating it all the time and what we can do for you here

Yawn...

If Im talking to a person regardless of their language I dont expect them then to just start a conversation with another person about something totally different.

Seriously ?

Just the very arrogant attitude I been talking about. Grzegorz!!!!!!!!

I'll tell ya another problem that miagrant workers bring to this country. Our wages are going down as alot of English people wont work for low wages so the companies employe europeons because they will work for anything. It aint on!!

The UK has a minimum wage. So it's not a matter of working for anything is it ?

Also, read this link.... timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2673795.ece

It's about how "Weekly mean earnings of migrants are also 60 pounds higher than their UK counterparts." As well as, "Migrants are more reliable and harder working than British-born workers and are boosting economic output by 6 billion pounds a year".

This is information from a Government study recently published.

So your comments are false, very misleading and ill informed......:(

This area has a lot of free courses to match the high number of migrants.They are all free
and our run by the local colleges.I have arranged for several Polish people to attend them and they were very happy with the course.Good employers can have the tutors come to the workplace when they have large numbers and a suitable training room.The firm I contract to did that-again free. You can even do a free IT course in MK which is done on a casual drop in basis.If you look for whats on offer you'll see that GB is bending over backwards to help people increase their skills.

I knew many people.Brits,italians,spaniards,yanks,belgians e.t.c they were mainly in business or teaching and they all spoke polish to some extent.True they werent all fluent but they could get on with what they knew and would only get better with time.

Poland is a very difficult place to be if you dont understand a word.If you live in a student town or a tourist area you may have a chance of speaking only english,but try for yourself one day to cope a whole day in say..Krakow on english alone and then imagine everyday like it.Most people dont expect fluent English or even goodenglish.They do expect to see effortand They will do the rest in order to make the conversation work.

It does but that doesnt mean you can take a pay drop to go to it.Your mortgage was arranged at the earnings you had when you started it.If your pay drops or stops rising(effectiverly a drop) you will find yourself struggling.If your firm always paid above the minimum but now doesnt because it has lots of poles you're entitled to be annoyed I think.

They may be earning more because when you're here alone all you can do is work.When you have children and a partner to entertain you are less available.I earned much much more before my family came here to join me.Dont twist the facts unless you've thought about it.and the migrants are not more reliable and hard working,their just easier to take advantage of because of their social and financial circumstances.Not many people could keep up with me and i aint a pole.

I'm not twisting any facts. And I do think about my posts, do you ?

Read the news and the Government reports that have been published which are based on facts and hard evidence rather than relying on heresay and one persons opinion !!


You're one person, therefore one view.

'Migrants 'have better work ethic' news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7035441.stm

See also :-'UK jobless rate in further fall'
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7048465.stm

Quite right. But at the firm I hope. It is their actions after all.

sounds like a good initiative.. if anyone knows of free English classes in London that are available in the evenings or weekends I would be happy to hear about it.

ask at your local college and they will tell you how to do it.Good luck

Yes at the firm, and anyone amongst those workers who may find it humorous.

I have found this thread very interesting (Living in the north of england)

Yes "us Brits" are reserved, but ply us with 'proper' vodka and we soon come out of our tiny shells.
I have read the grafitti requesting that Polish people should leave 'our' country - I'd rather have a Polish person as a friend / neighbour than some narrow-minded racist who doesn't even like him/her self and takes it out on everyone else.

As for 'taking our jobs' - If the Polish people didn't have any pride and didn't work for what they want in life, they would be berated for 'living off the state' - keep working I say and keep the bigots and narrow minded fools out of a job.

The world is a far more interesting place when people from different cultures / backgrounds get together - my life has been enriched by my Polish friends and I hope they could say the same about the english people they have met.

Sorry for the rant - but I had to get things off my chest - I hate it when one human being abuses another human being just because they perceive them as being different in some way .......

You're not sorry are you?
I couldn't have put it better myself.

I like you already! I agree.

Another vote for Davidoff from me

I completely agree with this. I have seen the amounts of people who are actually better off sitting around doing nothing and living off the state. The polish population (in the most part) actually comes over here to honestly work and earn a little bit of money. We work hard, we pay taxes (again for the most part) and we are honest people trying to make a life for ourselves.

As much as I may have "taken" someone's job, in this job I pay taxes which pays for the large percentage of people on benefits. Either way, things work out to be fair. By working here the Poles put money into the British economy and at the end of the day everyone benefits!

this is not the case now, it has been abolished and people must pay!


It doesnt actually state the hours worked by migrants, but I would imagine that migrant works longer hours. I read a similar article in the Telegraph yesterday and it also said mentioned the strain on schools and hospitals and that wages were being driven down by migrant works.

So what it comes down to is that migrant workers work harder, even though they earn less. So instead of giving motivation to current employees of many establishments, the employees of those establishments find it easier to complain...

'Weekly mean earnings'.......is like for like......so it doesn't say they earn more because they work more hours.

A comparison based on like for like.......It's a government study and I read the online info about it.

Nice to see you back Shelley, did you have a good holiday ?

:)


That may or may not be the case. The Government study stated what i already quoted in a previous post. It doesn't specifically refer to Polish people.

It's always best to read the article first based on the evidence otherwise things can so easily get misconstrued. :)

I don't understand how Polish people are harder workers than their British counterparts.

When I was working in the building trade I was paid a daily rate and usually a bonus. It stands to reason that anyone being paid a bonus will put in more effort. Also. some building jobs are paid according to a fixed price. So the quicker you do it, the quicker you can move on to the next job.

Experience is what counts and some people who are well organized can appear to work slower, but in fact achieve more.

The last time I worked in the UK was almost twenty years ago. The going rate offered by building companies on this forum is no higher than I was earning all those years ago.

Polish immigrants and others are without doubt dragging pay rates down and building companies are obviously using the "hard workers" statement as an excuse to pay less

That's exactly the point, the immigrants don't make up the pay rates, their employers do. So in fact the employers are paying less. I don't know a single polish person who would rather work for less than for more. In the end everyone wants to be paid the most they can make. Your statement logically doesn't follow through.

Try reading to the end of the sentence.

Hence you are actually saying that building companys are using migrant workers as an excuse?

I think it's clear what I'm saying. In order to guarantee work, Polish workers have shown that they will work for less. Building companies are taking full advantage of this.


To pay less. Yes.

Ok, I got it and I agree, to a point migrant workers do agree to work for lower wages if those wages translate to earning more than they would earn in their country of origin.

Hi - again

I feel better having got my rant off my chest now - thanx to those above : mkrzywinski, Nigel, _Sofi_ and osiol who agreed enough to quote me.

osiol - you are right - I'm not sorry really - just a figure of 'speech'. I like this forum already - just as good as the car club I'm a member of.

Oh one last thing I just noticed .... I mis-spelt my own name !!!! - ah well

Allowing all these Poles in to the U.K will no doubt bring general wage levels down and quality of building work will suffer too. A lot of these Poles pretend they know everything and can turn their hands to anything, rather like a lot on this forum! However, in general, their work can even be dangerous! The future working class in this country is going to have serious problems.

I wonder why language tuition is free.
I think it should be each person's individual responsibility.