Wonderful things happening after the referendum and A50

[Stooo]

Dark blue passports is really really important!
Imagine going back to 240m pennies to the pound?
How to kill trade with the rest of the planet!

Yeah but muh sovereignty, will we get bomb sites and rickets back too?

[Viper]

Lol. Companies are investing in britain. Your choice to wallow in this imagined pessimistic apocalyptic future is good for lols. I am totally bemused why you choose to be like this but it is funny.

[McAz]

Lol. Companies are investing in britain. Your choice to wallow in this imagined pessimistic apocalyptic future is good for lols. I am totally bemused why you choose to be like this but it is funny.

Because of or despite Brexit?

[Stooo]

One year since the vote and still no plans from the government, meanwhile...

A Leave-voting business owner has said he regrets the decision because his fruit farms will collapse if he has no access to EU workers after Brexit.

Harry Hall, of the Hall Hunter Partnership soft fruit company, said he was in favour of Brexit because of the issue of sovereignty but was concerned by the Government's approach to negotiations.

Mr Hall was speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme as industry body British Summer Fruits (BSF) claimed prices for strawberries and raspberries could “soar” by between 35 per cent and 50 per cent if Brexit restricted access to EU labour.

He said: “I regret my vote in the face of the Government I'm given.

“The reason I voted to leave was that I'm in favour of sovereignty. This was about sovereignty for me.

“As businessmen we need clarity about our future direction.

“If I don't have my 2,500 staff that I need, or I have no certainty of that from 2019 onwards, I don't have a business. It's as simple as that.”

A worker at Hall Hunter Partnership's Tuesley Farm in Godalming, Surrey, told Today it had had one English applicant in the last several years, but that they quit after one day.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 02381.html

[rollup]

When I were a lad students went in fruit picking season and earned some dosh for themselves.
We've grown fruit in this country for centuries so why on earth we need to ship in people from abroad I don't understand.
Have we become to affluent and comfortable?
Whole families would go hop picking and consider it a working holiday.
I suppose that needs immigrants too now.

[Si_Crewe]

One year since the vote and still no plans from the government, meanwhile...

A Leave-voting business owner has said he regrets the decision because his fruit farms will collapse if he has no access to EU workers after Brexit.

Harry Hall, of the Hall Hunter Partnership soft fruit company, said he was in favour of Brexit because of the issue of sovereignty but was concerned by the Government's approach to negotiations.

Mr Hall was speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme as industry body British Summer Fruits (BSF) claimed prices for strawberries and raspberries could “soar” by between 35 per cent and 50 per cent if Brexit restricted access to EU labour.

He said: “I regret my vote in the face of the Government I'm given.

“The reason I voted to leave was that I'm in favour of sovereignty. This was about sovereignty for me.

“As businessmen we need clarity about our future direction.

“If I don't have my 2,500 staff that I need, or I have no certainty of that from 2019 onwards, I don't have a business. It's as simple as that.”

A worker at Hall Hunter Partnership's Tuesley Farm in Godalming, Surrey, told Today it had had one English applicant in the last several years, but that they quit after one day.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 02381.html

That sounds like somebody who is morally in favour of Brexit but then fears the potential financial impact of it.

Effectively he's saying he feels like he's being blackmailed into remaining part of the EU for fear of lost revenue.

I seem to recall that companies like Sky and various mobile-phone companies used to adopt similar practices, coercing people to extend their contracts on penalty of massive cancellation fees, until the OFT stepped in and put an end to the unethical practice.

[McAz]

One year since the vote and still no plans from the government, meanwhile...

A Leave-voting business owner has said he regrets the decision because his fruit farms will collapse if he has no access to EU workers after Brexit.

Harry Hall, of the Hall Hunter Partnership soft fruit company, said he was in favour of Brexit because of the issue of sovereignty but was concerned by the Government's approach to negotiations.

Mr Hall was speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme as industry body British Summer Fruits (BSF) claimed prices for strawberries and raspberries could “soar” by between 35 per cent and 50 per cent if Brexit restricted access to EU labour.

He said: “I regret my vote in the face of the Government I'm given.

“The reason I voted to leave was that I'm in favour of sovereignty. This was about sovereignty for me.

“As businessmen we need clarity about our future direction.

