They were not slaves.

Ah yes the age-old slavers mantra of giving their slaves a roof over their head and food in their mouths. I've got no problem with foreign workers, I'm all for open borders in fact (actually I'd rather they were abolished altogether), but they should be paid whatever the going rate is that local workers would be paid. In the Lake DIstrict and other tourist spots we've constructed an economy based on artificially depressed wages which the local labour force are not willing to work for, and that doesn't make for a stable or sustainable economy, as we're now discovering.

Although I should add I don't agree with the blunt instrument of cutting off that cheap supply of labour overnight. It's an interesting experiment, but as with all things the transition needs to be managed, as leaving it to the maket will simply result in collapse.

the blunt instrument of cutting off that cheap supply of labour overnight

My point was... these people were not just "labour", they were people with the right to make this their home if they wanted to. Young people looking to a possible new future. Not people shipped in, allowed to stay if their employer says so, and then shipped out. They were people like you and me, not second class citizens with no right to be here beyond the labour they are providing.

So are we adding these tourist business owners to your ever-lengthening list of people who deserve to go bust then, or not?

So far we've the farming industry and the fishing industry who have now bit the dust as a result of your economic genocide. Are we now adding tourism to that too?

We're going to need a lot of land to grow all those soya beans, so it's probably a good thing. And we can all be employed in jobs of honest toil, tending the crops

An artists impression of Skiddaw once Daz's masterplan reaches fruition:

So are we adding these tourist business owners to your ever-lengthening list of people who deserve to go bust then, or not?

well...Yes, obviously, this a market-facing agile Nu-Britain. Lean and hungry for success. Haven't you read the newspapers?

They were people like you and me, not second class citizens with no right to be here beyond the labour they are providing.

That's a pretty rose-tinted view of it. I don't disagree though, but that doesn't answer my point about them being paid properly, because the reality is that the pay and conditions for many of these foreign workers are terrible, and below that which the local work force will accept.

because the reality is that the pay and conditions for many of these foreign workers are terrible, and below that which the local work force will accept.

The point about those tourist businesses is that there is no 'local' workforce, hence having to bring them in. They weren't marched at gunpoint to the Lake District. Keswick isn't a gulag. They made their own way there

below that which the local work force will accept

There is no "local work force". You're just making up a situation that doesn't exist. I presume you've never worked in agriculture or hospitality? They both depend on imported workers for reasons other than "pay and conditions". Oh, a tip if you're looking for a career change.... never, ever pick raspberries... it's hellish work.

as a result of your economic genocide

Not my economic genocide, I voted to stay in. Now we're out though the results are turning out to be pretty interesting for those like me who want to see radical stuctural change in our economy. An economy based on the assumption of a ready supply of cheap labour is a pyramid scheme, plain and simple. I don't know about you, but I'm not mad keen on pyramid schemes as they tend to collapse with catastrophic results. Quite frankly I'm amazed the ultra-capitalists who designed brexit have allowed this to happen, because it will completely undermine their entire world view.

An artists impression of Skiddaw once Daz’s masterplan reaches fruition:

Looks much nicer than it is now. At least there would be something growing and living on it rather than it's current barren post-apocalyptic state.

radical stuctural change in our economy

Well, this absolutely will happen. And it'll all be in the interests of the "worker".. honest.

An economy based on the assumption of a ready supply of cheap labour

EU workers earn more, pay more tax, and are more educated.

Oh, a tip if you’re looking for a career change…. never, ever pick raspberries… it’s hellish work

Raspberries? Bliss compared to gooseberries.

God... no [ THE HORROR ].

Hated hop tying more, at least the weather tends to be good when picking soft fruit.

There is no “local work force”.

Only because they've been forced to leave because of inflating property prices fuelled by the tourism industry. You're complaining about a lack of workers in an area where the industry they work in has directly caused that shortage.

They weren’t marched at gunpoint to the Lake District. Keswick isn’t a gulag.

Try visiting the pencil museum on a rainy day.

