whatnext
12 Feb 2010
UK, Ireland / Brits to protest against foreigners in the workforce, including Poles. [289]
OK, I haven't read this whole thread (I am sick of discussions about the BNP), and I wasn't a member of this forum, but felt compelled to sign up to it after reading this.
Let me explain. I am married with 6 children (5 of them under school leaving age), late forties. My husband worked all his life in factories and warehouses - he is 50, working class. He has never claimed unemployment benefit in his life - he always was prepared to do any work, for the lowest pay. He is similar to thousands of working class people - Northamptonshire was a county where shoes were made, and before that, textiles. The population here is not 'lazy' or not prepard to work for minimum wage - they always have. The population here is of below average education, but it didn't matter, because they were prepared to work hard in the factories for the lowest pay. This county has always had low unemployment rate, even though the pay is lower than average.
My husband worked in the same factory for 16 years from leaving school, and was made redundant when it closed down. Most of the manual work in the county was fielded through agencies, so he did agency work for the next 15 years - no problem. Everyone we knew worked for agencies. No problem. The books were full of English (or Scots) names
The agency work then dried up. Sorry mate, no work. Nothing today. Anything likely in the future? No. Within 2 years, most of the agency books are full of Polish names. They reported on it in the local press - ' English people don't want to work - Polish are majority of temporary workers now'. What? English people don't want to work, all of a sudden, in a working class county, where everyone worked in factories, but they just signed off the agency books, just like that? No - this simply is not true. At first, they took your name on the books, but just said there was no work (not true). Then they took people's names off the books, accusing them of turning down work (in our case, not true). This was through the 'boom' where we apparently didn't have enough workers.
There is little or no unskilled work on offer through agencies or anywhere else. What does this mean? That the factories and warehouses are no longer? No. It means now every factory and warehouse in Northamptonshire is full of Poles - and then we get accused of not wanting to work, or not wanting to work for low pay. Which is not true. At one point, only the manual workers were Polish, but now the office workers also are (gets around the language problem I suppose). My brother in law was a manager in a factory - he was told by the bosses to get the agency to supply Polish where possible, and now he has been kicked out and replaced with one!
So, did we sign on the dole? No.
I have a small business that is dying, and for the past 4 years, my husband has done three part-time cleaning jobs every day because it is the only work he can get - it pays half time wage (£400/month), and he is taxed on two of the jobs, which we have to claim back at the end of the year, so we even have to wait a long time for some of that.
Is he lazy? No. When I met him 10 years ago, he was working in a printing plant (agency work) 12 hours continental shift patterns with 6 x 12 hour shifts in a row once a month, for low pay. Those jobs all ended up being done by Polish, even though he worked for the same printers, for the same agency, for 10 years. So what is wrong? Why can he not even get an agency to take his name? Is it because he is 50? Or because he is not Polish? When he does get an interview, which is rare, there are hundreds of other applicants in the same position. Middle aged men applying for cleaning jobs.
Now the government is telling us that Polish people are going home - not true. I still see crowds of them walking to and fro from the industrial estates, and there are still no unskilled labour jobs on offer.
So, we exist on his £400/month wages and have to hold our hands out for tax credits in order to survive.
Every time I talk about this, I get accused of whining, or racism.
I am not a racist - I do not wish to vote BNP. All I want is for my husband to get a full time job so that he can support us - we don't care if it's unskilled - we don't care if it's long hours - we don't care if it's minimum wage. When my children leave school, we will no longer get tax credits? What then? He refuses to sign on unemployment - he never has in his life, but will that be all that is left? He now faces prejudice that would never be allowed if it was directed at any non-British person. Lazy, stupid, chav, alcholic, benefit scrounger etc.
I would ask the Polish people, how would you feel if Poland was suddenly full of strangers who would do the work cheaper than you, and you had to live on low benefits while they work? And then how would you feel if you were in this position, and opened your morning paper to read three times a week that it was because you are no good/lazy/immoral? Would you want to protest?
On the subject of pay, I would like to point out that for the low paid, wages have not increased for 10 years now, apart from the small minimum wage increases. The printer job my husband used to do, paid £6.50/hour 10 years ago, only pays £6/hour now.
These are real problems facing large numbers of British people. More than 10 million *families* now have to take tax credits to survive. Bills have gone up and up while people who are still lucky enough to have jobs have received hardly any increase in pay for years.
Please do not be condescending - we have had about as much as we can take.
We are not all thick, lazy, illiterate scroungers - many of us are decent hard-working people who have just been shut out in the cold. That is why people are protesting - but nobody is listening. Sometimes people just don't believe us. Sometimes they tell us that we should go to University and get a degree (when there are 100,000 young graduates in unemployment, and we are in middle age already), and when many people simply aren't clever enough to reskill into that kind of job.
What does anyone suggest? These are not the kind of people that can learn a new language easily, or afford to up sticks and find a new life abroad, and they do not have skills that are in demand in other countries, which would be required before they were allowed to enter and work. All that is left is for them to protest, and hope that somebody listens, and yes, some will vote BNP because there is no other party that claims to care about British jobs for British people.
Outside of Europe, there is no country in the world that would allow unskilled migrants to do local unskilled jobs. I do not understand why it is expected of us.
I have some suggestions, but they are never likely to happen. Here are two -
1) make zero hours contracts unlawful - it is this mechanism that allowed agencies to just fob people off with the 'no work thing' and replace them with others.
2) force companies moving to Poland (or anywhere else in Europe) to offer the jobs to those in the British workplace first. That might actually help in spreading British people out into Europe - that would be a good thing, right?
