Fruit grower voted Leave - sorry now!
Discussion
So said:
We have housed a lot of Eastern European tenants over the past ten years. Since the Brexit vote they have become fewer in number and we've taken on more British. Our rent arrears has increased significantly, as has the incidence of antisocial behaviour and general abuse of tenancies.
The sort of people you were dealing with from east Europe were the sort of people with drive and get up and go and enough get up and go to move to a country where they can't even speak the language. The natives you you are renting to are the people that get left behind and I'd expect that if you were to Brits renting in a foreign that had moved there to work, they would be good tenants too. alfie2244 said:
Which, albeit in a clumsy way, is what I was trying to say......I don't believe a relatively small increase in overall production (labour) cost would result in the end user paying twice the price for the product.,, and to say it would in relation to not having cheap immigrant labour is scaremongering IMO.... god forbid we get the predicted post referendum out vote of plagues of locusts.............what price would we have to pay for our fruit and veg then?
The margins on food are wafer thin. Everything we grow is traded on the global commodities market and we get what we are given. The buyers of fruit and veg will know exactly what the costs of production are and will take every opportunity to push the price down which is ultimately driven by their customers. The only time the price goes up is when there isn't enough produce to go around. I suspect that most of it is grown on contract with a little grown off contact in case the price rockets. Most of this stuff is very high risk indeed, they can loose a big percentage of their crop over night with the wrong weather.
Again, most of the people doing the picking are young and commitment free. They come here to work (hard) for a few months, some will stay and take on more responsibility and more money. It's really entry level work and not many people get paid a lot for an entry level job.
Spot on Wily Nily. I have a friend who grows potatoes and was so pissed of with the locals that worked on the potato grading line. They often didn't turn up on a Monday as in their world Monday was needed to get over the weekend. He took on Eastern Europeans and the difference was huge. 4 girls knocked on his door on Sunday morning asking if their was anything they could do? They were bright and paying for their education back home and were delighted with the wages they were earning here which was more than minimum wage! They didn't expect the state to pay tuition fee's back home either!
stichill99 said:
Spot on Wily Nily. I have a friend who grows potatoes and was so pissed of with the locals that worked on the potato grading line. They often didn't turn up on a Monday as in their world Monday was needed to get over the weekend. He took on Eastern Europeans and the difference was huge. 4 girls knocked on his door on Sunday morning asking if their was anything they could do? They were bright and paying for their education back home and were delighted with the wages they were earning here which was more than minimum wage! They didn't expect the state to pay tuition fee's back home either!
Higher education is actually free in Poland, but living isn't so many students work during the summer months in the UK, Germany and so on and then not have to worry about their rent for the rest of the year.stichill99 said:
Spot on Wily Nily. I have a friend who grows potatoes and was so pissed of with the locals that worked on the potato grading line. They often didn't turn up on a Monday as in their world Monday was needed to get over the weekend. He took on Eastern Europeans and the difference was huge. 4 girls knocked on his door on Sunday morning asking if their was anything they could do? They were bright and paying for their education back home and were delighted with the wages they were earning here which was more than minimum wage! They didn't expect the state to pay tuition fee's back home either!
When was this, 1986?PotatoSalad said:
stichill99 said:
Spot on Wily Nily. I have a friend who grows potatoes and was so pissed of with the locals that worked on the potato grading line. They often didn't turn up on a Monday as in their world Monday was needed to get over the weekend. He took on Eastern Europeans and the difference was huge. 4 girls knocked on his door on Sunday morning asking if their was anything they could do? They were bright and paying for their education back home and were delighted with the wages they were earning here which was more than minimum wage! They didn't expect the state to pay tuition fee's back home either!
Higher education is actually free in Poland, but living isn't so many students work during the summer months in the UK, Germany and so on and then not have to worry about their rent for the rest of the year.crankedup said:
PotatoSalad said:
stichill99 said:
Spot on Wily Nily. I have a friend who grows potatoes and was so pissed of with the locals that worked on the potato grading line. They often didn't turn up on a Monday as in their world Monday was needed to get over the weekend. He took on Eastern Europeans and the difference was huge. 4 girls knocked on his door on Sunday morning asking if their was anything they could do? They were bright and paying for their education back home and were delighted with the wages they were earning here which was more than minimum wage! They didn't expect the state to pay tuition fee's back home either!