I know... if we just force all the home owning retired people in these rural areas back to work... it'll all sort itself out.

Quite frankly I’m amazed the ultra-capitalists who designed brexit have allowed this to happen, because it will completely undermine their entire world view.

I didn't think you were quite that economically illiterate dazh.

There isn't a local work force because there aren't any jobs/houses for them so they've almost all moved to cities/abroad. I know because I grew up around there.

The lake district used to be pretty industrialised and much more heavily populated, because there were year round jobs.

There are some jobs you'd "happily" do for a summer or two when you're young, but would do anything to avoid making your job for life... you wouldn't stay in the area to do them no matter what you were paid and even if they weren't seasonal. The idea that young people won't leave the area if fruit picking paid more is bobbins. Tourism is a bit different, and plenty of people do carve out a career in it, but not all of the those people will be "local"... people move for different opportunities and different jobs... it's always been that way, why shouldn't it be?

I know because I grew up around there.

So it's your bloody fault?!

Get back there then! Those beds aren't going to make themselves!! 😉

The idea that young people won’t leave the area if fruit picking paid more is bobbins.

For a start; fruit picking season is what? 8-9 weeks, tops

Young casual immigration of people who come here willingly for the seasons. Well, there were coming willing. They were not slaves. Same goes for hospitality. Importantly, if these people decided they liked it here after a taste of the UK, they could look to come back another year with the idea of either looking for other work in the off season, or a more permanent job (or starting up their own business). They were not slaves.

A large part of the workforce for the farms, hospitality and the chicken factory in Hereford was made up of Eastern Europeans who loved being here. They were regularly putting down roots, making a life for themselves here and sending money back home too. That has all pretty much gone now. It is a stark change to the makeup of the local population and it's definitely not for the better the way it is now.
I used to speak to a lot of these 'immigrants' in my old job and they were on the whole more polite, harder working and generally better people than a lot of the locals. Telling them to basically 'sod off back home' has been a massive mistake that can be seen in the understaffed shops, the rotting food in the fields and the constant advertising of jobs at the chicken factory. It's really sad to see.

Ahh... Sun Valley. Glad I managed to avoid working there.

I used to speak to a lot of these ‘immigrants’ in my old job and they were on the whole more polite, harder working and generally better people than a lot of the locals.

When I moved out of my first rented property after I graduated, the landlady got some builders in to basically tidy the place up a bit. Polish guys, barely spoke any English.

They were the nicest politest group you ever met. Tidy, super hard working, frequently there by 7.30am and working til gone 5. They did a brilliant job.

Along with the shortage of lorry drivers and healthcare staff, the government won't invest / fund training opportunities to 'grow our own' trained staff, instead they'll start making 'temporary' relaxations on immigration rules in those sectors to alleviate the pressure, and then before you know it we'll be back to square one.

Nothing surer Pieface.

Telling them to basically ‘sod off back home’ has been a massive mistake that can be seen in the understaffed shops, the rotting food in the fields and the constant advertising of jobs at the chicken factory. It’s really sad to see.

It's tragic. As well as the truly awful things it says about us as a country (nasty, inhospitable, racist, small-minded, petty), the bottom line is that it is economically unsustainable.

If farmers are watching their crops rot in the fields then they're also watching their profits evaporate. If pubs, shops and hotels in the Lakes and Scotland can't get enough staff to open then its not long before they'll be boarded up.

So now we've got the laughable situation where even that **** at Wetherspoons is asking for the immigrants to be allowed back as he can't run his business without them

What he expected to happen, I've no idea. But a dose of reality is required from government.

Will economic reality actually trump ideology in Brexit Britain?

What do you think?

We're going to see a lot of businesses folding

and then before you know it we’ll be back to square one.

I doubt we'll make it back to square one, that would be awesome, though.

and then before you know it we’ll be back to square one.

Getting back to square one is based on the typically arrogant assumption that people would want to come back here in the first place.

Given the message we've sent out (just **** off!!) and the hoops we now expect people to jump through, simply for the pleasure of becoming a second class citizen, that is by no means a given

we’ll be back to square one.

