# Massive rises in unemployment: Do we need to talk about Eva?



## treelover (Nov 16, 2011)

The news today has shown that unemployment  is now at its highest since 1994 and for young people is even higher, this is a tragedy for all concerned. 

Yet when I was in London last week, nearly every person serving in shops, museums, and especially cafes was from eastern Europe, these were clearly ‘entry level’ jobs that would have gone in the past to young Londoners. This is replicated across the south east: My east European friend told that nearly all her co-workers in her hotel where she worked were Hungarian.​
Now of course, the ex Eastern Bloc countries are all in the EU and have the right to work and live in the uk or any other EU country but the levels are so high now that is needs to be discussed. Meanwhile Uk citizens are being forced onto work for dole programmes with companies like Tescos and Poundland, this is just crazy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/nov/16/young-jobseekers-work-pay-unemployment?intcmp=122

Obviously this is not the only factor or even the key factor in the crisis we are in, we need more decent training programmes, housebuilding programmes, apprenticeships, etc and of course a Keynsian economic programme to create those desperately needed jobs, but there is of course the possibility that any new jobs will in fact be taken by more EU citizens who see these new opportunities as the happen here.

I don’t have any easy answers, but I don’t accept the lump of labour fallacy, I think it is legititimate to discuss it and cries of racism, xenophobia, BJFBW won’t wash, I know what unemployment does to the soul, especially youth unemployment…..


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## bi0boy (Nov 16, 2011)

treelover said:


> I don’t have any easy answers, but I don’t accept the lump of labour fallacy, I think it is legititimate to discuss it and cries of racism, xenophobia, BJFBW won’t wash, I know what unemployment does to the soul, especially youth unemployment…..



Do Hungarians not have souls?


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## treelover (Nov 16, 2011)

easy response...


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## Kizmet (Nov 16, 2011)

Who's Eva?


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## temper_tantrum (Nov 16, 2011)

Kizmet said:


> Who's Eva?



Just what I was going to say.


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## bi0boy (Nov 16, 2011)

treelover said:


> easy response...



But it seems like a logical one to me. Your argument appears to be that we should stop foreigners from working here because you "know what unemployment does to the soul".


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## treelover (Nov 16, 2011)

lets have a substantive discussion on the issues, not the froth...

it could be Petra or Olga, or Irina...


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## rover07 (Nov 16, 2011)

Eva?


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## bi0boy (Nov 16, 2011)

treelover said:


> lets have a substantive discussion on the issues, not the froth...



What issues? EU membership? Johnny Foreigner nicking our jobs? British jobs for British workers?


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## treelover (Nov 16, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> But it seems like a logical one to me. Your argument appears to be that we should stop foreigners from working here because you "know what unemployment does to the soul".



so, there is no discussion then, open markets open borders...


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## temper_tantrum (Nov 16, 2011)

treelover said:


> lets have a substantive discussion on the issues, not the froth...
> 
> it could be Petra or Olga, or Irina...



Oh I see. Standard Eastern European girls' names. How cunning. And what exactly is the problem with Eva, Petra, Olga and Irina?


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## bi0boy (Nov 16, 2011)

treelover said:


> so, there is no discussion then, open markets open borders...



What's wrong with open borders? You think people should be corralled into "countries"? And how do you have closed markets with open borders?


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## Kizmet (Nov 16, 2011)

treelover said:


> lets have a substantive discussion on the issues, not the froth...
> 
> it could be Petra or Olga, or Irina...



So let's start this substantive discussion by randomly selecting eastern European sounding female names?


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## Kizmet (Nov 16, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> What's wrong with open borders? You think people should be corralled into "countries"? And how do you have closed markets with open borders?



Open markets and open borders are for idiots.


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## treelover (Nov 16, 2011)

it was a way of getting interest in the issue and play on the new film, still not entering, not interested in your accusations..


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## bi0boy (Nov 16, 2011)

Kizmet said:


> Open markets and open borders are for idiots.



Closed borders are for people who like to maintain inequality, because they benefit from it.


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## temper_tantrum (Nov 16, 2011)

treelover said:


> it was a way of getting interest in the issue *and play on the new film*, still not entering, not interested in your accusations..



What new film? A film about evil Polish women, coming over here and stealing our jobs?


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## Kizmet (Nov 16, 2011)

Absolutely.


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## Santino (Nov 16, 2011)

We Need To Talk About Kewin


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## Kizmet (Nov 16, 2011)

treelover said:


> it was a way of getting interest in the issue and play on the new film, still not entering, not interested in your accusations..



What new film?


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## treelover (Nov 16, 2011)

for christs sake I think i will change the title,


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## GEN.Eccentric (Nov 16, 2011)

Have you thought of asking yourself or perhaps the people you have been observing why they would be employed over a local? You seem to think there is some type of conspiracy between employers in the low level service sector and eastern european labour against the unemployed people of this country dont you think that sounds a bit like a knee jerk reaction?


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## Kizmet (Nov 16, 2011)

treelover said:


> for christs sake I think i will change the title,



Yes. We need to talk about Nikita.

Will she ever know anything about my home?


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## rover07 (Nov 16, 2011)

What have you got against, Eva?


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## Ax^ (Nov 16, 2011)

rover07 said:


> Eva?



don;'t forget about the fish


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## treelover (Nov 16, 2011)

actually its a considered OP if you read it, welcome genuine responses, froggie, BA, etc...


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## Kizmet (Nov 16, 2011)

rover07 said:


> What have you got against, Eva?



A Sharp upturn in motoring accidents... as I recall.


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## _angel_ (Nov 16, 2011)

Б





GEN.Eccentric said:


> Have you thought of asking yourself or perhaps the people you have been observing why they would be employed over a local? You seem to think there is some type of conspiracy between employers in the low level service sector and eastern european labour against the unemployed people of this country dont you think that sounds a bit like a knee jerk reaction?


you dont think employers are deliberately driving down pay?


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## Kizmet (Nov 16, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> Closed borders are for people who like to maintain inequality, because they benefit from it.



Absolutely. So borders and appropriate border controls it is, then.


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## rover07 (Nov 16, 2011)

Kizmet said:


> A Sharp upturn in motoring accidents... as I recall.



No worse than driving with full beam headlights.


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## Boycey (Nov 16, 2011)

rover07 said:


> What have you got against, Eva?



she short changed me the other day in sainsbury's.


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## temper_tantrum (Nov 16, 2011)

I have a friend called Eva. I think she'd be a bit offended if you suggested that there was a problem with her, however.


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## Fruitloop (Nov 16, 2011)

http://cynicuseconomicus.blogspot.com/2011/10/price-of-unskilled-labour.html


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## GEN.Eccentric (Nov 16, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> Бyou dont think employers are deliberately driving down pay?


Definitely but I dont equate that to Johnny Foreigner taking our jobs it would happen anyway they are just taking the lowest relative paid jos working in central london and other cities earning peanuuts living in crowded conditions theyre taking the slack up that would otherwise be filled by the young unemployed here doesnt mean they are better off just because they have a job with no security and terrible pay and conditions.


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## Belushi (Nov 16, 2011)

Large numbers of young people from the old Eastern bloc have been a fixture in London for well over a decade now


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## treelover (Nov 16, 2011)

Yes, but now the 'young unemployed' are going to be forced to work for even less under the work programme, etc...


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## Kizmet (Nov 16, 2011)

Boycey said:


> she short changed me the other day in sainsbury's.



Crikey, she's fallen a long way since her wonderbra days. Models have such a short shelf life.


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## Belushi (Nov 16, 2011)

That's hardly the fault of immigrants.


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## Kizmet (Nov 16, 2011)

treelover said:


> Yes, but now the 'young unemployed' are going to be forced to work for even less under the work programme, etc...



Did you really expect this government to honour the minimum wage?


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## treelover (Nov 16, 2011)

Belushi, say the unspoken , in central london, are young people who were born there getting entry level jobs or not and what is their future, workfare?  benefits won't be an option soon...


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## Fruitloop (Nov 16, 2011)

What is an entry level job though? That implies that it's an entry to something worthwhile. Those are not in general the jobs that Svetlanas are taking.


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## _angel_ (Nov 16, 2011)

Its not just young people being forced to work for nowt. Love the way the guardian suddenly care about this now.When it was lab policy it was all great.


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## Boycey (Nov 16, 2011)

treelover said:


> Belushi, say the unspoken , in central london, are young people who were born there getting entry level jobs or not and what is their future, workfare? benefits won't be an option soon...



what do you mean by entry level job?


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## frogwoman (Nov 16, 2011)

Who says that no immigrants have worked for shitty jobs below minimum wage? What makes you think that they're not going to work on something equivalent to the wages of the "work programme" or worse, or that no immigrants are unemployed? I worked in a homeless shelter a few years ago and there had been a huge increase, even then, of homeless Polish and other Eastern European people who'd moved here expecting to find work and been unable to find any.


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## Belushi (Nov 16, 2011)

treelover said:


> Belushi, say the unspoken , in central london, are young people who were born there getting entry level jobs or not and what is their future, workfare? benefits won't be an option soon...



Again, how is this the fault of immigrants?


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## GEN.Eccentric (Nov 16, 2011)

treelover said:


> Belushi, say the unspoken , in central london, are young people who were born there getting entry level jobs or not and what is their future, workfare? benefits won't be an option soon...


Why are you conflating this with people who have moved from eastern europe 'taking all the jobs'? You do realise how crap the conditions are in the jobs migrants take?


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## Belushi (Nov 16, 2011)

And of course millions of British Citizens are busy stealing jobs abroad

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6210358.stm


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## Kizmet (Nov 16, 2011)

that's not his point, though.


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## Fruitloop (Nov 16, 2011)

What is his point?


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## Belushi (Nov 16, 2011)

It's 'unspoken' apparently.


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## bi0boy (Nov 16, 2011)

treelover said:


> Belushi, say the unspoken , in central london, are young people who were born there getting entry level jobs or not and what is their future, workfare?.



They could move to Poland and work in an Ikea factory.


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## Kizmet (Nov 16, 2011)

Belushi said:


> It's 'unspoken' apparently.



The bigotry that dare not speak its name....


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## _angel_ (Nov 16, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> They could move to Poland and work in an Ikea factory.


The ghost of norman tebbit lives on!


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## SaskiaJayne (Nov 16, 2011)

Are these east European workers directly employed or are they agency workers? If they are agency workers you cannot really blame their places of work unless you then question why these companies prefer to to use agency workers rather than their own directly employed workers. Many agencies using foreign workers of a particular nationality were set up & are run by people of that same nationality & 'look after' ie provide accommodation for  these workers. These agencies are not necessarily in the business of employing workers of UK nationality.


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## Fruitloop (Nov 16, 2011)

On yer plane


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## Belushi (Nov 16, 2011)

Friend of mine works in a factory in Poland which was moved from Ireland a decade ago. Now the talk is of moving it to Vietnam.


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## bi0boy (Nov 16, 2011)

Belushi said:


> Friend of mine works in a factory in Poland which was moved from Ireland a decade ago. Now the talk is of moving it to Vietnam.



He better gtfo. Vietnamese jobs for Vietnamese workers!


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## Kizmet (Nov 16, 2011)

Ah the joys of open markets.


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## rover07 (Nov 16, 2011)

Belushi said:


> Friend of mine works in a factory in Poland which was moved from Ireland a decade ago. Now the talk is of moving it to Vietnam.



Thats a loooong bike ride.


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## bi0boy (Nov 16, 2011)

Kizmet said:


> Ah the joys of open markets.



If only we could keep the poor on their foreign farms...


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## _angel_ (Nov 16, 2011)

Belushi said:


> Friend of mine works in a factory in Poland which was moved from Ireland a decade ago. Now the talk is of moving it to Vietnam.


how is this a good thing?


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## bi0boy (Nov 16, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> how is this a good thing?



Vietnamese people get jobs at the expense of their wealthier foreign compatriots, it must be bad, right?


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## treelover (Nov 16, 2011)

mmm... satire...


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## Kizmet (Nov 16, 2011)

In answer to the OP... no, we don't need to talk about Eva, or irina or olga.

The problems with massive rises in unemployment aren't influenced by immigration specifically. They are to do with a structure that predominantly exists to service itself.

The interesting point to me is that there are millions of people not specifically working on designated tasks and yet there are clearly many many jobs still to be done. Not fucking bar work, but jobs in care and emergency services. 

The question is why are we not hiring people to do those jobs?


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## Fruitloop (Nov 16, 2011)

It's important though. This is a really new and unprecedented thing. We must form an opinion right away.


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## _angel_ (Nov 16, 2011)

Bad news for poland and ireland tho. Unless you really think people should leave their home country to serve capitalism better.


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## Kizmet (Nov 16, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> If only we could keep the poor on their foreign farms...



Are we running short on poor?


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## treelover (Nov 16, 2011)

Kizmet said:


> In answer to the OP... no, we don't need to talk about Eva, or irina or olga.
> 
> The problems with massive rises in unemployment aren't influenced by immigration specifically. They are to do with a structure that predominantly exists to service itself.
> 
> ...



I said all that about creating well needed jobs in the OP, I am talking about a crisis happening now...


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## Fruitloop (Nov 16, 2011)

Did you read the link I posted? What do you think of it?


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## Belushi (Nov 16, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> how is this a good thing?



It isn't. It is illustrative of the point that the problem isn't ordinary people who just want a job to get by.


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## _angel_ (Nov 16, 2011)

Been trying to quote kizmet unsuccessfully now. its not like cameron wants to employ public sector workers let alone in the nhs, is it. my friends husband is a nurse who cant find fulltime work in liverpool.


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## bi0boy (Nov 16, 2011)

treelover said:


> I said all that about creating well needed jobs in the OP, I am talking about a crisis happening now...



What's needed is some kneejerk legislation.


