Labour will ban shifts to which only foreigners currently have access as it seeks to shift the immigration debate away from benefit tourism and towards the way in which British people can be locked out of the UK labour market.Can someone define for me ‘a shift to which only foreigners have access’? Because, for the life of me, I can’t imagine how…
Labour claims that some labour agencies are recruiting only foreign workers for specific shifts, such as Ukrainians for strawberry picking, without even offering the chance of work to UK citizens.Oh, really? And I suppose if that weren’t happening (if it even is…), the UK unemployed would be biting their hands off?
Tell that to Danny James…
The party will also call for an end to employers exploiting foreign workers by paying them the minimum wage, but then charging them extortionate amounts for accommodation.Good luck with trying to write that legislation!
The plans, Labour claimed, were the first serious attempt by any party to deal with some of the challenges posed by the exploitation of low-skilled migrants, which can undermine local wages and jobs as well as challenge integration.Suddenly, Labour needs the good honest working Englishman? Hmmm. Must be an election coming up.
In other news, Labour refused to confirm or deny that it intended to ban any shift during which salat times occurred, because they disadvantage a certain minority.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salat_times
What people with work, usually well paid, do not understand, is that people need to be able to earn a decent wage in order to have a decent level of living.
ReplyDeleteIf you are allowing large numbers of people into the country, this has a number of effects.
It reduces opportunities for employment, especially amongst the low skilled. Reduces wage levels. Increases pressure on rented accommodation and services, driving up costs.
This should be nothing new to anyone here. But to the great and the good who have inflicted this upon many people, its news. And they try and palm it off as if people are lazy.
I too have taken jobs for low pay but I am in a position where I can take the hit in loss of earnings. Others are not as fortunate.
There have been plenty of stories of employers offering jobs that seemed a bit too much like hard work and not exactly being knocked over by the rush of jobless British applicants...
ReplyDeleteI remember back in the early years of Thatcher when she was closing down all the engineering/shipbuilding/mining industries etc, people in the south would say "I think it's a good thing, trim the fat, the country will be leaner and fitter" and all that bollox.
ReplyDeleteIt was a completely different tale when it was no longer people from the north and midlands losing their jobs, but people in the properous south.
To say there was more than a touch of schadenfreude up this was when Thatcherite wankers went outside for a "Fire drill" and found the office behind them locked, or the sales team arriving at some conference centre somewhere up the M6 to be given an envelope and the keys to their company cars taken from them, is a bit of an understatement.
The moral to this particular story is, don't be a smug git over low paid workers having their jobs taken by cheap imported workers, as some day soon, it will be you on the receiving end.
@Budvar The moral to this particular story is, don't be a smug git over low paid workers having their jobs taken by cheap imported workers, as some day soon, it will be you on the receiving end.
ReplyDeleteI doubt you'll find too many people who are "smug" about it. Especially as the jobs aren't "taken" by immigrant labour, they are given to immigrant workers because they will do them, and do them well. Business is business and life is what you make it. I know it's much easier to whinge and moan than it is to persuade your employer that you are an asset and worthy of higher rewards - it took me a year or two to work it out too!
Having read the linked article, what Labour are really proposing are rafts of Red Tape... if anyone believes this is going to improve your lot, you're sadly mistaken.
ReplyDeleteAnd then they have this to say: "At a time when there is real pressure from a cost-of-living crisis, people are really concerned that low-skilled immigration is being exploited to undercut wages."
Excuse me?
Higher wages will make things cheaper in the shops.... or more expensive? Mmmmm now let me think. Lower or higher? Gosh, difficult one this. If only they could end boom and bust too, I'd vote for them.
"...any shift during which salat times occurred..."
ReplyDeleteGAH! I misread that as 'salad times' and wondered when vegetarians had got all uppity!
"... people need to be able to earn a decent wage in order to have a decent level of living."
Or...cut their cloth according to their circumstances?
If the 'decent salary' isn't forthcoming (for whatever reason), then the level of living should be adjusted.
"...back in the early years of Thatcher when she was closing down all the engineering/shipbuilding/mining industries etc..."
Was she doing that? I thought a lot of things were doing that, not just a single politician...
"Having read the linked article, what Labour are really proposing are rafts of Red Tape..."
The better to increase the public sector!
XX Can someone define for me ‘a shift to which only foreigners have access’? Because, for the life of me, I can’t imagine how… XX
ReplyDeleteWhat?
Evening shift? Early shift? Night shift?
What is this wanker ON about?