Higher education is actually free in Poland, but living isn't so many students work during the summer months in the UK, Germany and so on and then not have to worry about their rent for the rest of the year.stichill99 said:
Spot on Wily Nily. I have a friend who grows potatoes and was so pissed of with the locals that worked on the potato grading line. They often didn't turn up on a Monday as in their world Monday was needed to get over the weekend. He took on Eastern Europeans and the difference was huge. 4 girls knocked on his door on Sunday morning asking if their was anything they could do? They were bright and paying for their education back home and were delighted with the wages they were earning here which was more than minimum wage! They didn't expect the state to pay tuition fee's back home either!
Up until last year we were growing spuds and used east European labour and, believe me, they can be just as bad. We had a clan of Czech gypsies working for us, I say working... The son was a fat, useless article and was always ill on a Monday and was pretty useless when he did turn up. There was always some family emergency or another in their huge extended family which was clearly b
ks.My favourite was: Fat boy looks sullen of face, looks down at the floor while closing his eyes and shaking his head slowly and says "my wife, she break it both legs" When I first came here we were lifting spuds and as busy as you'd expect. I gets on my tractor first thing and waited for them to turn up, then it gets to the point where I think, f
k it, and get going anyway. Turns out they fancied a day at the sea side in Brighton. Another time I think I had the harvester in bits and we'd be going to the field as soon as it was back together. They were cleaning up stock feed in the grading shed and I gave them updates when I'd be ready. They were then to jump in the Hilux, drive to the field which was about 800 meters away and I'd meet them there. After a few updates I said I was leaving now, got on my tractor and trundled around the back of the yard to void taking the machine down the road. I was expecting them to be waiting for me when I got there but they were nowhere to be seen. So I opened the elevator out, dropped the machine in the ground and trundled off at 1.4kph. I'd got 300 meters down the field when they wandered up to the machine and they then gave me a b
king for not waiting for them. tts. We had 2 Czechs and a Pole toward the end and for 2 years we didn't get all 3 in for a full 39 hours in the same week, one of them was always ill, in trouble with the law, having a family emergency or what ever excuse they could dream up. We just have the Pole left now, but he's on borrowed time as A) we don;t have the work and B) he's been lifting the bosses leg. He got lent (sp) the works pickup, crashed it, brought it back without saying and the first thing we know is when the law turn up saying our van has been involved in a hit and run. He bought an E60 525i which just about bled him dry and got caught drink driving and I think the car got impounded, so he asked to borrow the works pool truck without saying why. First thing the boss knows is when he'd used the farm address as his person address and court headed letters start appearing. When questioned he fessed up, but said it was ok because he could drive on his Polish license. Boss said he wanted the keys to the truck now and he'd better get his bike out again.
I could write a book on this lot.
stichill99 said:
Spot on Wily Nily. I have a friend who grows potatoes and was so pissed of with the locals that worked on the potato grading line. They often didn't turn up on a Monday as in their world Monday was needed to get over the weekend. He took on Eastern Europeans and the difference was huge. 4 girls knocked on his door on Sunday morning asking if their was anything they could do? They were bright and paying for their education back home and were delighted with the wages they were earning here which was more than minimum wage! They didn't expect the state to pay tuition fee's back home either!
And again.Pay the equivalent of 4x the minimum wage and people would turn up on a Monday.
That's the only reason they work so hard.
Not that I'm saying the farmers should pay 30/40 quid an hour but I'm sick of hearing how hard they work for 7 quid odd.
crankedup said:
It's so far removed from reality, people will happily work for a fair return in thier pocket. You seem to have a jaundiced view of people that need to work at the lower end of pay scales. What may have o cured in your professional life to have inflicted this misguided predudice can only be imagined. Personally I have thought that immigrant workers took advantage of the EU regulations, came to the UK and earned good money, by thier standards, and then went home.
I have yet to meet an immigrant worker who is lazy, but I remain extremely sceptical about there being a level playing field.