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## _angel_ (Nov 16, 2011)

I am slightly amazed that so many so called lefties totally embrace free markets and globalisation like this.


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## Belushi (Nov 16, 2011)

What we need is a scapegoat, something the whole country can rally round.


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## Belushi (Nov 16, 2011)

Not capitalism though, that's just the politics of envy.


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## bi0boy (Nov 16, 2011)

Belushi said:


> Not capitalism though, that's just the politics of envy.



How about we make certain people illegal?


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## Kizmet (Nov 16, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> Been trying to quote kizmet unsuccessfully now. its not like cameron wants to employ public sector workers let alone in the nhs, is it. my friends husband is a nurse who cant find fulltime work in liverpool.



Well yes, that's my point, kinda. These are jobs that need doing and they're not the jobs particularly going to immigrants... except in situations where there is a shortage of skilled workers.

Why have we got a million unemployed kids and millions of sick, needy or elderly people who need help? Why have we got shitty streets and no go areas when there are people living there who could, given the right support, make them better places to live?

Because there is no will to implement those systems.


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## Fruitloop (Nov 16, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> I am slightly amazed that so many so called lefties totally embrace free markets and globalisation like this.


I don't think that's what's going on. Who is embracing those things?


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## Captain Hurrah (Nov 16, 2011)

Fruitloop said:


> What is an entry level job though? That implies that it's an entry to something worthwhile. Those are not in general the jobs that Svetlanas are taking.


 
Indeed.  The idea that these are entry level jobs to something better later on is largely a load of bollocks.  And I've been working 'entry level' jobs all my working life.  And I must say I feel sorry for the dole-fucked youth, disadvantaged or graduate, doing my job for fuck all except for what they should be entitled to in the first place.   And I think perhaps the immigrants I work with (Latvian, Indian and Filipino) would agree.


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## treelover (Nov 16, 2011)

'It isn't. It is illustrative of the point that the problem isn't ordinary people who just want a job to get by.'

I'm not accusing anyone, I'm just asking for an open discusion on the issue


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## treelover (Nov 16, 2011)

'Why have we got a million unemployed kids and millions of sick, needy or elderly people who need help? Why have we got shitty streets and no go areas when there are people living there who could, given the right support, make them better places to live?'
Because there is no will to implement those systems.'

with the eurozone, its possible any new jobs would actually go to new EU migrants, there are now 23 million people unemployed in the Eurozone, all will be looking for work...

this is a fact, not a Tobyjug one, I'm not saying kick people out just want to scrutinise it on here...


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## Kizmet (Nov 16, 2011)

Those 23 million have quite a commute on their hands.

Locality should be an advantage when it comes to employment.


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## Kizmet (Nov 16, 2011)

I think you're showing too much concern for the fate of the McJob... in my opinion there are too many of them as it is.


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## Minnie_the_Minx (Nov 16, 2011)

Wish everyone would stop harking back to the 1990s figures.  It was a lot worse when I left school in 1982.  Don't see that get a mention


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## bi0boy (Nov 16, 2011)

Minnie_the_Minx said:


> Wish everyone would stop harking back to the 1990s figures. It was a lot worse when I left school in 1982. Don't see that get a mention



You didn't have to compete with hordes of eager continental types willing to do more work for less money than you.


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## Minnie_the_Minx (Nov 16, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> You didn't have to compete with hordes of eager continental types willing to do more work for less money than you.



That's true, but barely anyone got to go to University either 

and we didn't have cheap clothes shops/food shops/£1 shops either


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## Chemical needs (Nov 16, 2011)

I have a friend who's Slovakian who works as an office manager at a consultancy. The two English girls who work under the office manager are useless and constantly fuck things up....

Just thought I'd throw that in the mix


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## scifisam (Nov 16, 2011)

Fruitloop said:


> I don't think that's what's going on. Who is embracing those things?



Maybe they're not really, but it looks like it in this thread.

It's ridiculous though. If you bring more people into the labour market, you shouldn't then act surprised that the pre-existing labour market finds things a lot tougher.

There's nothing at all we can do about it though. The EU borders are open, the individual workers are doing nothing that we wouldn't do in their place, and there's no going back.



Chemical needs said:


> I have a friend who's Slovakian who works as an office manager at a consultancy. The two English girls who work under the office manager are useless and constantly fuck things up....
> 
> Just thought I'd throw that in the mix



Yeah. That kind of reverse xenophobia is _really_ helpful.


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## captainmission (Nov 16, 2011)

treelover said:


> I'm not accusing anyone, I'm just asking for an open discusion on the issue



good tip here treelover, if you want to start discussion why not actually say something? Like what you think on the issue? or what the solutions is? or i what you think the state should do? or what the you think we as workers should do? you know, abit more than saying 'can't we have an open discussion' followed by a void in which to insinuate about polish sounding girls.


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## treelover (Nov 16, 2011)

er, thats the whole point, i wanted views, always respected you since we met in manc many years ago, but I'm sorry but the void is in the lefts blind spot to the effects on youth and the working class in relation to the above...


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## danny la rouge (Nov 16, 2011)

Kizmet said:


> Who's Eva?


Really?  It's all about Eva.


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## treelover (Nov 16, 2011)

note to slef, don't use clever wordplay titles on urban, message will get lost in satire, diversions,

then again, usually its just insults...


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## Dr Dolittle (Nov 16, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> You didn't have to compete with hordes of eager continental types willing to do more work for less money than you.


You think the employers pay immigrant workers less than they would pay British workers? Do you have any evidence to support that assumption? You realise that would be illegal?

When unemployment is high and there aren't enough jobs for everyone, the ones who get the jobs, at any level, are the more aspirational, organised, positive-thinking, skilled ones. People who emigrate generally are like that - disorganised, negative, unskilled people stay at home. That's why it tends to be the immigrants who get the entry level jobs.


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## little_legs (Nov 16, 2011)

Eva is Armenian 

As for the solution, suck it up and vote for the Communist party.


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## kittyP (Nov 16, 2011)

Santino said:


> We Need To Talk About Kewin



Have you read or seen it?


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## Captain Hurrah (Nov 16, 2011)

little_legs said:


> Eva is Armenian
> 
> As for the solution, suck it up and vote for the Communist party.



Which one? One of them parties with hyphenated letters encased in round brackets at the end of its name? New Thingy Whatchamacallit Unified Communist Party Whatever (M-L).


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## elbows (Nov 16, 2011)

treelover said:


> er, thats the whole point, i wanted views, always respected you since we met in manc many years ago, but I'm sorry but the void is in the lefts blind spot to the effects on youth and the working class in relation to the above...



I wouldn't say its a blind spot. It is an area where multiple heavy aspects intersect, and when trying to guard against some of the most repugnant forms of divide-and-conquer, scapegoating and ignorance, some of the other issues can get buried.

The left does have potential solutions, but in order to avoid the terrible shite the issue must not be tacked head on in a vacuum.

Im sure that in a better world, people would like the freedom of movement, but coupled with a situation whereby nobody is forced to go to another country to find a job, or one that comes with reasonable pay, conditions & rights.

Personally, I can't stand the manner in which you discuss issues such as this one, and issues arising from muslim members of this nation. You play right into the great trap of obsessing over our differences, what separates us rather than unites us, and that makes you a tool for ugly forces. So don't expect people to apologise for pussyfooting around such issues, they are just looking at a broader range of problems from a different angle.


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## little_legs (Nov 16, 2011)

Captain Hurrah said:


> Which one? One of them parties with hyphenated letters encased in round brackets at the end of its name? New Thingy Whatchamacallit Unified Communist Party Whatever (M-L).



You must have a party which if and when it came to power it would nationalise BT, British Gas, National Rail, NHS. Xenophobic treelover should vote for that party.


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## elbows (Nov 16, 2011)

treelover said:


> er, thats the whole point, i wanted views, always respected you since we met in manc many years ago, but I'm sorry but the void is in the lefts blind spot to the effects on youth and the working class in relation to the above...



Its not so much a failing of the left, as it is one of the more cunning and hard-to-escape from aspects of capitalisms globalisation project. They make us compete in ways that undermine what should be our shared interests. To overcome this requires quite the opposite of your approach.


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## treelover (Nov 16, 2011)

you mean 'pie in the sky' then, sorry utopias that way, not happy with your vindictive comments either, sad....


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## Chemical needs (Nov 16, 2011)

scifisam said:


> ....Yeah. That kind of reverse xenophobia is _really_ helpful.



Reverse xenophobia?!? I was just stating fact.

It's a fact which backs up the opinion that foreign workers get jobs because they have a better work ethic, but it's still a fact.


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## elbows (Nov 16, 2011)

In a nutshell, looking at the problem from one particular angle:

There are not enough jobs here, or almost anyplace else. There is a global jobs crisis.

Protectionism of various sorts is a risk in this environment.

The challenge is how to replace a dodgy global system with an alternative. If its left to individual nations then interesting & positive things can still happen, but there are many extremely ugly risks from unwinding a large global capitalist project in a chaotic, nationalistic way.

There are some secondary issues involving how we bring up a good chunk of our children, their attitudes, skills, expectations etc. Much of this stems from the changing needs of capitalism for workers of various different sorts, and the ways in which past hideous adjustments in the labour force have been dealt with in decades past. Workers in plenty of other countries have had a slightly different set of problems, influences and options, and capitalism has exploited this for all its worth.


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## elbows (Nov 16, 2011)

treelover said:


> you mean 'pie in the sky' then, sorry utopias that way, not happy with your vindictive comments either, sad....



I do not apologise for hating haters and their ugly selection of debating weapons. I'd gladly upset and insult individual people such as yourself a thousand times over rather than stoop to a political stance that leaves entire groups of people open to hate. I do not expect utopia, but neither will I applaud those who go off down a weird path and end up following some worm. You've fallen so far in the years I've read your posts here that its not even funny. Shame on you.


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## Quartz (Nov 16, 2011)

Are foreign workers less likely to complain about being exploited?


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## elbows (Nov 16, 2011)

Quartz said:


> Are foreign workers less likely to complain about being exploited?



Not just foreign workers, the desire that many people have to work is a key foundation upon which systems of exploitation can be built.


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## elbows (Nov 16, 2011)

treelover said:


> you mean 'pie in the sky' then, sorry utopias that way, not happy with your vindictive comments either, sad....



Retaining hope no matter the circumstances, and having a much broader sense of which humans deserve to be helped than you seem to have these days, is not utopian thinking.

Whats your solution then? You lurk around the margins, seemingly afraid to state your full opinion on matters such as these, obsessing over the failures of 'the left', which means you have far more to worry about than whether I've made you unhappy. I can't believe you can be satisfied with the current point you have reached in your political journey, and Im impatient to see you either travel onwards to the ugly zone which I so cruelly suggest you steadily slide towards, or choose a different path.


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## Santino (Nov 16, 2011)

kittyP said:


> Have you read or seen it?


No. Not that bothered either.


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## LLETSA (Nov 16, 2011)

Quartz said:


> Are foreign workers less likely to complain about being exploited?


 
Of course they fucking are.


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## elbows (Nov 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Of course they fucking are.



Plus sometimes variations in exchange rates and typical wages in their country of origin, makes the exploitation not seem like exploitation. Especially as exploitation is often felt & judged in a very relative way.

In much the same way I was on a piss-poor hourly rate up to the age of about 24, and the job I got after that didnt really feel like I was being exploited at all in comparison. Slowly the feeling fades and the grass starts to look greener on the other side of the fence, sense of entitlement grows.


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## Grandma Death (Nov 16, 2011)

As I understand it youth unemployment is a problem that is part and parcel of economies that are struggling and this has has been a feature of said economies prior to EU immigration. Young people have less skills, less experience etc and employers tend to be more choosey when there's a glut of unemployed people.


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## captainmission (Nov 16, 2011)

treelover said:


> er, thats the whole point, i wanted views, always respected you since we met in manc many years ago, but I'm sorry but the void is in the lefts blind spot to the effects on youth and the working class in relation to the above...



why don't you start by sharing your views then? obviously you have an opinion on the issue.

i'd question why you single out immigrants? On a basic level any increase in labour supply will have a downwards pressure on wages- does that mean i should regard all co-workers competitors? That plays into the hands of capital quite well.

Lets take for example the development of 'flexible working'. I could say that is a simply an attack on pre-existing working condtion, requiring me to work unsocialalbe or be flexiable only on the employers terms. But the increase in flexible or part time labour has allowed people previously excluded from paid employment to work- people with childcare responsabilities for example. That in turn has increase the labour supply and presumably driven down wages. Should i resent this, largley female, work force?

Or what about woman having to work longer as the retirement age rises? what of there effects on the working class (which i guess, like immigrants, they are some how distinct from)?  Maybe it's a case of we need to talk about eve?

Capitalism, by destroy what social order that came before it including pevious forms of capitalism, can be liberating for some people. I'm not gonna blame other workers for taking advantage of those oppotunties. The only winner there is my boss


----------



## LLETSA (Nov 16, 2011)

It's more than obvious that Treelover's intention isn't to scapegoat foreign workers. A certain kind of liberal lefty, always prominent in threads of this kind, is striking in his downright naivety when he's not being fundamentally dishonest.


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## London_Calling (Nov 16, 2011)

Tbh, until recently I’ve been in ignorance about the scale of the gap between people from the east and people from the UK. It’s still surprising me just how much they are willing to sacrifice and undergo in order to get even the smallest foothold in this society. In fact, most of the people from the east are less prepared and less able to get a foothold than most Africans (as a general proposition, when they arrrive Africans having better English and closer to UK standard skill levels).

It is a seriously different mindset; they come from very underdeveloped societies, the training they have is usually substandard, their English is initially poor and, having saved for as long as they can remember, they run out of money very quickly. Until they get work, they often sleep not in shared rooms but shared beds, sometimes in shifts…. every, say, £50 earned is another foothold in this country for them.