OK, I haven't read this whole thread (I am sick of discussions about the BNP), and I wasn't a member of this forum, but felt compelled to sign up to it after reading this.
Let me explain. I am married with 6 children (5 of them under school leaving age), late forties. My husband worked all his life in factories and warehouses - he is 50, working class. He has never claimed unemployment benefit in his life - he always was prepared to do any work, for the lowest pay. He is similar to thousands of working class people - Northamptonshire was a county where shoes were made, and before that, textiles. The population here is not 'lazy' or not prepard to work for minimum wage - they always have. The population here is of below average education, but it didn't matter, because they were prepared to work hard in the factories for the lowest pay. This county has always had low unemployment rate, even though the pay is lower than average.
My husband worked in the same factory for 16 years from leaving school, and was made redundant when it closed down. Most of the manual work in the county was fielded through agencies, so he did agency work for the next 15 years - no problem. Everyone we knew worked for agencies. No problem. The books were full of English (or Scots) names
The agency work then dried up. Sorry mate, no work. Nothing today. Anything likely in the future? No. Within 2 years, most of the agency books are full of Polish names. They reported on it in the local press - ' English people don't want to work - Polish are majority of temporary workers now'. What? English people don't want to work, all of a sudden, in a working class county, where everyone worked in factories, but they just signed off the agency books, just like that? No - this simply is not true. At first, they took your name on the books, but just said there was no work (not true). Then they took people's names off the books, accusing them of turning down work (in our case, not true). This was through the 'boom' where we apparently didn't have enough workers.
There is little or no unskilled work on offer through agencies or anywhere else. What does this mean? That the factories and warehouses are no longer? No. It means now every factory and warehouse in Northamptonshire is full of Poles - and then we get accused of not wanting to work, or not wanting to work for low pay. Which is not true. At one point, only the manual workers were Polish, but now the office workers also are (gets around the language problem I suppose). My brother in law was a manager in a factory - he was told by the bosses to get the agency to supply Polish where possible, and now he has been kicked out and replaced with one!
So, did we sign on the dole? No.
I have a small business that is dying, and for the past 4 years, my husband has done three part-time cleaning jobs every day because it is the only work he can get - it pays half time wage (£400/month), and he is taxed on two of the jobs, which we have to claim back at the end of the year, so we even have to wait a long time for some of that.
Is he lazy? No. When I met him 10 years ago, he was working in a printing plant (agency work) 12 hours continental shift patterns with 6 x 12 hour shifts in a row once a month, for low pay. Those jobs all ended up being done by Polish, even though he worked for the same printers, for the same agency, for 10 years. So what is wrong? Why can he not even get an agency to take his name? Is it because he is 50? Or because he is not Polish? When he does get an interview, which is rare, there are hundreds of other applicants in the same position. Middle aged men applying for cleaning jobs.
Now the government is telling us that Polish people are going home - not true. I still see crowds of them walking to and fro from the industrial estates, and there are still no unskilled labour jobs on offer.
So, we exist on his £400/month wages and have to hold our hands out for tax credits in order to survive.
Every time I talk about this, I get accused of whining, or racism.
I am not a racist - I do not wish to vote BNP. All I want is for my husband to get a full time job so that he can support us - we don't care if it's unskilled - we don't care if it's long hours - we don't care if it's minimum wage. When my children leave school, we will no longer get tax credits? What then? He refuses to sign on unemployment - he never has in his life, but will that be all that is left? He now faces prejudice that would never be allowed if it was directed at any non-British person. Lazy, stupid, chav, alcholic, benefit scrounger etc.
I would ask the Polish people, how would you feel if Poland was suddenly full of strangers who would do the work cheaper than you, and you had to live on low benefits while they work? And then how would you feel if you were in this position, and opened your morning paper to read three times a week that it was because you are no good/lazy/immoral? Would you want to protest?
On the subject of pay, I would like to point out that for the low paid, wages have not increased for 10 years now, apart from the small minimum wage increases. The printer job my husband used to do, paid £6.50/hour 10 years ago, only pays £6/hour now.
These are real problems facing large numbers of British people. More than 10 million *families* now have to take tax credits to survive. Bills have gone up and up while people who are still lucky enough to have jobs have received hardly any increase in pay for years.
Please do not be condescending - we have had about as much as we can take.
We are not all thick, lazy, illiterate scroungers - many of us are decent hard-working people who have just been shut out in the cold. That is why people are protesting - but nobody is listening. Sometimes people just don't believe us. Sometimes they tell us that we should go to University and get a degree (when there are 100,000 young graduates in unemployment, and we are in middle age already), and when many people simply aren't clever enough to reskill into that kind of job.
What does anyone suggest? These are not the kind of people that can learn a new language easily, or afford to up sticks and find a new life abroad, and they do not have skills that are in demand in other countries, which would be required before they were allowed to enter and work. All that is left is for them to protest, and hope that somebody listens, and yes, some will vote BNP because there is no other party that claims to care about British jobs for British people.
Outside of Europe, there is no country in the world that would allow unskilled migrants to do local unskilled jobs. I do not understand why it is expected of us.
I have some suggestions, but they are never likely to happen. Here are two -
1) make zero hours contracts unlawful - it is this mechanism that allowed agencies to just fob people off with the 'no work thing' and replace them with others.
2) force companies moving to Poland (or anywhere else in Europe) to offer the jobs to those in the British workplace first. That might actually help in spreading British people out into Europe - that would be a good thing, right?