Yes, but this time with people less invested in their new country and with decidedly shittier conditions.

Looking in from the outside, the UK looks like a pathetic mess.

Not looking forward to visiting friends and family.

Yes, but this time with people less invested in their new country and with decidedly shittier conditions.

Yup, we have employers (some very Brexity and with the ear of government) clamouring to let "workers" back in... but they don't want to let "people" in. Second class workers with no right to make a life here and become just another person living here, like me, or you.

Along with the shortage of lorry drivers and healthcare staff, the government won’t invest / fund training opportunities to ‘grow our own’ trained staff, instead they’ll start making ‘temporary’ relaxations on immigration rules in those sectors to alleviate the pressure, and then before you know it we’ll be back to square one.

For the migrants, it'll be square 1.5, however we'll all be stuck without our freedom of movement and all the other rights. Our kids won't be working seasons in ski resorts or whatever because there's no need - plenty of other EU citizens to do those things. The EU has lost what, 12% of its freely mobile migrant workforce? We've lost 100%.

Of course there is a "local" workforce available in the lakes. Do you really want to claim no unemployment in Carlisle or Workington?

The issue is both low wages and seasonal work.

The answer is a proper minimum wage and for consumers to pay the realistic costs.

Do you really want to claim no unemployment in Carlisle or Workington?

Square pegs, round holes. Not everyone is a good fit for any job.

Do you really want to claim no unemployment in Carlisle or Workington?

Funnily enough TJ, we were discussing this exact point with the owner of the pub we stayed at, who can't get any staff. His reply:

"Try getting from Workington to Ullswater for a 6am start if you don't own a car"

If those hospitality jobs were year round on £20 an hour how long would they be vacant?

It's not just about pay, it's about getting the right staff who are able, willing and suitable for the role. I think it's a bit insulting to people who work in hospitality or agriculture to suggest that any person currently unemployed can step into such a role, do it well, and stick with it.

Not going to happen. Stack up a UK holiday vs. a foreign one, likely with better weather, but for a similar cost. There's demand at the moment but that's not going to last. I grew up in a seaside town before large scale migration of workers was a thing and the place, after the large manufacturing operation there shut down, is completely on its arse. It's totally in the grip of the tourist industry which provides low paid work for 6 months of the year at best and always has done. The view might be nice but it's cold comfort in November when you're skint.

Carlisle has a population of 100k or thereabouts. If 5% of them are unemployed, that's 5k people. It's 50 miles to Ambleside or 1.5 hours on a train. I don't think you can necessarily blame the unemployed of Carlisle for not being in a position to do those jobs - that's a pretty Tory-ish attitude if you don't mind me pointing that out.

And they don't pay £20/hour for a reason. If the staff costs were that high how expensive do you think the prices for those businesses would be? Would you or I be able to use them?

To say there is no local workforce is just wrong. thats the point I was making.

Where did I blame them? I didn't

the problem remains low wages and seasonal work. Not a lack of people.

Of course if wages go up so do prices.

The problem remains low wages and seasonal work. Not a lack of people.

And logistics. Carlisle or Workington is not 'local' to the tourist hotspots where the work is. Especially when there is no public transport

TJ is IDS 😀

Nah - IDS would cut their benefits. I would increase their wages

Not a lack of people.

A missing work force doesn't mean "no people". Take nursing... there can be thousands of unemployed in the area, that doesn't mean any/many of them would be suitable or want to be nurses.

But we're being told that this is whats happening as a result of the labour shortages caused by Brexit. Its part of the Brexit Dividend, apparently.

So you really are IDS because this makes you a Brexiteer too 😛

If those hospitality jobs were year round on £20 an hour how long would they be vacant?

Permanently as it would take the cost of the stay/dinner/experience/whatever over that which customers will pay.

That’s a pretty rose-tinted view of it. I don’t disagree though, but that doesn’t answer my point about them being paid properly, because the reality is that the pay and conditions for many of these foreign workers are terrible, and below that which the local work force will accept.