I can see the hotel thing because, I assume, it comes with accommodation or subsidised accommodation. Maybe they can do jobs like laundry in the hotel that don’t require good English until they improve.

They are first generation immigrants – economic migrants - and, as such, the ones that manage to stay know it is their lot to work and sacrifice. It really is double fucking hard for them, and they’ll take literally any money to get a start.

The comparison with local people seems ill-conceived to me.


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## elbows (Nov 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> It's more than obvious that Treelover's intention isn't to scapegoat foreign workers. A certain kind of liberal lefty, always prominent in threads of this kind, is striking in his downright naivety when he's not being fundamentally dishonest.



It should be relatively easy to establish whether that is the case. Simply take the discussion beyond complaints about the current state of affairs, into territory which actually discusses what should be done about it. Unless that is done I don't see how it is at all obvious what the intentions or consequences of the position are.  I am as concerned with the unintended consequences of positions that play into divide & rule every bit as much as the intended ones.


----------



## LLETSA (Nov 16, 2011)

London_Calling said:


> Tbh, until recently I’ve been in ignorance about the scale of the gap between people from the east and people from the UK. It’s still surprising me just how much they are willing to sacrifice and undergo in order to get even the smallest foothold in this society. In fact, most of the people from the east are less prepared and less able to get a foothold than most Africans (as a general proposition, Africans having better English and closer to UK standard skill levels).
> 
> It is a seriously different mindset; they come from very underdeveloped societies, the training they have is usually substandard, their English is initially poor and, having saved for as long as they can remember, they run out of money very quickly. Until they get work, they often sleep not in shared rooms but shared beds, sometimes in shifts…. every, say, £50 earned is another foothold in this country for them.
> 
> ...


 
Which 'people from the east' do you mean?' People from eastern Europe aren't from very underdeveloped societies, and half of them speak better English than most of us.


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## Belushi (Nov 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Which 'people from the east' do you mean?' People from eastern Europe aren't from very underdeveloped societies, and half of them speak better English than most of us.



Yes, I was just about to say that certainly isn't true of any of the Eastern Europeans I know.


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## LLETSA (Nov 16, 2011)

elbows said:


> It should be relatively easy to establish whether that is the case. Simply take the discussion beyond complaints about the current state of affairs, into territory which actually discusses what should be done about it. Unless that is done I don't see how it is at all obvious what the intentions or consequences of the position are. I am as concerned with the unintended consequences of positions that play into divide & rule every bit as much as the intended ones.


 
Not necessarily. Many people would argue for restrictions on immigration, for instance, especially in times like these. Some of them are racist, some are not. Arguing for restricting immigration isn't in itself racism.


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## London_Calling (Nov 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Which 'people from the east' do you mean?' People from eastern Europe aren't from very underdeveloped societies, and half of them speak better English than most of us.



Not accurate. You've met them because their English has improved enough for them to understand and even talk to you. Or they had a far better education at home than most.

It's not an iceberg but it's that shape.


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## Captain Hurrah (Nov 16, 2011)

Most of the immigrants I currently work with (from South Asia) are highly-educated and skilled back in their countries of origin, just they came here as their wives are nurses, so they take up whatever they can find, their own jobs/careers coming second to those of their spouses. One is a quantity surveyor, another an ex-accountant, and two are computer programmers. I've also worked with Latvians and Poles who are useless piss-heads and stoners (although a good laugh at times). The Poles hated Romanians, saying they're 'dirty.' Let's not have this bullshit whereby the doughty, plucky, saintly people from foreign lands are carving themselves a life, sacrificing their own happiness for that of their progeny, in stark contrast to the dumb native proles who don't know they're born. It's the wacky-tie Jon Snow doing his Ukrainian usher at the cinema, and some dingbat in the Guardian finding a spiritual connection with her eastern European cleaner.


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## Blagsta (Nov 16, 2011)

Dr Dolittle said:


> You think the employers pay immigrant workers less than they would pay British workers? Do you have any evidence to support that assumption? You realise that would be illegal?
> 
> When unemployment is high and there aren't enough jobs for everyone, the ones who get the jobs, at any level, are the more aspirational, organised, positive-thinking, skilled ones. People who emigrate generally are like that - disorganised, negative, unskilled people stay at home. That's why it tends to be the immigrants who get the entry level jobs.


 
Hmmmmm, that may be part of it, yes.  I do think however, that it is naive not to realise that immigrants often can work for wages that British people woudn't.  Often immigrants don't have family here to support, aren't thinking of putting down roots, often sleep several to a room in cheap accomodation etc (I know this is common in London anyhow).  This often  means that they can afford to work for less.  Should our response then be anti-immigrant?  Of course not, but it should recognise the issues and seek to build solidarity with foreign workers, help unionise so everyone can try and get a better wage.


----------



## Belushi (Nov 16, 2011)

I know shit loads of Poles (there and here) and I've never noticed the pisshead/stoner quotient to be higher than among Brits.


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## London_Calling (Nov 16, 2011)

Captain Hurrah said:


> The Poles hated Romanians, saying they're 'dirty.' Let's not have this bullshit whereby the doughty, plucky, saintly people from foreign lands are carving themselves a life, sacrificing their own happiness for that of their progeny, in stark contrast to the dumb native proles who don't know they're born. It's the wacky-tie Jon Snow doing his Ukrainian usher at the cinema, and some dingbat in the Guardian finding a spiritual connection with her eastern European cleaner.


They all dislike Romanians, even Romanians. The rest of your post makes you a clueless cunt.


----------



## elbows (Nov 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Not necessarily. Many people would argue for restrictions on immigration, for instance, especially in times like these. Some of them are racist, some are not. Arguing for restricting immigration isn't in itself racism.



Racism isn't the only trap in territory like this though. Im interested in a much wider set of divisions than that, and other isms such as nationalism and protectionism. I don't claim to have any impressive answers either, I have my own traps to contend with. Namely that certain liberal, non-divisive, internationalistic & world solidarity type stuff has been mangled by virtue of international capitalism stealing some of its stripes, and using this stuff to bind people into a very specific form of global interdependence which serves certain interests far more than others.


----------



## LLETSA (Nov 16, 2011)

London_Calling said:


> Not accurate. You've met them because their English has improved enough for them to understand and even talk to you. Or they had a far better education at home than most.
> 
> It's not an iceberg but it's that shape.


 
It depends who you're talking about and what age group they fall into.

And you still haven't said who your  'people of the east' are.


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## London_Calling (Nov 16, 2011)

The thread is about youth unemployment. I'm not talking about specific nationalities.


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## Belushi (Nov 16, 2011)

London_Calling said:


> Not accurate. You've met them because their English has improved enough for them to understand and even talk to you. Or they had a far better education at home than most.
> 
> It's not an iceberg but it's that shape.



If your talking about Eastern Europe then English is very widely spoken and in the Soviet era they produced more graduates than Western Europe, they certainly aren't more badly educated than the British, if anything they tend to better educated ime.


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## Dr Dolittle (Nov 16, 2011)

Blagsta said:


> Hmmmmm, that may be part of it, yes. I do think however, that it is naive not to realise that immigrants often can work for wages that British people woudn't. Often immigrants don't have family here to support, aren't thinking of putting down roots, often sleep several to a room in cheap accomodation etc (I know this is common in London anyhow). This often means that they can afford to work for less. Should our response then be anti-immigrant? Of course not, but it should recognise the issues and seek to build solidarity with foreign workers, help unionise so everyone can try and get a better wage.


Yes, they're prepared to work for a low wage because they don't want to come all the way to Britain and be unable to get work. As for your stuff about building solidarity with foreign workers for a better wage, do you want the whole of Europe to go bankrupt, or for unemployment to go even higher? Because that's what would happen if wages were forced up in a recession. Though I do think that everyone should have the right to join a trade union.


----------



## LLETSA (Nov 16, 2011)

Blagsta said:


> Hmmmmm, that may be part of it, yes. I do think however, that it is naive not to realise that immigrants often can work for wages that British people woudn't. Often immigrants don't have family here to support, aren't thinking of putting down roots, often sleep several to a room in cheap accomodation etc (I know this is common in London anyhow). This often means that they can afford to work for less. Should our response then be anti-immigrant? Of course not, but it should recognise the issues and seek to build solidarity with foreign workers, help unionise so everyone can try and get a better wage.



'Our response'? Who are 'we'? In the firm where my wife works, she's one of only three who are actually in a union, which the firm doesn't recognise, and that's only in the offices. Down in the warehouse the lads born and bred here, let alone the foreign workers, are too scared to join a union or aren't interested. And nobody wants to get them interested anyway.

Where I work the picture's slightly better but similar. This is what today's private sector is like.


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## London_Calling (Nov 16, 2011)

Belushi said:


> If your talking about Eastern Europe then English is very widely spoken and in the Soviet era they produced more graduates than Western Europe, they certainly aren't more badly educated than the British, if anything they tend to better educated ime.


What has "Soviet era" anything to do with an 18-year old arriving on a bus tomorrow with enough money for 4 weeks and English that newly arrived Africans laugh at?


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## Belushi (Nov 16, 2011)

London_Calling said:


> What has "Soviet era" anything to do with an 18-year old arriving on a bus tomorrow with enough money for 4 weeks and English that newly arrived Africans laugh at?



It demonstrates that the education system in eastern europe is far better than you appear to appreciate.


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## Belushi (Nov 16, 2011)

Have you actually spent any time in the old eastern bloc LC?  Because I'm not recognising your description of the education system.


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## Paulie Tandoori (Nov 16, 2011)

London_Calling said:


> The thread is about youth unemployment. I'm not talking about specific nationalities.


if this thread is about youth unemployment (not something immediately apparent from the o/p), then its worth pointing out that a recent financial times blog examined a number of factors including immigration from Eastern Europe, the extension of NMW, etc but postulated that the most persuasive explanation appears to be the shift in focus of job centres from young people (under the New Deal for Young People, for eg) to lone parents and those claiming IB. another perhaps unintentional impact of knee jerk welfare reforms?


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## LLETSA (Nov 16, 2011)

London_Calling said:


> What has "Soviet era" anything to do with an 18-year old arriving on a bus tomorrow with enough money for 4 weeks and English that newly arrived Africans laugh at?


 
Eastern European societies still have the legacy of the Communist-run era's high educational standards.


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## Spanky Longhorn (Nov 16, 2011)

treelover said:


> actually its a considered OP if you read it, welcome genuine responses, froggie, BA, etc...



You always ask questions but never provide answers, its a bit tiresome to be honest


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## London_Calling (Nov 16, 2011)

Belushi said:


> Have you actually spent any time in the old eastern bloc LC? Because I'm not recognising your description of the education system.


I'm experiencing it now, in south London. Every day.


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## Belushi (Nov 16, 2011)

London_Calling said:


> I'm experiencing it now, in south London. Every day.



I live in South London and know parts of Eastern Europe very well and don't recognise your description. Sure there are some who are badly educated with poor English but that certainly isn't true of the majority of young East Europeans ime.


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## Belushi (Nov 16, 2011)

.


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## LLETSA (Nov 16, 2011)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> You always ask questions but never provide answers, its a bit tiresome to be honest



I do that as well, but that's because really there probably are no answers, or at least ones that could conceivably be implemented. Hell in a handcart and all that.


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## Spanky Longhorn (Nov 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I do that as well, but that's because really there probably are no answers, or at least ones that could conceivably be implemented. Hell in a handcart and all that.



Nah, you do explain your reasoning and provide opinions for a whole range of things; treelover doesn't even do that.


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## JimW (Nov 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I do that as well, but that's because really there probably are no answers, or at least ones that could conceivably be implemented. Hell in a handcart and all that.


There has been progress though - they've motorised the cart.


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## Spanky Longhorn (Nov 16, 2011)

JimW said:


> There has been progress though - they've motorised the cart.



here its an LPG cart, and round your way its coal fired.


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## LLETSA (Nov 16, 2011)

JimW said:


> There has been progress though - they've motorised the cart.


 
Luckily it will be an electric cart by the time the oil gets too expensive to extract.


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## LLETSA (Nov 16, 2011)

elbows said:


> Racism isn't the only trap in territory like this though. Im interested in a much wider set of divisions than that, and other isms such as nationalism and protectionism. I don't claim to have any impressive answers either, I have my own traps to contend with. Namely that certain liberal, non-divisive, internationalistic & world solidarity type stuff has been mangled by virtue of international capitalism stealing some of its stripes, and using this stuff to bind people into a very specific form of global interdependence which serves certain interests far more than others.



All gets a bit like chasing your tail in the end.


----------



## Captain Hurrah (Nov 16, 2011)

London_Calling said:


> They all dislike Romanians, even Romanians. The rest of your post makes you a clueless cunt.



Says Mr middle-classed false dichotomy.  You fucking stupid cunt.


----------



## Captain Hurrah (Nov 17, 2011)

Belushi said:


> I know shit loads of Poles (there and here) and I've never noticed the pisshead/stoner quotient to be higher than among Brits.



Never said it was, did I?  Just countering London Wanking's repetition of that shite meme concerning a supposed moral gap between immigrants and workers native to his country, which just doesn't stand up to the rather complex reality of immigrant's class background, levels of education, skills, hopes, relationships with themselves, other immigrants, and people they work side by side with.  And also, that he has no fucking clue about eastern Europe, the bullshitting cunt.  I know a little bit, but at its farthest reaches geographically.  Another group of people the Poles don't like much.


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## sihhi (Nov 17, 2011)

treelover said:


> The news today has shown that unemployment is now at its highest since 1994 and for young people is even higher, this is a tragedy for all concerned.
> 
> Yet when I was in London last week, nearly every person serving in shops, museums, and especially cafes was from eastern Europe, these were clearly ‘entry level’ jobs that would have gone in the past to young Londoners. This is replicated across the south east: My east European friend told that nearly all her co-workers in her hotel where she worked were Hungarian.​
> Now of course, the ex Eastern Bloc countries are all in the EU and have the right to work and live in the uk or any other EU country but the levels are so high now that is needs to be discussed. Meanwhile Uk citizens are being forced onto work for dole programmes with companies like Tescos and Poundland, this is just crazy
> ...