“If I don't have my 2,500 staff that I need, or I have no certainty of that from 2019 onwards, I don't have a business. It's as simple as that.”

A worker at Hall Hunter Partnership's Tuesley Farm in Godalming, Surrey, told Today it had had one English applicant in the last several years, but that they quit after one day.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 02381.html

More and more Brexiteers will come to realise that their illusory "principles" aren't worth a damn, let alone the price - but who knows, perhaps the EU will take pity on us?

[Si_Crewe]

When I were a lad students went in fruit picking season and earned some dosh for themselves.
We've grown fruit in this country for centuries so why on earth we need to ship in people from abroad I don't understand.
Have we become to affluent and comfortable?
Whole families would go hop picking and consider it a working holiday.
I suppose that needs immigrants too now.

I'm honestly not sure what to make of situations like this.

On the face of it, given that we have minimum-wage laws, there wouldn't seem to be any particular benefit to hiring-in people from abroad to pick fruit.
Equally, I'm genuinely surprised when businesses say that they "can't find British workers to fill jobs".
Okay, so you probably wouldn't want to commit to a lifelong career in strawberry picking but, geez, if I was a teenager or unemployed, I'd bite their fucking hand off for the chance of earning £50-odd per day picking fruit.
You have to wonder how these people are surviving when they can turn up their noses at earning that kind of money.

Personally, I have a sneaky feeling that the businesses aren't quite the innocent victims that they portray themselves as, though.
I can't help wondering if a lot of these outfits are simply keen to retain the business model where, basically, a bus-load of backpackers rock up from somewhere like Estonia or Ukraine, are prepared to live on-site and then they'll take it in turns to do some work and split the cash between them.

I've seen a vaguely similar thing in the oil & gas industry, where companies hire eastern european "engineers", the company hires a house for them and 20 of them (yes, that's not an exaggeration) share it between them.
They're only getting paid half what their Brit' counterparts are getting but, then again, the Brit' has a mortgage, bills and British taxes to pay and s/he has to support their family at UK cost-of-living prices whereas the EU engineers don't have anything like the same expenses.

Yes, it's probably going to increase costs to businesses,reduce profits and increase prices if businesses are forced to hire Brit's instead but my sympathy for these companies is limited if they're over-extended themselves and come to rely on unethical practices in order to minimise costs and maximise profit.

[rollup]

When I were a lad students went in fruit picking season and earned some dosh for themselves.
We've grown fruit in this country for centuries so why on earth we need to ship in people from abroad I don't understand.
Have we become to affluent and comfortable?
Whole families would go hop picking and consider it a working holiday.
I suppose that needs immigrants too now.

I'm honestly not sure what to make of situations like this.

On the face of it, given that we have minimum-wage laws, there wouldn't seem to be any particular benefit to hiring-in people from abroad to pick fruit.
Equally, I'm genuinely surprised when businesses say that they "can't find British workers to fill jobs".
Okay, so you probably wouldn't want to commit to a lifelong career in strawberry picking but, geez, if I was a teenager or unemployed, I'd bite their fucking hand off for the chance of earning £50-odd per day picking fruit.
You have to wonder how these people are surviving when they can turn up their noses at earning that kind of money.

Personally, I have a sneaky feeling that the businesses aren't quite the innocent victims that they portray themselves as, though.
I can't help wondering if a lot of these outfits are simply keen to retain the business model where, basically, a bus-load of backpackers rock up from somewhere like Estonia or Ukraine, are prepared to live on-site and then they'll take it in turns to do some work and split the cash between them.

I've seen a vaguely similar thing in the oil & gas industry, where companies hire eastern european "engineers", the company hires a house for them and 20 of them (yes, that's not an exaggeration) share it between them.
They're only getting paid half what their Brit' counterparts are getting but, then again, the Brit' has a mortgage, bills and British taxes to pay and s/he has to support their family at UK cost-of-living prices whereas the EU engineers don't have anything like the same expenses.

Yes, it's probably going to increase costs to businesses,reduce profits and increase prices if businesses are forced to hire Brit's instead but my sympathy for these companies is limited if they're over-extended themselves and come to rely on unethical practices in order to minimise costs and maximise profit.

That's where my suspicions lay too.

[rollup]

Has anyone ever read an account of an English man turning up at one of these places looking for work .... what wage he might have been offered etc?
Or is that taboo as it would expose the lazy Brits story as a sham?