What is the 'proper' level of pay? How is that determined?

Anyone worked in a kitchen? I have. I couldn't be a chef for £20 an hour for more than a week. Anyone worked in agriculture? I have, there is no role there that I want to do for more than a summer job, for any money. And I would be an awful nurse as well, no matter how much training I was given. Square peg, round holes. Getting the right staff often requires a large geographical catchment area for recruitment, not a fantasy "locals only" approach.

We are too used to getting stuff cheap on the back of poorly paid labour

When the national minimum wage ws brought in ( and the WTD) security industry was up in arms as they are notoriously poor [pay and conditions. But one enlightened boss pointed out that he wanted to pay good wages but obviously this increasing his costs meant he was outbid on contracts. Once everyone was forced to pay a minimum and to give better T&Cs the chap who paid his employees well was again viable and was not outbid on contracts

I find it actually a bit distressing how many so called lefties on here think low wages are acceptable

Increase the minimum wage. Don't blame immigrants.

What is the ‘proper’ level of pay? How is that determined?

For top end jobs " we have to pay what the market needs" so Harding gets a billion pounds for five minutes work. But at the bottom end somehow this does not work

If you increase minimum wage then all other costs go up so relatively there's no change?

There is also a lack of affordable housing in the Lake District (just like the rest of the country) which would make lower paid jobs more appealing, but for some reason this doesn't exist.....

Basically the whole systems up the spout

I find it actually a bit distressing how many so called lefties on here think low wages are acceptable

Nobody - lefty or otherwise - is saying that. Quite the opposite. We're saying that this is a considerably more complex issue than simply rates of pay. There are multiple factors in play here, and 'put the wages up to 20 quid an hour' is not going to provide a workable solution.

The fact is that there are millions of people who have left this country in the last few years. Certain areas have essentially been depopulated. This is a complex problem with no easy answers and to get back on topic, its been caused completely unnecessarily because of the act of gross stupidity that is Brexit

I personally think the minimum wage should be the genuine 'living wage', ie: one you can actually live on, but that in itself isn't going to magic up loads of people who presently don't exist, or do exist, but in Poland

Increase the minimum wage. Don’t blame immigrants.

100%

So you are saying low wages are acceptable, market forces do not work in menial jobs. A real tory attitude Binners

Of course there are other factors but it comes down to one thing. We are too used to getting products and services cheap on the back of poverty wages

Wages in agriculture and hospitality need increasing. A good starting point would be paying young people a proper wage, the minimum wage for the youngest workers is set at a level that assumes they are living at home, it's far too low. But this won't fill the gaps in the work force caused by telling EU workers to do one.

So you are saying low wages are acceptable, market forces do not work in menial jobs. A real tory attitude Binners

Read my last post. I'm not saying that at all

binners
Full Member

The Lake District is exactly the same. Its now approaching peak season and theres businesses still shut because they can’t get enough staff to open

Yay for Brexit!

I was in Bowness-on-Windermere on the day of the referendum- heard a pub landlady crowing about "sending them all home", in front of the european staff she didn't even seem to realise she was talking about.

The average house price in Bowness is £420000 and the average rent for a 1 bedroom flat is £715 so obviously getting people to move there to do low paying work is going to be really easy.

But the short/medium term problem isn't caused by low pay- at least, not right now, it was built largely on costcutting but that doesn't mean you can reverse it by stopping. And it can't be cured with more pay. We have an economy that worked one way and now via a referendum and a single government term we've decided to destroy some of the things that made it possible for it to work that way. There isn't a miracle cure- we can't magic up 60000 truck drivers, or hospitality staff into places that have been turned entirely into places for other people to visit not for workers to live. These are decisions that have been made over generations. Things were semi-sustainable but fragile, like so many things in the complicated interlinked modern world.

Scotroutes picks up a further problem that even if we could magic the jobs back to how they were pre-brexit, some of the other requirements are already changing, because of course as soon as migratory staff stop coming, the networks to make them work- accomodation etc- also started to look for alternatives.