If you don't accept the lump of labour fallacy why are you mentioning East Europeans.

If you were actually serious about this you'd want to discuss East European unemployment - it's at 20-25% in Latvia for everyone, Bydgoscz is "a nothing place" according to 25 year old Poles.
Ghanaian, Latin American and Congolese people work in hotels too. What is the East Europe obsession amongst the Keynesianists? Is it a way of saying 'I'm can't be a racist, I only want white non-British people to be barred from employment in Britain'?

An associate is doing this kind of unpaid work from the JobCentre for Marie Curie Cancer. The best thing is to work as s-l-o-w-l-y as possibly collective strike action is not there.

Poundland have eight different levels of employee with different T&Cs in one site (not including these JobCentre people).

Anyone else think this kind of post is divide-and-rule?


----------



## scifisam (Nov 17, 2011)

Chemical needs said:


> Reverse xenophobia?!? I was just stating fact.
> 
> It's a fact which backs up the opinion that foreign workers get jobs because they have a better work ethic, but it's still a fact.



It's not a 'fact.' It's your interpretation of one of your friend's opinions of her English workers. Tobyjug fact, maybe.

Migrant workers in all professions have a better work ethic than the average stay-at-home worker (and this applies to all countries), because only the ones that have a bit of get-up-and-go, er, get up and go. But that doesn't mean Brits are lazy workers.

Also, only the ones without caring responsibilities back home can move abroad to work. Disabilities make it a lot harder too - not impossible, but far more difficult, depending on the disability. With migrant workers you are not seeing the average person and you are certainly not seeing the people that had it the hardest in their home countries.

I was a migrant worker myself briefly, as a teenager in Spain, and then in Berlin for a few months. One group of Irish people I knew in Berlin lived 13 people in a very small studio flat and I stayed with them for a couple of weeks (paying rent - negligible rent like the rest, which is why they lived like this). Some worked days, some worked nights.

Finding your shoes in the morning required climbing over multiple recumbent bodies, searching through all the stuff, and making things even messier for the next person who needed to find their own shoes and clothes. It was mostly fairly fit young women and young men of pretty similar sizes, so there was a certain amount of clothes-sharing going on, or at least you weren't that bothered whose t-shirt it was you found, but you had to have your own shoes or you'd end up with blisters after a long shift at jobs which generally required being on your feet all day/night.

People took to sleeping with their shoes in the bottom of their rucksacks, with their more special clothing (particular t-shirts or a really warm jumper, etc) on top of them to make it more comfortable. It became like living _in_ your rucksack, not just out of it. That's not the kind of thing you live with long-term. You can't. We coped with it because we knew it was short-term, we were young, and it saved a hell of a lot of money.

All of us at the cafe/bar we worked in were British or Irish because it was easier to have everyone speaking the same language and it was such a touristy area that English was starting to be more useful than German. In the restaurant area, however, everyone was Sri Lankan; as the only fluent German and English speaker, I ended being promoted to chef purely because I could work with both the cafe/bar and restaurant staff. (I learnt pretty much all of my cooking skills there).

Two of the restaurant workers slept in the kitchens under the counters at night. My shifts were irregular, and I was young and partying a lot; I could actually manage being of no fixed abode, temporarily - I slept in the park next to the restaurant when I wasn't sleeping at friends' houses or with the Huge Pile of Irish People.

Anyone who thinks being a migrant worker in an unskilled or semi-skilled job doesn't change the wages of the locals has never actually been that migrant worker. I know I undercut the wages of the local Berliners, and I know the local cafe and bar workers from Eastern Europe are doing the same, and I don't blame them any more than I do myself.

This is not 'oh, poor me!' I had a fantastic time. The inconveniences were vastly outweighed by the financial savings and it helped that we were all in it together. But we all knew that we were not going to be doing this day, in day out, for all our working lives.

Unionisation might actually help, per Blagsta's post. And I mean it would help everybody.


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## sihhi (Nov 17, 2011)

Dr Dolittle said:


> Yes, they're prepared to work for a low wage because they don't want to come all the way to Britain and be unable to get work. As for your stuff about building solidarity with foreign workers for a better wage, *do you want the whole of Europe to go bankrupt*, or for unemployment to go even higher? Because that's what would happen if wages were forced up in a recession. Though I do think that everyone should have the right to join a trade union.



Nice use of the meaningless empty but massive-scale threat there.
Sidney Hook would be proud.


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## Captain Hurrah (Nov 17, 2011)

What a knob.


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## LLETSA (Nov 17, 2011)

sihhi said:


> If you don't accept the lump of labour fallacy why are you mentioning East Europeans.
> 
> If you were actually serious about this you'd want to discuss East European unemployment - it's at 20-25% in Latvia for everyone, Bydgoscz is "a nothing place" according to 25 year old Poles.
> Ghanaian, Latin American and Congolese people work in hotels too. What is the East Europe obsession amongst the Keynesianists? Is it a way of saying 'I'm can't be a racist, I only want white non-British people to be barred from employment in Britain'?
> ...



Surely, whether 'Keynesians' or not, people treat east european immigrant labour differently because it's come about suddenly, and for different reasons than previous waves in that it's part of being in the European single market that treats us all as one big country to all intents and purposes. That and the fact that unlike foreign labour from elsewhere, this is a temporary phenomenon. Most east Europeans have no intention of settling permanently but are here to make money that will go a lot further at home (you can't blame them) and are generally better educated than most workers who do menial jobs from elsewhere, as well as compared to indiginous workers, due to the fact that they are, at home, from professional occupations. It's common to get people working on the tills and in warehouses who trained to be doctors or lawyers at home. So it isn't posts on messageboards that divide and rule but the system in itself. The TUC and union activists can make all the noises they want, but in a situation like the one I describe above, they're nowhere to be seen. You can't unionise the foreign workers in places where unions aren't recognised and nobody wants to risk sticking their neck out, least of all the east European worker who wants to make a packet and be off.


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## frogwoman (Nov 17, 2011)

London_Calling said:


> What has "Soviet era" anything to do with an 18-year old arriving on a bus tomorrow with enough money for 4 weeks and English that newly arrived Africans laugh at?



Bullshit.


----------



## elbows (Nov 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> It's common to get people working on the tills and in warehouses who trained to be doctors or lawyers at home.



I think you've stretched that point a bit too far there.


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Nov 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> You can't unionise the foreign workers in places where unions aren't recognised and nobody wants to risk sticking their necks out, least of all the east European worker who wants to make a packet and be off.



You can't unionise workers of any stripe in un-recognised workplaces easily - but there's nowt stopping us unionising Eastern european workers or any other other group of workers based on their self interest.

If the union is seen to be effective in some way at either/or defending T&Cs and representing in individual or collective grievences then people will join it irrespective of origins or politics. Poles, Turks, and Nigerians are in my experience some of the easiest migrant groups to unionise, and in all three cases due to coming from countries with histories of active trade unionisim.


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## LLETSA (Nov 17, 2011)

scifisam said:


> Unionisation might actually help, per Blagsta's post. And I mean it would help everybody.



Again, who's going to do this unionising in the many workplaces where unions aren't recognised and even the indiginous workforce don't want to know?

The notion is a comfort blanket for people arguing on messageboards.


----------



## LLETSA (Nov 17, 2011)

elbows said:


> I think you've stretched that point a bit too far there.



You think so? Where my wife works one of the Polish warehouse lads trained to be a priest.


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## Captain Hurrah (Nov 17, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> Bullshit.



Exactly.


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## Spanky Longhorn (Nov 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> . It's common to get people working on the tills and in warehouses who trained to be doctors or lawyers at home. .



Not from Eastern Europe in my experience, most of them are from similar backgrounds the only exception to the rule I know was a Polish mate who was working in a shop in London and is now a World Bank development manager and was only working here to pay for her phd.


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## scifisam (Nov 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Again, who's going to do this unionising in the many workplaces where unions aren't recognised and even the indiginous workforce don't want to know?
> 
> It's a comfort balnket for people arguing in messageboards.



I don't know if it would actually work, and it probably wouldn't, but it's the only actual helpful suggestion so far.


----------



## LLETSA (Nov 17, 2011)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> You can't unionise workers of any stripe in un-recognised workplaces easily - but there's nowt stopping us unionising Eastern european workers or any other other group of workers based on their self interest.
> 
> If the union is seen to be effective in some way at either/or defending T&Cs and representing in individual or collective grievences then people will join it irrespective of origins or politics. Poles, Turks, and Nigerians are in my experience some of the easiest migrant groups to unionise, and in all three cases due to coming from countries with histories of active trade unionisim.



Again, who is this 'us'? There is no 'us' where either me or Mrs LLETSA work, as I said, and these are hardly untypical workplaces now.


----------



## LLETSA (Nov 17, 2011)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> Not from Eastern Europe in my experience, most of them are from similar backgrounds the only exception to the rule I know was a Polish mate who was working in a shop in London and is now a World Bank development manager and was only working here to pay for her phd.



Your experience is different from mine then. I'm not talking about anything as grand as World Bank development managers, just ordinary professionals who see a chance of making some money in menial job here because they don't need to spend much while here and it will go six times further back home. The education systems of the former Communist-run states churn out professionals by the million.


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## Chemical needs (Nov 17, 2011)

scifisam said:


> Tobyjug fact, maybe.....



 please fark off on that one. I worked there too so know what I said to be true. I don't know why you're getting so worked up about an example I provided: one instance which will never be representative of all cases.

I wasn't saying that all English workers are lazy.

I just wanted to provide a different angle than the 'foreigners coming here and taking our jobs and driving wages down' tack taken by the op.


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## LLETSA (Nov 17, 2011)

scifisam said:


> I don't know if it would actually work, and it probably wouldn't, but it's the only actual helpful suggestion so far.


 
It would work where there's a way of actually doing it. The trouble is there are plenty of workplaces where it isn't possible due to the factors I've spoken of.


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## LLETSA (Nov 17, 2011)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> If the union is seen to be effective in some way at either/or defending T&Cs and representing in individual or collective grievences then people will join it irrespective of origins or politics.


 
Not necessarily. If somebody wants to make as much money as possible and then go home (as I said, you can't blame them), then they'll want to keep their heads down. It's the way it goes.


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## sihhi (Nov 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Surely, whether 'Keynesians' or not, people treat east european immigrant labour differently because it's come about suddenly, and for different reasons than previous waves in that it's part of being in the European single market that treats us all as one big country to all intents and purposes. That and the fact that unlike foreign labour from elsewhere, this is a temporary phenomenon. Most east Europeans have no intention of settling permanently but are here to make money that will go a lot further at home (you can't blame them) and are generally better educated than most workers who do menial jobs from elsewhere, as well as compared to indiginous workers, due to the fact that they are, at home, from professional occupations. It's common to get people working on the tills and in warehouses who trained to be doctors or lawyers at home.
> 
> As for divide-and-rule, it isn't posts on messageboards that divide and rule but the system in itself. The TUC and union activists can make all the noises they want, but in a situation like the one I describe above, they're nowhere to be seen. You can't unionise the foreign workers in places where unions aren't recognised and nobody wants to risk sticking their necks out, least of all *the east European worker who wants to make a packet and be off*.



As a generalisation that characterisation will weaken any attempt.
You're tossing stuff up for no reason. I have no doubt that TUC avoids all effort to unionise low-paid workers because 1. once they struggle like the cleaners in '09 they expose how hollow the bureaucratic set up is - including the trade union lefts. 2. as a business operation subs gained is not worth the effort.

In North east London, Poles, Czechs and Slovaks are settling here because they see unemployment as less worse than Poland Czech Republic - recession or no recession.
Even Romanians are settling here sending children to primary school.
Poles have their own playgroups and mothers meetings. There are single mum Poles who want to stay here.
There are Polish families here with children born in Britain. There are Poles in mixed relationships. A Slovakian is now living with an English person working as a babysitter for a new presenter's family, after.
If it's so temporary

The single market does not treat us all as the 'same' big country. It's way easier for an Australian to get a W.P. than a Bulgarian. Britain is still its own country/state. It has its own rules.
(No I'm not suggesting that Australians should be barred or deported)


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## LLETSA (Nov 17, 2011)

sihhi said:


> As a generalisation that characterisation will weaken any attempt.
> You're tossing stuff up for no reason. I have no doubt that TUC avoids all effort to unionise low-paid workers because 1. once they struggle like the cleaners in '09 they expose how hollow the bureaucratic set up is - including the trade union lefts. 2. as a business operation subs gained is not worth the effort.
> 
> In North east London, Poles, Czechs and Slovaks are settling here because they see unemployment as less worse than Poland Czech Republic - recession or no recession.
> ...


 
I'm not saying that no east Europeans settle here, just that lots don't because they're here primarily to make money that will go much further at home. The figures seem to speak for themselves. How many went back when the recession hit in 2008 for instance?

I know that it's easier for Australians than Bulgarians in practice etc, but the single market where anybody in a member state can work in any member state in theory is what we're signed up to and it does have an effect in reality. If that wasn't the case we wouldn't have anywhere near as many eastern Europeans here.

It has little to do with TUC bureaucracy that nobody unionises workers in workplaces that don't recognise unions and indiginous and foreign workers alike don't want to take the risk even if they see the need.


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## scifisam (Nov 17, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> Bullshit.



Not really. It's hardly a majority of workers, but it does happen. It's especially true for people from the more restricted EU countries like Bulgaria. I have a friend from Bulgaria who's a qualified lawyer over there, speaks very good English and has spent years taking courses to improve her written English - because lawyers obviously require not only better English than most people, but different terminology - and last I heard she was still a cleaner.

