Can't get the staff

[Deleted member 174758]

Looking at my name you'd be wrong. The nickname came from when I was working on a different type of site to what you maybe be thinking about (not every site is a one-off newbuild semi on its' own) and it is certainly a term used on large sites.

Anyway, looking at your name I thought you were a spanner twirler

 

[transam]

Worked on a good few sites were the builders were Eastern European

Mostly Polish and Romanians

Communication can be an issue

Fortunately we now adopted a policy of not working for builders or property developers

On the rare occasions that we do it’s never directly for a builder always the client if that is not acceptable than we turn the work away

 

[transam]

Letting agents another shower

As for social housing jeez us

 

[Mottie]

Anyway, I thought you were a spanner twirler

I am/used to be - more into training these days but winding down to retirement nowdays, I know a few people that used to work on sites that had to leave because they weren't willing to travel up to London and work on sites from 8 till 6 for £80 a day. Funnily enough, two of them have recently gone back as the wages have got better since Brexit.

A mate of mine delivers and repairs concrete pumps to sites and he can only talk to the foreman because not one of the workers can (or maybe won't) speak English. How on earth do they get theit CSCS cards?

 

[Deleted member 18243]

we now have a major shortage of skilled construction workers in this country which I notice hasn't been addressed by the current government...

Are you forgetting the millions that we (via the government) pay not to work?

Worked on a good few sites were the builders were Eastern European

Mostly Polish and Romanians

They wear sandals on the building sites.

 

[Deleted member 18243]

not one of the workers can (or maybe won't) speak English. How on earth do they get theit CSCS cards?

They don't have CSCS cards. They don't have anything. They don't exist. They're not officially here. They're cheap though.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

I know a few people that used to work on sites that had to leave because they weren't willing to travel up to London and work on sites from 8 till 6 for £80 a day. Funnily enough, two of them have recently gone back as the wages have got better since Brexit.

Let's get something straight, here. I work the area between Liverpool and Leeds, mainly around Manchester these days,and our labourers earn more than £80 a day, whilst site-based tradesmen haven't been on £10 an hour since the depths of the recession, back in 2008 to 2010. So either you are spouting b0llox, or your mates are.

A mate of mine delivers and repairs concrete pumps to sites and he can only talk to the foreman because not one of the workers can (or maybe won't) speak English. How on earth do they get theit CSCS cards?

Well, in point of fact it's supposed to be the foreman your mate is talking to in any case (it's called "chain of command" in the military). But never mind.

The reality is that your great hero, Margaret Thatcher, shut down a lot of technical colleges and night schools and decimated the apprentice system (NVQs do not replace C&Gs), and Tony Blair then finished off the job by persuading young people that they all needed to have degrees not C&Gs. On top of all this the current shower of sh1te have done sweet FA since 2010 to improve technical education in the UK despite voices in the industry calling repeatedly for it

Any way, the result is that we have had, for more than two decades, a severe shortage of young people willing to come into an industry which is often perceived (and often described by middle class teachers as) dirty, dangerous and (sometimes) under paid. This is in no small part responsible the decreasing quality of apprentices we've had over the last 20 or so years, many having poor literary and numeracy skills. Given that this situation was self-inflicted by the HMG UK and occurred before the arrival of workers from the east European accession states in about 2001 to 2003, you can hardly blame employers for wanting to plug major gaps in the skilled workforce. In other words it wasn't down to the EU - it was our own politicians who created this situation.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

They don't have CSCS cards. They don't have anything. They don't exist. They're not officially here. They're cheap though.

Another "expert opinion" from someone who still works in construction, Andy? Maybe that's the case on Bob the Bodger building sites, but then there were always small, sh1tty sites like that.

On big sites run by major contractors that sort of thing rarely happens in my limited experience

 

[Deleted member 18243]

Another "expert opinion" from someone who still works in construction, Andy? Maybe that's the case on Bob the Bodger building sites, but then there were always small, sh1tty sites like that.

On big sites run by major contractors that sort of thing rarely happens in my limited experience

Never underestimate how bad things are; most building sites are Bob the Bodger ones and the bodgers all wear sandals.

 

[ReganAndCarter]

That’s right, I do
More doctors, more nurses, more carers, more seasonal workers, more hospitality workers.



I don’t want people to be waiting 12 hours for an ambulance, or farmers having to waste crops…..I don’t want any of that just because Andy and Mottie hate foreigners.

Trouble is, we've taken on the liability of millions more immigrants in recent years. And we're STILL short of key staff.

Maybe if we stopped accepting millions of immigrants with zero to offer, our services wouldn't be overwhelmed.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Never underestimate how bad things are; most building sites are Bob the Bodger ones and the bodgers all wear sandals.

I try never to go anywhere near them. Big sites are far safer places to work and the work is a lot more varied IMHO

 

[Odds]

Trouble is, we've taken on the liability of millions more immigrants in recent years. And we're STILL short of key staff.

Maybe if we stopped accepting millions of immigrants with zero to offer, our services wouldn't be overwhelmed.

Maybe if wages were better suited to the costs of living in this country we wouldn't have to rely on foreign labour at all.

 

[Dork Lard]

A local chap, joiner by trade, went off to the big city to look for work on the Olympic village. Signed up with a trades agency who put him on site the very next day.

Within a few hours he was approached by a huge Ivan, "don't come to work here tommorrow".

Asking around it seemed that a gang had commandeered the supply of the casuals & day workers. He was OK if signed on with a sub-contractor but he couldn't work as an independant subby unless it was through this gang.

Don't know if this is still the case in London, but in my day it was Paddy who ran the labour on all the big sites.

 

[Mottie]

You often see hopeful immigrant workers queuing up outside the diy type places in the morning hoping for a builder to take them on for a days work for half a days pay.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I don’t want people to be waiting 12 hours for an ambulance, or farmers having to waste crops…..I don’t want any of that just because Andy and Mottie hate foreigners.

We do already have lots of foreigners, many of them doing little or nothing productive.