Foreign workers

ban-all-sheds · 23 Apr 2006

markie said:
So what your saying is, he never said that poles were not white in the HIGHLIGHTED post you typed, under his quote.

I am really struggling to understand what you're on about.

Of course he didn't say they weren't white - that's the whole point.

He moaned that Poles were coming over here, and would drive down wages until the white guy is unemployed.

So he was moaning that white guys were coming over here, and would drive down wages until the white guy is unemployed.

So I pointed out the mistake in his "argument".

Of course, we all know why he said that - his mask slipped for a second.

There's only one sort of person who would ever say "immigrants will drive down wages until the white guy is unemployed".....

ban-all-sheds · 23 Apr 2006

joe-90 said:
ban-all-sheds said:

One in fifty of our population is now an illegal immigrant working the black economy taking jobs from UK residents.

Click to expand...

Then let's regularise them, boost the economy, and make it impossible for employers to exploit them and pay them illegally low wages. Then they wouldn't be so cheap to employ.

Click to expand...

That would be economic suicide.

The Home Office estimate that there are between 310,000 and 570,000 illegal immigrants in the UK.

Deporting them would cost £4.7 billion, and leave acute shortages of cleaners, care workers and hotel staff.

If allowed to live and work legally, they would pay more than £1 billion in tax each year.

£1 billion per year would allow the Treasury to abolish the starting rate of stamp duty or increase the Child Tax Credit by £150.

£1 billion + £4.7 billion saved by not deporting would pay for 300 new schools, or 12 district hospitals or 200,000 new nurses.

Nearly 50% of foreign-born immigrants leave Britain within 5 years. Immigrants are much more likely to stay for short periods, or to circulate between home and host countries if they are able to get back in.

Remittances home from immigrant workers provide a very effective form of poverty relief in 3rd world countries.

Migrants fill 90% of low-paid jobs in London, and account for 29% of the capital's work force.

Legal migrants comprise 8.7% of the population, but contribute 10.2% of all taxes.

Each immigrant pays an average of £7,203 in tax compared with £6,861 for non-migrant workers.

There were 25,715 people claiming asylum last year - if allowed to work they would generate £123M in tax revenues.

In 2005, Spain completed a large-scale regularisation programme, and the government estimates that it increased revenue by €750 million in 2005, and is set to add a further €1,350 million in 2006.

joe-90 · 23 Apr 2006

That's not what I asked you.

I ask you (yet) again.

"When do YOU consider this tiny island full?"

Answer please,

joe

ban-all-sheds · 23 Apr 2006

joe-90 said:
That's not what I asked you.

Err - you responded to my suggestion with a statement I believe to be false, so I countered it.

I ask you (yet) again.

"When do YOU consider this tiny island full?"

Answer please,

I'm not prepared to debate that with someone like you, as you aren't genuinely interested in a reasoned debate. You're not approaching the subject from the position of someone prepared to discuss it rationally, you're doing it from the point of view of a committed racist who sees it as an emotive topic to go into his kitbag to be used in his campaign to turn others into racists. "They'll take our jobs, they'll take our houses, they'll fill up our country, they'll spread disease, they'll rape our women, they'll...., they'll...., they'll...", and so on with predictable prejudiced monotony...

WoodYouLike · 23 Apr 2006

Very interesting thread. Splinter, we're foreigners (European - West), came here 6 years ago and are running a business here. Struggled the first years as employees, were made redundant, even the Employments Tribunal decision didn't get us our areas in wages, holiday pay etc. We didn't go back 'home', we didn't ask for dole (although we had be paying normal PAYE and NIC etc) we just took a very deep breath and started all over. (We don't have a mortgage, we don't own a house, we're saving for that).
I'm not complaining, I just make the best of it. Before we started again I worked for peanuts to make ends meet.

pickles said:
Cheap foreign labour has already destroyed our traditional industries' the only difference was that the work went to them rather than them coming here.

Can I add something to this? Every one who is in favour of blocking cheap labourers coming in will they also block cheap products coming in????
That's ruining many businesses also, but is part of normal economics: protectionism will never ever make a country wealthier in the long term.

Just my 2p (for what's it worth).

Thermo · 23 Apr 2006

How comes you keep ranting on about the island being full and employing migrant workers is no good for the economy etc etc, but then you offer this advice to someone who wants to know how to do some skirting?

Timber = £50.

Polish joiner = £50.

joe

Double standards?

kendor · 23 Apr 2006

isn't this what the common market is all about the sharing of labour as one of the resources?

If other member countries are shown to favour just their own home grown labour then you havea case to take to the european courts surely?

splinter · 23 Apr 2006

kendor said:
isn't this what the common market is all about the sharing of labour as one of the resources?

If other member countries are shown to favour just their own home grown labour then you havea case to take to the european courts surely?

I think you will find that is only Britain and Ireland that is taking part in the sharing of labour at the moment

Softus · 23 Apr 2006

joe-90 said:
There is no answer until there is civil unrest and the European Union falls apart.