It's partly because of employment laws and partly, sadly, because she spent so many years working as a cleaner.

Doctors - medical doctors - are better off, but they'll often have to spend a few years working in lower medical roles while they get the qualifications that allow them to work here - depends where they're from. Qualifications are not always transferable.

I also knew a Russian astrophysicist in Berlin, who'd been quite high up in their space shuttle programme (he was in a film we were making and we checked him out). He was working as a taxi driver. He'd had to leave and his time out of the field meant he could never really get back into it again.

This sort of thing is getting a lot better, actually, with more recognition of advanced degrees from different European countries (there was a change about five years ago - wish I could remember what the law itself was). But whenever you need to be eloquent in a language to do your job, it's more difficult if it's not your native language. I can't fathom how it could be otherwise. I mean, if you have to talk to an old toothless man from Glasgow whose pain is making him speak through gritted teeth, that's going to be hard enough without filtering his speech through a foreign language learnt mainly via British RP and American Mid-West accents.

That means that these qualified, experienced, hardworking people might end up taking other jobs while they retrain or requalify or improve their English language skills, and they have a hell of an advantage when it comes to getting those lesser-skilled jobs; it's not like they really really want those jobs, either, but they have to take them, meaning that someone else can't.


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## scifisam (Nov 17, 2011)

Chemical needs said:


> please fark off on that one. I worked there too so know what I said to be true. I don't know why you're getting so worked up about an example I provided: one instance which will never be representative of all cases.
> 
> I wasn't saying that all English workers are lazy.
> 
> I just wanted to provide a different angle than the 'foreigners coming here and taking our jobs and driving wages down' tack taken by the op.



I'm not worked up.

So, you were just providing a different angle? And that different angle would be? I mean, you say it's not that all English workers are lazy, so what was it?


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## sihhi (Nov 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Not necessarily. If somebody wants to make as much money as possible and then go home (as I said, you can't blame them), then they'll want to keep their heads down. It's the way it goes.



Yes, of course but this ('keep your head down') applies to local 'indigenous' workers or Scottish migrants to the South who might be planning to quit a job to go back studying/move elsewhere/look after their uncle/have a baby ('Not worth rocking the boat for a short while'). The latest excuse amongst the m/class worker is 'I can't afford to go on strike, I have two daughters who need their university fees paying'. The classic one w/class and m/class was 'There's a mortgage to pay'.

One possibility is to struggle for collective contracts - a workforce agreeing to demand a collective agreement of labour supplied so that there is no overtime etc which causes so much division a migrant make-as-much-as-you-can approach is to hold onto as many hours as possible.
If you have No recourse to public funds on the back of your permit - then obviously you are going to want to get in as many hours as possible. If asylum seekers were allowed to work it would change the sit again.

Yes LLETSA it's a difficult time.


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## LLETSA (Nov 17, 2011)

sihhi said:


> Yes, of course but this ('keep your head down') applies to local 'indigenous' workers or Scottish migrants to the South who might be planning to quit a job to go back studying/move elsewhere/look after their uncle/have a baby ('Not worth rocking the boat for a short while'). The latest excuse amongst the m/class worker is 'I can't afford to go on strike, I have two daughters who need their university fees paying'. The classic one w/class and m/class was 'There's a mortgage to pay'.
> 
> One possibility is to struggle for collective contracts - a workforce agreeing to demand a collective agreement of labour supplied so that there is no overtime etc which causes so much division a migrant make-as-much-as-you-can approach is to hold onto as many hours as possible.
> If you have No recourse to public funds on the back of your permit - then obviously you are going to want to get in as many hours as possible. If asylum seekers were allowed to work it would change the sit again.
> ...


 
I know-like I said, everybody has an excuse. It's understandable as well, when life's hard enough to begin with, not to want to risk your job when you'll be victimised by your employers and quite possibly fucked over by those you tried to help.

I agree that there are possibilities, but without the people to try to put them into practice they remain on paper. (I'm not saying this applies everywhere.)


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## Chemical needs (Nov 17, 2011)

What angle was I taking?

A different one to the OP, as stated. One based on my experience of working with people who come from different countries.

I found the OP to be rather knee-jerky in terms of the ideas expressed, so I suppose I was providing a similarly knee-jerky type response in the other direction.

FWIW I think that times of high unemployment are to be expected with the global financial system geared as it is towards lining the pockets of the elite and maintaining the status quo in terms of exploitation of large swathes of populations.

I think immigration is a non-issue. People will move between countries as they please, and always have done to a greater or lesser degree.

The issue is unemployment and lack of jobs that have any reasonable career prospects. Immigrant workers may play a part in this, but are not the cause of it.


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## scifisam (Nov 17, 2011)

sihhi said:


> Yes, of course but this ('keep your head down') applies to local 'indigenous' workers or Scottish migrants to the South who might be planning to quit a job to go back studying/move elsewhere/look after their uncle/have a baby ('Not worth rocking the boat for a short while'). The latest excuse amongst the m/class worker is 'I can't afford to go on strike, I have two daughters who need their university fees paying'. The classic one w/class and m/class was 'There's a mortgage to pay'.
> 
> One possibility is to struggle for collective contracts - a workforce agreeing to demand a collective agreement of labour supplied so that there is no overtime etc which causes so much division a migrant make-as-much-as-you-can approach is to hold onto as many hours as possible.
> If you have No recourse to public funds on the back of your permit - then obviously you are going to want to get in as many hours as possible. If asylum seekers were allowed to work it would change the sit again.
> ...



Well, 'I have a mortgage to pay' is a good reason, isn't it? I mean, maybe some people could sell up and move to somewhere smaller with a smaller mortgage, but that's not always financially viable and then there's still a mortage to pay. If someone already has a mortgage, then it's not very likely that private renting would cost them any less.

I'm not saying people should use this as a reason to not go on strike, just that it's as valid or not as 'I have rent to pay.'


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## sihhi (Nov 17, 2011)

scifisam said:


> This sort of thing is getting a lot better, actually, with more recognition of advanced degrees from different European countries (there was a change about five years ago - wish I could remember what the law itself was). But whenever you need to be eloquent in a language to do your job, it's more difficult if it's not your native language. I can't fathom how it could be otherwise. I mean, if you have to talk to an old toothless man from Glasgow whose pain is making him speak through gritted teeth, that's going to be hard enough without filtering his speech through a foreign language learnt mainly via British RP and American Mid-West accents.
> 
> That means that these qualified, experienced, hardworking people might end up taking other jobs while they retrain or requalify or improve their English language skills, and they have a hell of an advantage when it comes to getting those lesser-skilled jobs; it's not like they really really want those jobs, either, but they have to take them, meaning that someone else can't.



East European countries are losing their doctors as a result. There was something about this in Bulgaria recently. I know Turkey has introduced a law allowing nonnational doctors and nurses to work in state hospitals (meaning Third World ones in all probability).

The local surgery has two Polish doctors and one Bulgarian. The language barrier is not as big an issue. A friend had the doctor misspell antihystamine as 'antihistamin' on a note the Polish version. Apparently the

X (Russian) is a qualified accountant and university maths teacher but she works in a care-home in Hertfordshire lives in London. I've asked about the situation of a union, she has become a Unison member I can't say that Sol-Fed or IWW or IWCA will really be able to help out the situation there - facing cuts in hours.

Ghanaian security people again problems - no pay rise in 3 years - both turned out to be old members of G.M.B. One trained as a forest engineer in Ghana.


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## frogwoman (Nov 17, 2011)

scifisam said:


> Not really. It's hardly a majority of workers, but it does happen. It's especially true for people from the more restricted EU countries like Bulgaria. I have a friend from Bulgaria who's a qualified lawyer over there, speaks very good English and has spent years taking courses to improve her written English - because lawyers obviously require not only better English than most people, but different terminology - and last I heard she was still a cleaner.
> 
> It's partly because of employment laws and partly, sadly, because she spent so many years working as a cleaner.
> 
> ...



i know all this, i was just referring to lc's offensive generalisation that most eastern europeans can't speak english. in my experience most of the middle class youngsters and probably over half the working class ones (at least in the city) can speak english to a very good, or at least reasonable standard, and almost everyone under a certain age can speak at least a few words, often to intermediate level. this is in the poorest country in europe btw.


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## scifisam (Nov 17, 2011)

Chemical needs said:


> What angle was I taking?
> 
> A different one to the OP, as stated. One based on my experience of working with people who come from different countries.
> 
> ...



I agree with all of this. But you backed this up with an example of British workers being lazy. That's... well, not helpful. The average Brit is less hard-working than the average _economic migrant _(from any country) for the reasons I gave above, but that doesn't mean they're actually lazy than the _average person_ from whatever country or that it's a good point to bring up. Stereotypes can sometimes become self-fulfilling prophecies, esp, when they're applied to young people.


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## scifisam (Nov 17, 2011)

sihhi said:


> East European countries are losing their doctors as a result. There was something about this in Bulgaria recently. I know Turkey has introduced a law allowing nonnational doctors and nurses to work in state hospitals (meaning Third World ones in all probability).
> 
> The local surgery has two Polish doctors and one Bulgarian. The language barrier is not as big an issue. A friend had the doctor misspell antihystamine as 'antihistamin' on a note the Polish version. Apparently the
> 
> ...



Yeah, it's fucked up, isn't it? The richer countries accept the qualifications of the poorer countries, and then it's a brain-drain, or they don't accept them, so there are people taking jobs that other people want to do while they themselves could be using their skills better.

England is in a worse situation than others for this. Both because we've failed in teaching foreign languages for so long, and because English is so damn popular. Pretty much everyone in the entire continent has a grounding in English, some better than others, and there are tons of resources, teachers, and extramural opportunities to learn. And learning English is helpful even if you never plan to work in the UK, or the US, or Canada (etc). It's the current lingua franca (I love the irony of that term ).

Whereas it'd be a hell of a lot more difficult for a Brit to learn Polish enough to go and work over there. And Hungarian? Hah!


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## scifisam (Nov 17, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> i know all this, i was just referring to lc's offensive generalisation that most eastern europeans can't speak english. in my experience most of the middle class youngsters and probably over half the working class ones (at least in the city) can speak english to a very good, or at least reasonable standard, and almost everyone under a certain age can speak at least a few words, often to intermediate level. this is in the poorest country in europe btw.



Chatting to you in a pub, or at work when they know that you're English, is a different matter to actually being able to do a job in an English-speaking country unless it doesn't require much English. Written English is also a different skill to spoken English, and (as you know) understanding a language is way, way easier than either writing or talking in it.

I mean, I'm used to the fact that nobody in my local supermarkets (let alone cornershops) will understand most of what I'm saying, but it's not exactly ideal. You just get better at body language and cues from context - the staff as well as you. That has some good points too.

It is still mildly annoying that none of the staff can understand 'gluten-free' even with an exlanation (not all native Brits would get "gluten-free," but they'd get the explanation). Or 'sparklers.' Good God, it's hard finding sparklers in a shop that sells them but does not know the word! No, not spark plugs, please stop taking me back to the electrical goods section!

But hey, I've taught a lot of EFL students and helped them get such jobs, because they need them too.  But I'd have not only taught them the word sparkler but given them some as we stood outside eating toffee apples because, well, it was fun.

Of course, English language funding has been hugely cut in the past few years. Helpful, that.


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## London_Calling (Nov 17, 2011)

Belushi said:


> I live in South London and know parts of Eastern Europe very well and don't recognise your description. Sure there are some who are badly educated with poor English but that certainly isn't true of the majority of young East Europeans ime.


By _experiencing_ it every day, I didn't mean by virtue of where I live. It is absolutely true of the vast maj. Fwiw, I think you see primariliy those who speak better English - becasue they speak better English, and you assume that to be a reasonable random sample.


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## London_Calling (Nov 17, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> i know all this, i was just referring to lc's offensive generalisation that most eastern europeans can't speak english.


I said, as a general proposition, they speak poorer English than their African counterparts. Plus, Englsih people tend to meet only those who, surprisingly enough, speak reasonable English - those are the ones you meet for obv. reasons. The rest you don't.

And, fwiw, I'm still talking in general about the unskilled/youth market as, I thought, was the OP. Like all markets, it is segmented.


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## chilango (Nov 17, 2011)

Is there anything "new" to add to this argument since the last time treelover brought it up?


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## Blagsta (Nov 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> 'Our response'? Who are 'we'? In the firm where my wife works, she's one of only three who are actually in a union, which the firm doesn't recognise, and that's only in the offices. Down in the warehouse the lads born and bred here, let alone the foreign workers, are too scared to join a union or aren't interested. And nobody wants to get them interested anyway.
> 
> Where I work the picture's slightly better but similar. This is what today's private sector is like.



By "we" I mean people on the left, trade unionists etc.


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 17, 2011)

treelover said:


> you mean 'pie in the sky' then, sorry utopias that way, not happy with your vindictive comments either, sad....



I think these issues should be discussed, I get fed up of some people on the left immediately assuming that anyone questioning the merits of economic immigration is a racist or whatever. But when you start a thread with a deliberately provocative title with a stereotypical "jonnie foreigner" name in it, don't be surprised when people bite. In fact I think you did it on purpose so you could whine and play the victim when called on it.

Of course foreign labour is used to drive down wages. But what's the answer? I suspect that, were we to close the borders so the cheap labour couldn't come to them, many of these companies would go to where the cheap labour is, and then we'd be in an even worse situation. But we on the left do ourselves no favours by pretending, as some do, that migrant labour somehow magically has either no effect, or only a positive effect, on wages and employment prospects.

And there are ways and means of effectively paying migrant workers less than the minimum wage, and doing so legally - I've seen it with my own eyes. Often the employer also provides accommodation, the cost of which is taken out of the wages. They then charge something daft like 2/3 of the weekly wage for a bed in a shared room.