It's not a jaundiced view. Have you ever spent any time trying to help long-term unemployed people get into work? Try it yourself or speak to someone who has. The problems are not potential employers or the wages on offer. I'm afraid it's usually squarely in the head of the unemployed person. Pick and mix from wildly unrealistic expectations, no grasp that most work is quite hard and fairly dull, no grasp that doing what you are asked to do is not optional, fatalism bordering on mental illness, an astounding ability to misinterpret feedback, defensiveness bordering on mental illness. The time and effort required to nurse these people into employability is huge. It's social care, and you cannot expect the private sector to shoulder that.I have yet to meet an immigrant worker who is lazy, but I remain extremely sceptical about there being a level playing field.
Read Willy Nilly's posts on this thread. Do you think there is room on the trailer for a bunch of social workers to hold the hands of the new, expensive, home-grown pickers?
Edited by ATG on Sunday 25th June 23:53
alfie2244 said:
ATG said:
Read Willy Nilly's posts on this thread. Do you think there is room on the trailer for a bunch of social workers to hold the hands of the new, expensive, home-grown pickers?
Think he more or less said EU workers weren't any betteredit "they can be just as bad".
The average Brit is no more or less hard working than anyone else. The average young Eastern European student who can be bothered to get off their arse, travel to a different country to pick spuds for a few months is not an average worker full stop.
ATG said:
Have you ever spent any time trying to help long-term unemployed people get into work? Try it yourself or speak to someone who has. The problems are not potential employers or the wages on offer. I'm afraid it's usually squarely in the head of the unemployed person. Pick and mix from wildly unrealistic expectations, no grasp that most work is quite hard and fairly dull, no grasp that doing what you are asked to do is not optional, fatalism bordering on mental illness, an astounding ability to misinterpret feedback, defensiveness bordering on mental illness. The time and effort required to nurse these people into employability is huge. It's social care, and you cannot expect the private sector to shoulder that.
I am going to print this off, frame it and put it on a wall at work.ATG said:
It's not a jaundiced view. Have you ever spent any time trying to help long-term unemployed people get into work? Try it yourself or speak to someone who has. The problems are not potential employers or the wages on offer. I'm afraid it's usually squarely in the head of the unemployed person. Pick and mix from wildly unrealistic expectations, no grasp that most work is quite hard and fairly dull, no grasp that doing what you are asked to do is not optional, fatalism bordering on mental illness, an astounding ability to misinterpret feedback, defensiveness bordering on mental illness. The time and effort required to nurse these people into employability is huge. It's social care, and you cannot expect the private sector to shoulder that.
Read Willy Nilly's posts on this thread. Do you think there is room on the trailer for a bunch of social workers to hold the hands of the new, expensive, home-grown pickers?
Thank you for that. There speaks someone who actually knows what they are talking about - very refreshing !!Read Willy Nilly's posts on this thread. Do you think there is room on the trailer for a bunch of social workers to hold the hands of the new, expensive, home-grown pickers?
Edited by ATG on Sunday 25th June 23:53
ATG said:
It's not a jaundiced view. Have you ever spent any time trying to help long-term unemployed people get into work? Try it yourself or speak to someone who has. The problems are not potential employers or the wages on offer. I'm afraid it's usually squarely in the head of the unemployed person. Pick and mix from wildly unrealistic expectations, no grasp that most work is quite hard and fairly dull, no grasp that doing what you are asked to do is not optional, fatalism bordering on mental illness, an astounding ability to misinterpret feedback, defensiveness bordering on mental illness. The time and effort required to nurse these people into employability is huge. It's social care, and you cannot expect the private sector to shoulder that.
...
This, sadly, has been drilled into people over the last 2-4 decades....
It's been drummed into people that it is OK not to work. It's not their fault. That you have "rights". And if you have no work, you'll be given enough to live comfortably (warm shelter, food, drink, fags, TV, clothing etc - and before anyone asks, no I don't think all of these things should be denied people. Just some
).You ingrain these things into the psyche and the desire (and need) to actually support oneself disappears. You take it too far and you get an overriding sense of entitlement that is impossible to overcome.
Fixing, if we had the appetite, would take a similar timeframe and a significant amount of effort. It would mean changes that a large proportion of the country would not stomach IMO. This is one area where no matter whether we are in or out of the EU we are screwed as I really don't think we have the backbone to sort it out.
It of course doesn't apply to everyone. But it applies to too many in this country. Which then takes funding away from those that genuinely need it.