Joe, I can see (from your ealier posts on this topic) that your heart is in what I would call "the right place", but this kind of statement is where you start to lose me.

It's a grey world - meaning that there's a wide spectrum of social state between stability and anarchy. Just because we might lose some financial buyancy doesn't mean the path will inevitably lead to the EU falling apart. Does it?

joe-90 said:
It's not rocket science to figure that if the rich nations (UK) support the poor nations (Poland, Latvia etc) that they will become richer and we will become poorer.

I agree, but I don't see why the UK becoming temporarily poorer is automatically a problem - it's a move towards the general good, i.e. considering the world beyond our own shores, that the poorer countries increase their prosperity.

You might mistake my stance as "lefty", leaving aside some of the colourful adjectives that would take this topic towards gaol, but I regard myself as being as capitalist as they come; I just like looking at the bigger picture, and I firmly believe that the long term growth for our own country doesn't start with its short term prosperity. And it certainly doesn't involved Tony Blair, IMHO.

In that respect I would say that we're on the same wavelength, because I don't see any UK future except for one that involves some belt-tightening, but we don't have to be fighting about it when the time comes.

On another point, this:

joe=90 said:
I've nothing against the Poles - just the system that allows all and sundry in to benefit from what our forefathers left us.

...is narrow-minded, in terms of our inheritance, which involves an awful lot of theft from other countries. Even if you consider only the discraceful example of ivory, surely you have to be ashamed of how we've [mis]treated other societies, some of them far beyond Europe. Historically, in the propogation of the British Empire, we exploited countless nations and their economies. Payback, in terms of the welfare state coffers being leached of some funds, is long overdue.

WoodYouLike · 23 Apr 2006

splinter said:
kendor said:

isn't this what the common market is all about the sharing of labour as one of the resources?

If other member countries are shown to favour just their own home grown labour then you havea case to take to the european courts surely?

Click to expand...

I think you will find that is only Britain and Ireland that is taking part in the sharing of labour at the moment

b**l*cks

splinter · 23 Apr 2006

WoodYouLike said:
Very interesting thread. Splinter, we're foreigners (European - West), came here 6 years ago and are running a business here. Struggled the first years as employees, were made redundant, even the Employments Tribunal decision didn't get us our areas in wages, holiday pay etc. We didn't go back 'home', we didn't ask for dole (although we had be paying normal PAYE and NIC etc) we just took a very deep breath and started all over. (We don't have a mortgage, we don't own a house, we're saving for that).
I'm not complaining, I just make the best of it. Before we started again I worked for peanuts to make ends meet.

pickles said:

Cheap foreign labour has already destroyed our traditional industries' the only difference was that the work went to them rather than them coming here.

Click to expand...

Can I add something to this? Every one who is in favour of blocking cheap labourers coming in will they also block cheap products coming in????
That's ruining many businesses also, but is part of normal economics: protectionism will never ever make a country wealthier in the long term.

Just my 2p (for what's it worth).

wyl, Why did you decide on coming to the UK as opposed to any other country ? Not a lot of good asking for dole if you get as much as I am getting!
This question is to anyone ,what job do I now take ,retrain for were I can get the same amount of income as I was getting as a carpenter.Now In hind sight ,if I had known 2years ago that my prospects of getting work as a carpenter was going to be so drasticly reduced by such a high influx of "cheap" labour I would of made some provision for that.at least with most other industries that have suffered in this country ,employees have recieved redundancy money to give them a breathing space while they take stock of the situation

PS apoliges to anyone I upset last night as I was writing under the influence of 2bottles more wine than usual.

Nige F · 23 Apr 2006

Cheap Foreign Imported Wine

WoodYouLike · 23 Apr 2006

splinter said:
This question is to anyone ,what job do I now take ,retrain for were I can get the same amount of income as I was getting as a carpenter.

I suggest you start to lower your expectations on that one, just make sure you'll find a job you need/want/like/enjoy

splinter said:
Now In hind sight ,if I had known 2years ago that my prospects of getting work as a carpenter was going to be so drasticly reduced by such a high influx of "cheap" labour I would of made some provision for that.

Still not to late to think about that, then? What would you have done 2 years ago? Could you start doing that now?

p.s. the reason for coming to the U.K. was very simple: someone offered us the possibility of running a business. It the end that 'venture' went all pear-shaped, but there you go, life isn't always going according to plan.

splinter · 23 Apr 2006

WoodYouLike said:
splinter said:

kendor said:

isn't this what the common market is all about the sharing of labour as one of the resources?

If other member countries are shown to favour just their own home grown labour then you havea case to take to the european courts surely?

Click to expand...

I think you will find that is only Britain and Ireland that is taking part in the sharing of labour at the moment

Click to expand...

b**l*cks

I thought Germany and France etc wasn't allowing people from new member states to work in their countries for 7 years .Looks like I got that wrong

Slogger · 23 Apr 2006

Moderator Note

Slogger youve been warned about making sweeping statements like this before. Your post has been deleted and any along similar lines will be treated in the same way.

Foreign workers

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