I think we need an alternative answer to "under socialism it wouldn't matter" - we need to offer something in the here and now, something that doesn't discriminate against foreign workers but also protects British workers. I don't know what that answer is unfortunately 

And to those suggesting it doesn't matter cos "there are already too many McJobs" - fuck off. Tell that to someone for whom a "McJob" is the only option. Yes, they're shit - but they're all some people have.


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## Blagsta (Nov 17, 2011)

Dr Dolittle said:


> Yes, they're prepared to work for a low wage because they don't want to come all the way to Britain and be unable to get work. As for your stuff about building solidarity with foreign workers for a better wage, do you want the whole of Europe to go bankrupt, or for unemployment to go even higher? Because that's what would happen if wages were forced up in a recession. Though I do think that everyone should have the right to join a trade union.


You're kidding, right? What makes you think there is no money anywhere?


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## Fruitloop (Nov 17, 2011)

It's not a blind spot. It's self-evident. The left doesn't have a blind spot to the fact that water is wet just because they don't talk about it all the time.

For the current (relatively meagre, compared to the urgency of the situation) w/c reaction to the recent sally-forth of the ruling class and capital to get side-tracked into yet another fruitless debate about immigration would be the worst possible outcome IMO.


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## LLETSA (Nov 17, 2011)

London_Calling said:


> I said, as a general proposition, they speak poorer English than their African counterparts. Plus, Englsih people tend to meet only those who, surprisingly enough, speak reasonable English - those are the ones you meet for obv. reasons. The rest you don't.
> 
> And, fwiw, I'm still talking in general about the unskilled/youth market as, I thought, was the OP. Like all markets, it is segmented.



Of course you don't meet only those who speak English. If you live close to an area where (say) lots of young Poles have settled, you encounter the ones who speak good English and those who don't, if only in the queue at the supermarket or on the bus (sometimes they're the checkout assistants and drivers.) You can go in the Polish shops that have opened up.

And as already pointed out, when it comes to east European labour the unskilled labour market is to a large part populated by educated professionals.


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## LLETSA (Nov 17, 2011)

Blagsta said:


> By "we" I mean people on the left, trade unionists etc.


 
So how are people on the left and trade unionists going to unionise those in workplaces where unions are not recognised and the workers are keeping their heads down or don't even see the need for a union?


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## Blagsta (Nov 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> So how are people on the left and trade unionists going to unionise those in workplaces where unions are not recognised and the workers are keeping their heads down or don't even see the need for a union?


Well I believe the IWW have had some success in unionising immigrant labour in london.


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## LLETSA (Nov 17, 2011)

Blagsta said:


> Well I believe the IWW have had some success in unionising immigrant labour in london.



Maybe, but the rest of the country isn't London and nor can the IWW (or the relatively tiny number of 'left' activists as a whole) try and unionise everybody everywhere. And what about those workplaces where anybody doing it gets told to fuck off by either the employers, the workers or both?


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## London_Calling (Nov 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> And as already pointed out, when it comes to east European labour,the unskilled labour market is to a large part populated by educated professionals.


No it isn't.


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## LLETSA (Nov 17, 2011)

London_Calling said:


> No it isn't.


 
Stick to your fantasy world then.


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## Pickman's model (Nov 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> So how are people on the left and trade unionists going to unionise those in workplaces where unions are not recognised and the workers are keeping their heads down or don't even see the need for a union?


you identify people on the left, and people in trade unions. how are the former lot, people on the left outside trade unions, going to unionise un-unionised workplaces? what makes you think trade unionists don't already go out and try to get un-unionised workplaces unionised? have you in fact given any thought to your post at all?


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## Pickman's model (Nov 17, 2011)

Blagsta said:


> You're kidding, right? What makes you think there is no money anywhere?


no money here


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## LLETSA (Nov 17, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> you identify people on the left, and people in trade unions. how are the former lot, people on the left outside trade unions, going to unionise un-unionised workplaces? what makes you think trade unionists don't already go out and try to get un-unionised workplaces unionised? have you in fact given any thought to your post at all?



I haven't said they don't. But It would be more relevant to, once again, ask why people think there are enough dedicated activists to go around trying to unionise the many, many workplaces where unions are not recognised, and enough people within them prepared to stick their necks out and face down hostile employers and risk losing their jobs.

As I said, these notions are a comfort blanket for people on messageboards discussing subjects like this.


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## Pickman's model (Nov 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I haven't said they don't. But It would be more relevant to, once again, ask why people think there are enough dedicated activists to go around trying to unionise the many, many workplaces where unions are not recognised, and enough people within them prepared to stick their necks out and face down hostile employers and risk losing their jobs.
> 
> As I said, these notions are a comfort blanket for people on messageboards discussing subjects like this.


once again you change something from an issue to a specific, in this case from 'are people doing this' to 'not enough people are doing this'. i would be interested to read any positive suggestions you might have about how the lack of people you suggest aren't out there might be changed.


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## LLETSA (Nov 17, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> once again you change something from an issue to a specific, in this case from 'are people doing this' to 'not enough people are doing this'. i would be interested to read any positive suggestions you might have about how the lack of people you suggest aren't out there might be changed.



I haven't changed anything. I never said anywhere that nobody's unionising workplaces, but have pointed out all along that the numbers prepared to do it are small. As usual you are looking for some irrelevancies to divert a thread with.

Like you and everybody else who's contributed so far, I haven't got any suggestions as to how this can be changed. It probably can't. Not my fault.


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## London_Calling (Nov 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Stick to your fantasy world then.


The one I live and work in?


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## Pickman's model (Nov 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I haven't changed anything. I never said anywhere that nobody's unionising workplaces, but have pointed out all along that the numbers prepared to do it are small. As usual you are looking for some irrelevancies to divert a thread with.
> 
> Like you and everybody else who's contributed so far, I haven't got any suggestions as to how this can be changed. It probably can't. Not my fault.


it's strange how few times you identify means by which the problems you highlight can be resolved.


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## LLETSA (Nov 17, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> it's strange how few times you identify means by which the problems you highlight can be resolved.


 
What do you want me to do? Make the fucking answers up?


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## Fruitloop (Nov 17, 2011)

Is unionising workplaces the answer anyway. In a sense you are making a concrete proposal, in that if the problem is that not enough people are trying to unionise workplaces then doing so must presumably be a part of the solution.


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## LLETSA (Nov 17, 2011)

Fruitloop said:


> Is unionising workplaces the answer anyway. In a sense you are making a concrete proposal, in that if the problem is that not enough people are trying to unionise workplaces then doing so must presumably be a part of the solution.



That's a staement of the obvious but makes no difference to the situation I've described.


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## Fruitloop (Nov 17, 2011)

What situation?


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## LLETSA (Nov 17, 2011)

Fruitloop said:


> What situation?


 
Oh never mind.


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## Pickman's model (Nov 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> What do you want me to do? Make the fucking answers up?


why not? it would be more entertaining than your usual droning miserabilism.


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## LLETSA (Nov 17, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> why not? it would be more entertaining than your usual droning miserabilism.


 
Hey great answer Phil.


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## treelover (Nov 17, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> I think these issues should be discussed, I get fed up of some people on the left immediately assuming that anyone questioning the merits of economic immigration is a racist or whatever. But when you start a thread with a deliberately provocative title with a stereotypical "jonnie foreigner" name in it, don't be surprised when people bite. In fact I think you did it on purpose so you could whine and play the victim when called on it.
> 
> Of course foreign labour is used to drive down wages. But what's the answer? I suspect that, were we to close the borders so the cheap labour couldn't come to them, many of these companies would go to where the cheap labour is, and then we'd be in an even worse situation. But we on the left do ourselves no favours by pretending, as some do, that migrant labour somehow magically has either no effect, or only a positive effect, on wages and employment prospects.
> 
> ...



A considered and thoughtful reply, though way off on the OP title, I did it because it sounded good and clever wordplay, I don't blame Eva or anyone else for trying new opportunities, which i know there parents never had, in fact we were sworn enemies with them in the Warsaw Pact, once literally had a east german in my sights of my FN rifle, now I number many as my friends..


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## rover07 (Nov 17, 2011)

treelover said:


> a considered and thoughtful reply, as for the OP title, I did it because it sounded good and clever wordplay, I don't blame Eva or anyone else for trying new opportunities, which i know there parents never had, in fact we were sworn enemies with them in the Warsaw Pact, once literally had a east german in my sights of my FN rifle, now I number many as my friends..



Speak for yourself. They were never my enemies.

Still aren't. Unlike you.


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## treelover (Nov 17, 2011)

Fruitloop said:


> It's not a blind spot. It's self-evident. The left doesn't have a blind spot to the fact that water is wet just because they don't talk about it all the time.
> 
> For the current (relatively meagre, compared to the urgency of the situation) w/c reaction to the recent sally-forth of the ruling class and capital to get side-tracked into yet another fruitless debate about immigration would be the worst possible outcome IMO.



Its a discussion on a small bulletin board ffs, not a motion to the TUC!


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## Fruitloop (Nov 17, 2011)

Yeah but if it's a counterproductive tactic then why discuss it at all? Wouldn't it be better to discuss things that might actually help?


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## Wolveryeti (Nov 17, 2011)

How strange that there is such difficulty in finding good evidence that immigration from Eastern Europe is contributing to the unemployment problem. See for instance: http://www.ces.ed.ac.uk/PDF Files/IMP_WP1.pdf



> Several published papers (eg Dustmann et al, 2005), examined the impact of a proportion of migrants who arrived in a region before 2000 on the employment and wages of native- born Britons with different skill levels and found little evidence of a negative effect of immigration on native workers’ outcomes. Similarly, Blanchflower et al (2007) conducted a thorough review of existing research on the impact of post 2004 immigrants on the UK labour market, and concluded that this research is unable to demonstrate a negative impact of immigration from A8 countries on the UK labour market. Gilpin et al (2006) recently conducted a careful econometric analysis of the impact of the new A8 migrants on the employment opportunities of non-migrant workers and found no statistical evidence which supports the view that the inflow of A8 migrants is contributing to the rise of unemployment in the UK (2006, p.49).


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## London_Calling (Nov 17, 2011)

Anything from the last 5 years?


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## shagnasty (Nov 17, 2011)

Todays figures hardly featured in the headline being as virgin bought northern rock ,how fortunate lol


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## butchersapron (Nov 17, 2011)

London_Calling said:


> Anything from the last 5 years?


Have a closer look. And then work out when east-european immigration dropped off.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 17, 2011)

sihhi said:


> (No I'm not suggesting that Australians should be barred or deported)



Sounds like a good idea, though.


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 18, 2011)

Wolveryeti said:


> How strange that there is such difficulty in finding good evidence that immigration from Eastern Europe is contributing to the unemployment problem. See for instance: http://www.ces.ed.ac.uk/PDF Files/IMP_WP1.pdf



More recent studies suggest it has at least helped keep wages down.


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## Kizmet (Nov 22, 2011)

So, been away. How's Eva?


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## starfish2000 (Nov 22, 2011)

i work in the rail industry lots of our agency staff are eastern europeans, lovely people and on such shit wages they all do 70 hour weeks in order to earn a living wage. one of my friends hasn't seen her daughter back in romania for months and sometimes she rings her up and she has to go off and cry....lovely social cost this global village.

it is exploitation and its too drive wages and ts and cs down anyone who says it isnt is either a liar or horribly fucking naive


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## sihhi (Nov 23, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> I think these issues should be discussed, I get fed up of some people on the left immediately assuming that anyone questioning the merits of economic immigration is a racist or whatever. But when you start a thread with a deliberately provocative title with a stereotypical "jonnie foreigner" name in it, don't be surprised when people bite. In fact I think you did it on purpose so you could whine and play the victim when called on it.
> 
> Of course foreign labour is used to drive down wages. But what's the answer? I suspect that, were we to close the borders so the cheap labour couldn't come to them, *many of these companies would go to where the cheap labour is, and then we'd be in an even worse situation.* But we on the left do ourselves no favours by pretending, as some do, that migrant labour somehow magically has either no effect, or only a positive effect, on wages and employment prospects.



No one says that migration has no effect. Of course it's downward as experienced in many jobs.

But migration is ultimately a result of capital driving
A. privatisation (dispossessing accumulation) or B. enclosure and theft of the commons.
A. in Eastern Europe B. in the Sahel Region - the two main sources of immigration into Western Europe. Latin America has a bit of both.

We're over here because they're still over there.

But the question is how to respond to it. It's similar to complaints of women entering the workforce. The arguments against women are close to arguments in favour of more 'segmented' work permits ('no immigration' as it would likely manifest itself) or deportation (the ultimate far-right aim).
On the left, women were thought to be
a. more interested in working for a short while just making money.
b. had better eye-hand control, smaller limbs and hence by their very nature they allowed bosses to discriminate against men in the clerk work/printing fields.
c. impossible to organise in trade unions.
d. self-segregating, talking to each other not to men, hence divisive.

(The right thought women incapable of productive work/against God's order of things etc.)

Similar stuff was said of the Irish on the mainland aswell; because they lived in country places back home and most of their young died early only the hardy tough ones remained, bosses always chose them for jobs at the expense of the English.

What's clear is that immigration doesn't increase international solidarity, the British mainland labour movement in the middle of struggle for its own claims 1919-1921 () couldn't organise itself together (minus the honourable exceptions) to stop army and naval transport to Ireland, whereas the labour movement against intervention in Russia was very strong.

