voice of reason
18 Mar 2010
UK, Ireland / No job unless you're Polish [201]
I work in business management and this kind of thing is more common than people imagine, I don't blame the ordinary Polish people at all, the British government are the main culprits (mind you, they are dictated to by the undemocratic EU), it is also an effect of globilisation, we regularly benchmark wages and the spending power of the average worker has steadily declined not just because of the recession but over a much longer period. It is worth noting that these jobs would only pay the national minimum wage which to a British person with a family and a mortgage wouldn't even cover basic living costs, these 'sweatshop' employers routinely source cheaper foreign labour via agencies or gangmasters receive payments via the EU cash cow and knowing they are highly unlikely to be conversant with employment law, be members of a trade union and they can be exploited by working overtime at the basic rate, have unpaid breaks and often have 'hidden costs' such as transport, work clothing etc deducted from their wages. My small company has 100% British staff, many of my workers have been with me for over 10 years and I have never had to dismiss or even seriously reprimand anyone, it is fair to say nepotism plays a part in finding a job, for example I will be taking on one of my staff members son when he graduates, I have already inteviewed him and he can leave university knowing he has a job, whenever someone leaves (which isn't very often) I either source the job locally or more usually ask around and if someone I or a friend knows personally has the relevant qualifications/experience I take them on (at a lot more than minimum wage I hasten to add), I am sure Poles 'look out for their mates' in the same way. It is interesting to see people describe the British as 'unproductive' and 'lazy' when you consider they wouldn't have had continually developing mass communication via the printing press, postage stamps, television, radio, ipods and of course the very method we are using now, the internet without British inventors.
I work in business management and this kind of thing is more common than people imagine, I don't blame the ordinary Polish people at all, the British government are the main culprits (mind you, they are dictated to by the undemocratic EU), it is also an effect of globilisation, we regularly benchmark wages and the spending power of the average worker has steadily declined not just because of the recession but over a much longer period. It is worth noting that these jobs would only pay the national minimum wage which to a British person with a family and a mortgage wouldn't even cover basic living costs, these 'sweatshop' employers routinely source cheaper foreign labour via agencies or gangmasters receive payments via the EU cash cow and knowing they are highly unlikely to be conversant with employment law, be members of a trade union and they can be exploited by working overtime at the basic rate, have unpaid breaks and often have 'hidden costs' such as transport, work clothing etc deducted from their wages. My small company has 100% British staff, many of my workers have been with me for over 10 years and I have never had to dismiss or even seriously reprimand anyone, it is fair to say nepotism plays a part in finding a job, for example I will be taking on one of my staff members son when he graduates, I have already inteviewed him and he can leave university knowing he has a job, whenever someone leaves (which isn't very often) I either source the job locally or more usually ask around and if someone I or a friend knows personally has the relevant qualifications/experience I take them on (at a lot more than minimum wage I hasten to add), I am sure Poles 'look out for their mates' in the same way. It is interesting to see people describe the British as 'unproductive' and 'lazy' when you consider they wouldn't have had continually developing mass communication via the printing press, postage stamps, television, radio, ipods and of course the very method we are using now, the internet without British inventors.