[McAz]

Has anyone ever read an account of an English man turning up at one of these places looking for work .... what wage he might have been offered etc?
Or is that taboo as it would expose the lazy Brits story as a sham?

https://www.indeed.co.uk/Fruit-Picking-jobs-in-England

£7.50 to £8.00 an hour seems to be the average going rate. If you're fit and healthy then I suppose it has its attractions.

[rollup]

Has anyone ever read an account of an English man turning up at one of these places looking for work .... what wage he might have been offered etc?
Or is that taboo as it would expose the lazy Brits story as a sham?

https://www.indeed.co.uk/Fruit-Picking-jobs-in-England

£7.50 to £8.00 an hour seems to be the average going rate. If you're fit and healthy then I suppose it has its attractions.

Well that's better than seventy quid a week on the dole!

[wutang]

Has anyone ever read an account of an English man turning up at one of these places looking for work .... what wage he might have been offered etc?
Or is that taboo as it would expose the lazy Brits story as a sham?

https://www.indeed.co.uk/Fruit-Picking-jobs-in-England

£7.50 to £8.00 an hour seems to be the average going rate. If you're fit and healthy then I suppose it has its attractions.

I know a couple of Lithuanian lads who did field work for a bit. Both big lad (do they feed them steroids over there?) and they hated it. The second anything better came up (which meant anything also paying minimum wage) they were off. Seems to be a problem altogether - only those with no other prospects will do these jobs for more than a very short time which is why there is a constant conveyor belt of new migrants needed.

Or you can just enslave them instead.

Modern Slavery: dark secrets of rural Britain
Seasonal workers in agriculture remain at risk of forced labour within the UK, says Clive Aslet, despite legal safeguards to prevent slavery

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/li ... rk-uk.html

As for the lazy brits thing - aside from how shit the jobs are for the pay offered (gimme £20 an hour and I may think about it), these jobs are in rural areas so how are unemployed people supposed to get there? a jobless teen in Burnley is hardly able to afford the travel/living expenses required to work on a fruit farm in Kent are they?

[McAz]

Has anyone ever read an account of an English man turning up at one of these places looking for work .... what wage he might have been offered etc?
Or is that taboo as it would expose the lazy Brits story as a sham?

https://www.indeed.co.uk/Fruit-Picking-jobs-in-England

£7.50 to £8.00 an hour seems to be the average going rate. If you're fit and healthy then I suppose it has its attractions.

Well that's better than seventy quid a week on the dole!

Wouldn't you do both - it's short term after all?

[Si_Crewe]

Has anyone ever read an account of an English man turning up at one of these places looking for work .... what wage he might have been offered etc?
Or is that taboo as it would expose the lazy Brits story as a sham?

Living in a rural farming/fishing community we do have some of that around here and, yes, those jobs are all taken by eastern europeans.

Again, it seems like they've got something of a "cartel" going, where half a dozen of them will be living together and one day a couple of them will be putting up fences, the next day a couple more will be jet-washing fishing boats and on another day a couple of them will be herding cows or whatever.

I suppose it's a situation that you can understand businesses taking advantage of.
They've got a pool of labour which they can dip into at will and they've also got some level of assurance that they'll be able to find sufficient manpower from that pool to do whatever work they need.

For a farmer, or fishing boat owner, it's probably more convenient to just keep drawing on that pool of people rather than having to go to the effort of hiring individual people who may or may not decide to turn up when they're expected.

I suppose that, as an individual, if you turn up at one of these places, ask for work, do a few days and then decide you're knackered, the employer is going to tell you to fuck off if you try to go back for more work.
Conversely, if you're part of one of these "groups", it gives you more latitude to pick how much you work without pissing off your employer(s), and thus retaining the job(s).

And then there's the issue of benefits.
If you're an individual you are (AFAIK) going to have to inform the authorities if you start work, however casual.
If you then spend 4 days carting fence-posts around and end-up knackered, take a day off and get replaced, you're boned.
If, OTOH, you're part of a "group", you'll be able to get somebody to cover for you and retain your job and it's not entirely unlikely that a couple of members of the group might be able to claim various benefits as well as working.

Course, if I was in a position where I was looking for work, I'd probably try to find a bunch of other people in a similar position and try to form a little "group" of my own.