What's also clear is that restricted immigration does not magic 'growth' or 'jobs' either, look at every real life case of restricted immigration - Japan and South Korea are cited for some reason (but the DPRK is left out):

random search for lost generation from business website:



> _Japan already has one “Lost Generation” of youth stuck in insecure jobs as part-timers, contract workers and temps after failing to find steady employment when they graduated from high school or college during a hiring “Ice Age” from 1994 to 2004._​_Now the country’s leaders worry that a still-fragile recovery from Japan’s worst recession in 60 years and cautious corporate hiring plans are putting a second batch of youth at risk, raising prospects of a *further waste of human resources* the country can ill afford as it struggles with an ageing, shrinking population._​


​ 
_Because jobs are not about migration, they're about the ratio/balance of capital to labour, and capital right now is in the driving seat. It's a meaningless issue like - 'balanced budgets', less testing in schools, sound money, unlimited immigration, reforming a Gold Standard (the anarcho-capitalists' best idea yet) putting positive role models in adverts for young people, scrapping the Euro, a North American Free Trade Zone including Britain and Ireland, having teachers penalise students more thoroughly for spelling mistakes, proportional representation, more works' councils, the gold standard, a Commonwealth trading block, a return to the Imperial Tariffs for whoever wants to play._​_None of these things will bring jobs, nor will restricted immigration. The dangers of restricted immigration are the further heightening of backlash nationalism in the countries that have their immigration restricted._​_Look at what happened to Japan - pre-ww1 - colonialist power. Post ww1 Australia, New Zealand, America institute further exclusion criteria in their immigration laws - this targets Japanese in particular result - nationalism and hypercolonialism._​_Powers of exclusion used in America and Australia against visiting communists/barred from entry/deported to due to part of family not being native. Currently rich British people are able to come and go and live freely in most of the world - they've managed to buy up 80.000 houses in Southern Turkey, they are taking over Carribbean islands aswell apparently. If we target Eva, these (often absentee) landlords. Trevor Nelson (who condemned the August riots called for people to be sent down) has a house with a pool in the Caribbean he uses to make himself rich by letting it out. Should we start a campaign to restrict Trevor Nelson's entry into Britain? Should he be turned back at Heathrow when he returns from his holidays?_​


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 24, 2011)

sihhi said:


> No one says that migration has no effect. Of course it's downward as experienced in many jobs.
> 
> But migration is ultimately a result of capital driving
> A. privatisation (dispossessing accumulation) or B. enclosure and theft of the commons.
> ...



Good post, agree with it all, but you seem to have misunderstood mine - I wasn't arguing for restrictions on immigration, in fact I gave a couple of reasons why that _wasn't_ the answer and even if it was shown to have a positive short term impact on wages I'd be uncomfortable with it. I just dislike the fact that some on  the left (and we've all come across them, the kind of lefty liberals you see a lot of at UAF demos) want to wish the issue away and claim economic immigration either has a positive effect on work prospects or no effect at all - they might not be on this thread but there's plenty of them out there, and when they say this, which contradicts what people know from their own experience to be true, it discredits everything else they say.

The only thing I can see that _could_ help would be to unionise migrant workers - which is, of course, easier said than done.


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## 8115 (Nov 26, 2011)

I really think you're confusing correlation with causation.


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 26, 2011)

8115 said:


> I really think you're confusing correlation with causation.



Me? So you don't think a massive pool of cheap labour (and easily exploited - very hard to unionise and often unaware of their rights for a variety of reasons including often poor English language skills) will have any effect on the wages of unskilled workers in particular? Supply and demand innit.

Can you please explain to me how this could possibly do anything other than reduce the earning potential of low skilled workers? Because frankly I'm at a loss.


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## 8115 (Nov 26, 2011)

Well, for a start I'm not sure I recognise your description of "cheap and easily exploited labour", that doesn't tally with my own personal experience of the people from Eastern Europe who I have worked with.  Yes, the job market in (say) Poland is worse than here, but once you factor in the effort required to migrate I'm not sure that is such a major factor.

I think a big part of it is that there is demand in this country.  I don't know if I agree that those jobs would be filled by British workers, and would be better paid and conditions if there wasn't immigration from Eastern Europe.  I suspect that, just as companies complain that school leavers in this country don't have a good enough basic education literacy etc for some jobs, employers would be complaining they couldn't fill those jobs.

People from accession states are limited as to what benefits they can claim, clearly jobs such as working in a hotel or whatever are preferable to having no money, but they might not be preferable to being on benefits (I've worked in a shop and in catering, it's hard and tiring and by and large pretty thankless).  I think it's a big jump to say that wages and conditions would be better to entice British workers into these jobs.


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## 8115 (Nov 26, 2011)

By the way, I'm not saying benefits are too generous, I'm saying that the minimum wage, particularly in London, and working conditions doesn't really cut the mustard for many jobs.


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 26, 2011)

If those workers weren't available these employers would just say "oh, well we can't fill the jobs so we'll shut up shop!"? They don't offer crap wages because they need to do so to break even - they offer them because they _can. _

And I've worked in packing sheds and factory lines where there are Polish workers who most definitely were easily exploited. I've seen it with my own eyes.

This is what I was talking about re: people denying it's even an issue. Doesn't do your credibility any good whatsoever, especially when the people you're talking to, like me, know this to be true from their own personal experience. The answer is to point out that bolting the door shut simply isn't an option, it would be a disaster, and we've already discussed some of the reasons for this on this very thread. Go at it from that angle and you can win people over. Sticking your fingers in your ears and pretending it's not happening does nobody any favours, including the migrant workers._
_


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## FridgeMagnet (Nov 26, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> If those workers weren't available these employers would just say "oh, well we can't fill the jobs so we'll shut up shop!"? They don't offer crap wages because they need to do so to break even - they offer them because they _can. _
> 
> And I've worked in packing sheds and factory lines where there are Polish workers who most definitely were easily exploited. I've seen it with my own eyes.
> 
> ...


There are different approaches here though - personally I'm aware that there are issues of exploitation of certain groups of people (often language- and immigration-status-based and definitely not restricted to people from Eastern Europe) but it doesn't have to be seen within the sort of ethnic division context that the OP here promotes at all.


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 26, 2011)

I agree, that's why I criticised the "Eva" reference in the OP. I think we do need to discuss this though, mainly because I honestly don't know what the answer is - unionisation is an obvious one but very difficult, what else is there? It's a very tricky subject and one that I think the left as a whole has yet to address in any meaningful way.


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## 8115 (Nov 26, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> This is what I was talking about re: people denying it's even an issue. Doesn't do your credibility any good whatsoever, especially when the people you're talking to, like me, know this to be true from their own personal experience. The answer is to point out that bolting the door shut simply isn't an option, it would be a disaster, and we've already discussed some of the reasons for this on this very thread. Go at it from that angle and you can win people over. Sticking your fingers in your ears and pretending it's not happening does nobody any favours, including the migrant workers.



I'm not denying that workplace conditions and pay are an issue, I'm not denying that they may be more of an issue for people from Eastern Europe, they tend to work in industries where these issues are more prevelant, they are maybe sometimes more vulnerable. I'm questioning the causal link drawn between open borders and poor conditions and pay.


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## FridgeMagnet (Nov 26, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> I agree, that's why I criticised the "Eva" reference in the OP. I think we do need to discuss this though, mainly because I honestly don't know what the answer is - unionisation is an obvious one but very difficult, what else is there? It's a very tricky subject and one that I think the left as a whole has yet to address in any meaningful way.


No, I think I probably agree with you generally - I get annoyed by the repetition of the "immigration is good for the economy" thing, as if that were the important part to consider and not taken straight from MPs' speeches. It needs addressing on proper internationalist terms, bypassing both bosses' propaganda and nationalist exclusionism.


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 26, 2011)

8115 said:


> I'm not denying that workplace conditions and pay are an issue, I'm not denying that they may be more of an issue for people from Eastern Europe, they tend to work in industries where these issues are more prevelant, they are maybe sometimes more vulnerable. I'm questioning the causal link drawn between open borders and poor conditions and pay.



What part of it are you questioning precisely? If there's people willing to do jobs for lower pay, who are also willing to take a lot more shit from their bosses, how on earth could this _not_ impact on pay and working conditions? I once did some maintenance at a packing shed that employed mostly Polish workers. The employer took around two third of their minimum wage salary to "pay for their accommodation" (and bearing in mind they were working up to six 12 hour shifts a week that's not a small sum) which consisted of a mattress in a shared dormitory. How can this not impact on pay and working conditions? If someone who's willing to tolerate this is available to take the job then they won't employ someone who isn't. It's really that simple. And if they couldn't exploit people like that they would be forced to pay a more reasonable rate. I'm finding it very hard to understand what you're getting at here.


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## 8115 (Nov 26, 2011)

I'm questioning the simple supply and demand model that you're relying on.  I'm a bit tired so I can't really articulate it any better than that.  A quick look at wiki and a memory of an economics book I once read tells me it's not completely leftfield to be sceptical about it.


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## 8115 (Nov 26, 2011)

I'm just watching Food, Inc (very good incidentally) and they said, when the mechanism of farming leads to a problem, they don't say, oh, we won't do that and go back to the old way, they develop some high tech fix.  Likewise, if they couldn't pay low wages to Eastern European workers, I doubt they'd say, oh well, we'd better pay people properly and treat them well.  They'd just find another group to screw and another way of screwing them.


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 27, 2011)

8115 said:


> I'm just watching Food, Inc (very good incidentally) and they said, when the mechanism of farming leads to a problem, they don't say, oh, we won't do that and go back to the old way, they develop some high tech fix. Likewise, if they couldn't pay low wages to Eastern European workers, I doubt they'd say, oh well, we'd better pay people properly and treat them well. They'd just find another group to screw and another way of screwing them.



A couple of things. First of all what you're saying here could be (and indeed has been) used as an argument against agitating for better pay and conditions generally - "you'll price yourselves out of the market". The logical conclusion of what you're saying is, essentially, that we should accept shite pay and conditions because if we don't we'll all be replaced by machinery. I'm not arguing that ending immigration will result in the betterment of employment prospects for low waged workers in Britain (as I've said, repeatedly, on this thread). These employers will want to keep their increased profit margin, of course they will. But the foreign "reserve army of labour" is one of the tools capital and its friends in government have employed in order to erode both pay and conditions. It's far from the only one but it's certainly there. And the EHRC agree with me.

Secondly, in some of these jobs automation simply isn't an option with current technology. In others the costs make it prohibitive. Take the example of the packing shed I gave above. The only piece of technology that could replace most of those workers would be a robot (conveyors etc won't do it). But I happen to know that, at least at the place we worked, the cost of a robot, which would replace only one worker, was the equivalent of about 15 years wages for the worker it would have replaced (and I know this because they asked my boss to cost it for them). And when you bear in mind the fact that 1) if anything's even slightly out of place the more basic and affordable robots make a right mess 2) workers can perform additional tasks, relating to quality control, that a robot can't do and 3) workers are flexible, they can be used to complete a wide variety of tasks - they machines cannot. Now that's just for the one example I gave and that I know about - there will be similar problems with technological solutions in many of these cases. Only in the cases where technological fixes are both more expensive than migrant labour *and* less expensive than home grown labour will the scenario you describe come into play. That's a fairly small margin you've got to play with there and one in which very few of the kinds of fixes you describe can fit.


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## 8115 (Nov 27, 2011)

I didn't mean a technological fix literally, I meant it as an analogy. Just as in food does the over-technologisation lead to problems and these are solved with more technology, so the race to the bottom in the jobs market leads to problems which are not solved with better practice but rather other bad practice actions.

I don't think that what I'm saying is an argument against agitating for better pay and conditions, but it is an argument against keeping (say) eastern european workers out of the UK jobs market. Personally I think the solution is education - educate employers that it's not ok to treat workers like that, educate consumers how companies treat their workers, and educate employees that they can ask for better. That and legislation I guess.

Incidentally I'm a bit sceptical about that Guardian article that has been linked to a few times. It says "it concludes that there is evidence that "the recent migration may have reduced wages slightly at the ­bottom end of the labour market, especially for certain groups of vulnerable workers". and "It suggests if the trend continues it "runs the risk of perpetuating the existence of substantial numbers of temporary jobs with unsociable hours that are increasingly only attractive to migrant workers"." neither of which are particularly cut and dried arguments. There's a lot of "may" and "runs the risk". I'd be quite interested to see that report and to look at the hard evidence which they present.

While I don't think that you intend to or really are being racist it does worry me that this issue of immigration vs low wages is somehow set up as if it's proven that workers from Eastern Europe have contributed to unemployment or whatever and I really doubt that this is proven and I do think it verges on racism.


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 28, 2011)

8115 said:


> I didn't mean a technological fix literally, I meant it as an analogy. Just as in food does the over-technologisation lead to problems and these are solved with more technology, so the race to the bottom in the jobs market leads to problems which are not solved with better practice but rather other bad practice actions.
> 
> I don't think that what I'm saying is an argument against agitating for better pay and conditions, but it is an argument against keeping (say) eastern european workers out of the UK jobs market. Personally I think the solution is education - educate employers that it's not ok to treat workers like that, educate consumers how companies treat their workers, and educate employees that they can ask for better. That and legislation I guess.
> 
> ...



Fuck off. This is exactly what I was talking about. Once you get beyond the hand wringing you're essentially saying I'm a racist but just don't realise it. Any idea how fucking offensive that is? Try telling that to someone in the real world and you'll be picking your teeth up off the floor.

Your argument, if taken to its logical conclusion, *is *an argument against striving for better pay and conditions - just think for a second ffs. You're saying that if bosses couldn't get the cheap labour they'd use non-labour (but not technological - fuck knows what that means) fixes and the jobs would be lost. Either this applies across the jobs market or it doesn't. Doesn't matter whether it's that they're unable to bring in cheap migrant labour or workers striking or whatever for better pay - the effect is the same - bosses would have to pay more for the labour. You're saying that if they can't have it at rock bottom rates they'll cut the jobs completely. It therefore follows that it's counterproductive to strive for better pay since they'd find a magic way to get the work done without workers.