ATG said:
alfie2244 said:
ATG said:
Read Willy Nilly's posts on this thread. Do you think there is room on the trailer for a bunch of social workers to hold the hands of the new, expensive, home-grown pickers?
Think he more or less said EU workers weren't any betteredit "they can be just as bad".
The average Brit is no more or less hard working than anyone else. The average young Eastern European student who can be bothered to get off their arse, travel to a different country to pick spuds for a few months is not an average worker full stop.
ATG said:
crankedup said:
It's so far removed from reality, people will happily work for a fair return in thier pocket. You seem to have a jaundiced view of people that need to work at the lower end of pay scales. What may have o cured in your professional life to have inflicted this misguided predudice can only be imagined. Personally I have thought that immigrant workers took advantage of the EU regulations, came to the UK and earned good money, by thier standards, and then went home.
I have yet to meet an immigrant worker who is lazy, but I remain extremely sceptical about there being a level playing field.
It's not a jaundiced view. Have you ever spent any time trying to help long-term unemployed people get into work? Try it yourself or speak to someone who has. The problems are not potential employers or the wages on offer. I'm afraid it's usually squarely in the head of the unemployed person. Pick and mix from wildly unrealistic expectations, no grasp that most work is quite hard and fairly dull, no grasp that doing what you are asked to do is not optional, fatalism bordering on mental illness, an astounding ability to misinterpret feedback, defensiveness bordering on mental illness. The time and effort required to nurse these people into employability is huge. It's social care, and you cannot expect the private sector to shoulder that.I have yet to meet an immigrant worker who is lazy, but I remain extremely sceptical about there being a level playing field.
Read Willy Nilly's posts on this thread. Do you think there is room on the trailer for a bunch of social workers to hold the hands of the new, expensive, home-grown pickers?
Edited by ATG on Sunday 25th June 23:53
Your telling me that youngsters are hardly worth the air they breath? This seems to me to be a very very broad brush. Our UK growth is still growing, stock markets have done well and I can buy fairly much whatever I wish within my means. My generation are retired or retiring, people are still working grinding away the week, I do not accept that youngsters are bone idle, sure. percentage will be but that is no different to any other past decades.
To much media attention and gossip on social media creates mass pov which is usually derived from unqualified negative aspects drawn from rare events and exaggerated, imo.
ATG said:
KrissKross said:
Within 3-5 years there will be robots capable of picking fruit more successfully than humans.
How much do you think they will cost? (A clue: a robot that can help clean a hotel room while it is being supervised by a human is forecast to cost about $250,000 in a few years time.)I imagine at some point we will have cheap robot labour that can pick strawberries. It is not going to happen in the next 5 years. Not a chance.
crankedup said:
Nope, never been involved getting youngsters into work, other than our own two.
Your telling me that youngsters are hardly worth the air they breath? This seems to me to be a very very broad brush. Our UK growth is still growing, stock markets have done well and I can buy fairly much whatever I wish within my means. My generation are retired or retiring, people are still working grinding away the week, I do not accept that youngsters are bone idle, sure. percentage will be but that is no different to any other past decades.
To much media attention and gossip on social media creates mass pov which is usually derived from unqualified negative aspects drawn from rare events and exaggerated, imo.
I genuinely don't know if you're deliberately misrepresenting what people are saying on this thread or if you're really misunderstanding it this badly.Your telling me that youngsters are hardly worth the air they breath? This seems to me to be a very very broad brush. Our UK growth is still growing, stock markets have done well and I can buy fairly much whatever I wish within my means. My generation are retired or retiring, people are still working grinding away the week, I do not accept that youngsters are bone idle, sure. percentage will be but that is no different to any other past decades.
To much media attention and gossip on social media creates mass pov which is usually derived from unqualified negative aspects drawn from rare events and exaggerated, imo.
KrissKross said:
ATG said:
KrissKross said:
Within 3-5 years there will be robots capable of picking fruit more successfully than humans.
How much do you think they will cost? (A clue: a robot that can help clean a hotel room while it is being supervised by a human is forecast to cost about $250,000 in a few years time.)I imagine at some point we will have cheap robot labour that can pick strawberries. It is not going to happen in the next 5 years. Not a chance.
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