Of course the arguments in the report are probabilistic rather than set in stone - without an alternative reality with no migration to compare with you can't do much better.

I shouldn't have to say this again, I've repeated it several times already, but I *don't* want to restrict immigration. What I do want is an honest debate about this stuff, so that we can actually come up with a better solution than "let's send bosses on training courses to teach them that exploitation's bad".

The bit about "educating employers about how to treat their workers" is fucking la la land. They don't treat workers like shit because they're unenlightened. They do it because it's profitable. The state won't help because it's _their_ state.


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## teuchter (Nov 28, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> I agree, that's why I criticised the "Eva" reference in the OP. I think we do need to discuss this though, mainly because I honestly don't know what the answer is - unionisation is an obvious one but very difficult, what else is there? It's a very tricky subject and one that I think the left as a whole has yet to address in any meaningful way.



What about increasing the minimum wage, and then enforcing it properly.

That seems more realistically achievable than unionisation.


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## Spanky Longhorn (Nov 28, 2011)

teuchter said:


> What about increasing the minimum wage, and then enforcing it properly.
> 
> That seems more realistically achievable than unionisation.



And how do we convince the government to increase the minimum wage?


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## 8115 (Nov 28, 2011)

I don't think I'm saying what you think I'm saying to be honest.

And I do think you need to be careful about racism.  Using phrases like "cheap migrant labour" does have overtones that you need to be careful about even if there may be a grain of truth in it.


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## Fuchs66 (Nov 28, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Of course they fucking are.



Cant comment on the situation in the UK but this does not reflect the situation during the time I was working in an eg packing plant in Germany. The people with an immigrant background were the ones who really stood up for their rights as opposed to the German workers who just put up with the crap.


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 28, 2011)

8115 said:


> I don't think I'm saying what you think I'm saying to be honest.
> 
> And I do think you need to be careful about racism. Using phrases like "cheap migrant labour" does have overtones that you need to be careful about even if there may be a grain of truth in it.



It's you who doesn't understand what you're saying, not me. I'm hearing you loud and clear. You seem to think that because I think migrant labour has put downwards pressure on pay and conditions then I must _want_ that to be the case. I don't, far from it. But that's the way it is.

And don't you dare accuse me of racism you despicable cunt - you don't seem to realise just how offensive that is. I've been an active antiracist for over 20 years. One of the main reasons I think we need to discuss this is because if we don't, and we don't come up with a progressive, internationalist solution then racists will exploit the issue. Cheap migrant labour is what it is - it's migrant labour that happens to be cheap. The most disgusting thing about all this is the fact that I'm supposedly a racist for opposing the exploitation of migrant workers and you, who claim it's a good thing, are a lovely fluffy antiracist. People like you push people into the hands of the far right.

@sihhi - do you see what I was talking about now, with the way some on the left want to wish this away and to claim that anyone who questions their line is a racist? We have a classic example of that here.


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## 8115 (Nov 28, 2011)

I really think that a) you're misrepresenting what I'm saying and b) being incredibly agressive.  But to be honest that's my last word on the subject because I'm not prepared to be called nasty names.


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 28, 2011)

8115 said:


> I really think that a) you're misrepresenting what I'm saying and b) being incredibly agressive. But to be honest that's my last word on the subject because I'm not prepared to be called nasty names.



You just accused me of being a racist and now you're going off in a strop because _I've_ called _you_ nasty names? Get a grip ffs.


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## 8115 (Nov 28, 2011)

Look, I'm sorry for that and I'm sorry that I offended you.  I think this issue of racism if probably a red herring to be honest.  We disagree about facts at the end of the day.

To make a point about racism, I don't think it makes sense to divide up the world into people who are racist and people who aren't racist.  Racism is pretty insidious and I would acknowledge that sometimes I have racist thoughts, attitudes or behaviours as do most people probably.  I would have thought that 20 years of being an active antiracist would have made you well aware of that.  But that's a red herring and I'm sorry I offended you.


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 28, 2011)

8115 said:


> Look, I'm sorry for that and I'm sorry that I offended you. I think this issue of racism if probably a red herring to be honest. We disagree about facts at the end of the day.
> 
> To make a point about racism, I don't think it makes sense to divide up the world into people who are racist and people who aren't racist. Racism is pretty insidious and I would acknowledge that sometimes I have racist thoughts, attitudes or behaviours as do most people probably. I would have thought that 20 years of being an active antiracist would have made you well aware of that. But that's a red herring and I'm sorry I offended you.



Apology accepted, and I'm sorry I called you a cunt  I agree that the OP was needlessly provocative and that treelover often does present these issues in a very divisive "them and us" way and we need to be careful about how this is presented. But there's an issue here that needs to be addressed.


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## treelover (Nov 28, 2011)

'Look, I'm sorry for that and I'm sorry that I offended you. I think this issue of racism if probably a red herring to be honest. We disagree about facts at the end of the day.'

well why use it then, it is too often sprayed around when the person is nothing of the sort, it also degrades what racism actually is...

oh, and take the hairshirt off...


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 28, 2011)

I often disagree with treelover but he's bang on the money with the above post.


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## teuchter (Nov 28, 2011)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> And how do we convince the government to increase the minimum wage?



It seems marginally more feasible than convincing everyone, including temporary workers from overseas, to join unions.

I reckon that a larger proportion of people adversely affected by low pay would be inclined to vote for an increase in the minimum wage, than would be persuaded to join a union.

And there is the precedent of the minimum wage already having been introduced by a government voted in with such a move included in their manifesto.


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## frogwoman (Nov 28, 2011)

teuchter said:


> It seems marginally more feasible than convincing everyone, including temporary workers from overseas, to join unions.
> 
> I reckon that a larger proportion of people adversely affected by low pay would be inclined to vote for an increase in the minimum wage, than would be persuaded to join a union.
> 
> And there is the precedent of the minimum wage already having been introduced by a government voted in with such a move included in their manifesto.



It's the same thing.


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 28, 2011)

You can always find ways and means of getting around legislation like the minimum wage - the example of making stupidly high deductions for "accommodation" is a classic. It's far, far harder to get around a strong union.

I tend to agree that the answer lies in organising migrant (in fact all) workers. But how do we go about doing so and is there anything else we could do? If it was properly enforced I agree that a decent minimum wage would solve a lot of the problems, but if, say, Labour could be persuaded that this was a big enough vote winner for them to put it in their manifesto, they'd do the same as they did when they introduced the minimum wage - make no real effort to ensure it's properly enforced and do nothing to stop people making the kind of deductions from wages for accommodation etc. I mentioned above. In fact it could well make unemployment worse - a higher minimum wage that's not properly enforced would increase the incentive to employ cheaper, more easily exploited labour, since the difference between their rate of pay and that of anyone else would be even higher.

In the unlikely event of a socialist/left government coming to power then yes, this would be an excellent short-term fix. But the reality is that if any of the current mainstream parties did this they wouldn't enforce it properly - their rich friends would apply sufficient pressure to make sure of that.


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## frogwoman (Nov 28, 2011)

You wouldn't even have things like the minimum wages without unions.


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 28, 2011)

We probably wouldn't even have the vote.


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## frogwoman (Nov 28, 2011)

and if these cunts (the ruling class) get their way then there may come a day when we dont have it again.


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## teuchter (Nov 28, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> You can always find ways and means of getting around legislation like the minimum wage - the example of making stupidly high deductions for "accommodation" is a classic. It's far, far harder to get around a strong union.



So, how do you propose that "strong unions" are formed, that would protect everyone in jobs with a pressure for low wages?

Your proposition needs to be at least as realistic as the suggestion that a party should seek votes based on a commitment to an increased minimum wage with stronger enforcement.


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## frogwoman (Nov 28, 2011)

"you" dont need to propose anything, it will happen naturally as people learn through struggle, through the attacks on their/others conditions, etc. Besides thousands of people are joining unions, i'd have thought the larger the percentage of people unionised gets, the more potent a force the unions can be.


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 28, 2011)

teuchter said:


> So, how do you propose that "strong unions" are formed, that would protect everyone in jobs with a pressure for low wages?



I don't know, that's the question I'm asking.



teuchter said:


> Your proposition needs to be at least as realistic as the suggestion that a party should seek votes based on a commitment to an increased minimum wage with stronger enforcement.



The last three words are key - getting any of the three main parties to agree to increase the minimum wage, and to actually enforce it, is about as realistic as the SPGB.


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## teuchter (Nov 28, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> "you" dont need to propose anything, it will happen naturally as people learn through struggle, through the attacks on their/others conditions, etc.



That seems rather optimistic.


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## frogwoman (Nov 28, 2011)

teuchter said:


> That seems rather optimistic.



Why does it seem optimistic, that's what's happening up and down the country tbh, right now


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## teuchter (Nov 28, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> Why does it seem optimistic, that's what's happening up and down the country tbh, right now



In small pockets, of people who happen to be in jobs where for whatever reason there is already union presence. Do you really think things are going to improve through this mechanism for most people in the kinds of jobs where immigrants are supposedly putting a downward pressure on already low wages?


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## frogwoman (Nov 28, 2011)

teuchter said:


> In small pockets, of people who happen to be in jobs where for whatever reason there is already union presence. Do you really think things are going to improve through this mechanism for most people in the kinds of jobs where immigrants are supposedly putting a downward pressure on already low wages?



well for example where i live there was a strike by hospital cleaners, six months before the strike started nobody was in a union, lots of foreign workers etc, by the end they all were, and all voted to strike.


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## frogwoman (Nov 28, 2011)

teuchter said:


> In small pockets, of people who happen to be in jobs where for whatever reason there is already union presence. Do you really think things are going to improve through this mechanism for most people in the kinds of jobs where immigrants are supposedly putting a downward pressure on already low wages?



61% of people (give or take) support the strike, that's 61% of people plus probably another 25% who could be persuaded to strike if things got bad ennough that it directly affected them, or if they understood a bit more about how unions work. i agree that unions have been abysmal at times at promoting themsleves in the private sector, but i am actually pretty optimistic tbh.


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## teuchter (Nov 29, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> 61% of people (give or take) support the strike, that's 61% of people plus probably another 25% who could be persuaded to strike if things got bad ennough that it directly affected them, or if they understood a bit more about how unions work. i agree that unions have been abysmal at times at promoting themsleves in the private sector, but i am actually pretty optimistic tbh.



Well it seems pretty optimistic to me. Time will tell I suppose.


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## teuchter (Nov 29, 2011)

Well it seems pretty optimistic to me. Time will tell I suppose.

All this depends on people working in places where unions are officially recognised, does it not? What's going to make more employers recognise unions?


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## frogwoman (Nov 29, 2011)

More people joining them


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 29, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> You wouldn't even have things like the minimum wages without unions.



We'd probably still have fucking company stores without unions, as opposed to the Co-op.


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## Gmart (Nov 30, 2011)

It's a period of adjustment - the globalised world has plugged itself in, and the currency differentials between the relatively more productive areas to the relatively unproductive areas are kicking in - they will die down only after the equilibrium between productive and unproductive areas of people occurs

It doesn't necessarily even matter if 'they' can speak English - they can work and want to work, and why shouldn't they?

Wages and prices are on a downward trend due to competition and a depressed western economy. Unions could be strengthened, but are divided and so will not amount to much. They could unify so that real solutions can be discussed - but the true problem is that the UK is a diminishing power which has oppressed its population for a long time and should be moving towards a more modern system rather than pretending that it has any answers for the globalised world it finds itself in.

You cannot stop the movement of labour, any more than you can restrict the movement of money. Any barriers will just prolong the agony, while minimum wage legislation is just a blunt tool and is, as has been mentioned, very easy to bypass, and might in fact make things worse.


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 30, 2011)

And what might this more modern system be? Am I going to regret asking that question?


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## Gmart (Dec 1, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> And what might this more modern system be? Am I going to regret asking that question?


There has to be an agreement on shared principles, which necessitates a discussion on what these might be. I would suggest being guided by rationality and logic, avoiding privilege, freedom of expression/conscience guiding the system through best practice - agreed rights and wrongs for a society etc. What duties can be imposed on others?
For unemployment one has to ask how to stimulate an economy to employ more people. Is it even possible to do so? Certainly a Keynesian stimulus would work, and is used by other countries to direct resources (for example the German investment in 'green' power), but it is expensive.
In this post globalised world, people cannot be forced to do anything. They can freely enter into a contract, discuss, cooperate or be apathetic, that has to be up to the individual - thus individual rights.


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## DotCommunist (Dec 1, 2011)

he's banging on about the social contract _again_?


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## SpineyNorman (Dec 1, 2011)

And how do you propose we arrive at your "solution" then Gmart? Ask the powers that be _really nicely_?

"In this globalised world" lol hasn't the world always been global?


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## Gmart (Dec 1, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> And how do you propose we arrive at your "solution" then Gmart? Ask the powers that be _really nicely_?
> 
> "In this globalised world" lol hasn't the world always been global?


While opinion is divided then we will default ourselves into being fodder for capitalism. Only through cooperation can any progress be made.
Inevitably I am using the word globalised to refer to the march of communications which has changed the world in the last fifty years, as well as the unification of markets. But then you knew that anyway...


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## ViolentPanda (Dec 1, 2011)

How to kill a thread, in one easy lesson....


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## SpineyNorman (Dec 1, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> And what might this more modern system be? *Am I going to regret asking that question?*



That's a yes then 



Gmart said:


> While opinion is divided then we will default ourselves into being fodder for capitalism. Only through cooperation can any progress be made.
> Inevitably I am using the word globalised to refer to the march of communications which has changed the world in the last fifty years, as well as the unification of markets. But then you knew that anyway...



You're very boring. Please go away.


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## ViolentPanda (Dec 2, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> That's a yes then
> 
> You're very boring. Please go away.



You should be so lucky, Norm!


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