If you're expecting this post to end with a fix or recommendation, sorry. We broke large parts of our own economy and replacing those parts is going to be hard, where it's possible. And at this point it's getting worse not better.

So you are saying low wages are acceptable, market forces do not work in menial jobs. A real tory attitude Binners

Sorry TJ, I can’t see how you reached that conclusion from the post you responded too.

Binners edited it after my post adding more detail which changes the emphasis

I've not posted anything that suggests I think low pay is good. Quite the reverse.

I'm merely saying that there are no quick fixes to this. Pay everyone 20 quid an hour is not a solution.

Northwind has summed it up perfectly.

We've effectively placed economic sanctions on ourselves which are going to force a total restructuring of large sectors of our economy. Totally unnecessarily and without any plan as to how to go about that

Its ****ing madness!!

We’ve effectively placed economic sanctions on ourselves which are going to force a total restructuring of large sectors of our economy.

At least Dazh is looking forward to the "total restructuring"... I admit to being slightly concerned about who will be in charge of that process though... perhaps I don't trust the "hungry pythons" of Britannia Unchained fame, that are now in a position to be setting our rules and regulations, as much as some people do.

At £20 an hour a typical cafe’s wage bill would be over 70% of turnover.

Where did I blame them? I didn’t

You might not have meant to but your post was poorly worded and it looked like it

Simply raising low workers pay isn't going to help, that's just going to drive inflation. Economic management and a form of wealth redistribution is essential. If you raise everyone's pay whilst there is a housing shortage, what's going to happen? Landlords will just raise prices and help themselves to that extra cash whilst we still have to pay it for the services so that it can be paid to the workers. So you need rent controls.

It's a complicated issue.

At £20 an hour a typical cafe’s wage bill would be over 70% of turnover.

Yes and at that point it might become unattractive to run a cafe. That said, the owners might branch out into something more economically productive? Hard to predict, I'm not an economist. Maybe we need to promote other businesses in those areas e.g. with remote working. Maybe people run cafes because they want to live in the lakes? How about you can live there and work in a software agency instead? Then again, if the software engineers are now competing with the rich 2nd home owners for houses that might drive prices up even more for local labourers. Tricky.

Yes and at that point it might become unattractive to run a cafe

Stock will be 25% to 35%, rent, rates, insurance, power, equipment costs, equipment maintenance.

To make money you need the wage bill 33% at the absolute maximum.

As said above there’s a threshold at what customers are willing to pay.

Tricky.

With knobs on.

We’ve effectively placed economic sanctions on ourselves which are going to force a total restructuring of large sectors of our economy. Totally unnecessarily and without any plan as to how to go about that

Its ****ing madness!!

This.

Recruiting for a job in my team at the moment - it's quite a specific SME role with a very limited cohort (very technical and needs someone who's properly 'time-served'). Well paid, approx. 3-4x average pay.

Brexit has just reduced the size of the cohort, and it was tiny already.

yerp, many of my other tech startup pals are relocating dev to Porto / Berlin for much the same reasons. The money side of the business' staying in London mind so JRM would probably call it a success.

Has daz finally lost it?

Looks like it after the previous couple of pages.

Honestly, they’re living in a world of their own.

They'd like to, that's for sure.

'Other' people should only be allowed 'in' to serve them and their ilk. Then they should doff their cap and politely **** off again.

And of course 'we' should be allowed to go to 'foreign', treat it like a vomitarium, expect everyone to speak English, bow and scrape etc.

It's a fantasy. Enjoy all the benefits of foreign labour, but hate foreigners and the very notion of 'foreign'. Unless it is on 'our' terms.

We are a nation of (largely) knuckledragging philistines.

🇬🇧💩🇬🇧💩

I find it actually a bit distressing how many so called lefties on here think low wages are acceptable

Quite. And then they dress up their support for slave wages by claiming it's some sort of internationalist utopia where young europeans can escape the hell-hole of their home countries by being paid minimum wage over here. It's bollocks. If you want hospitality businesses in the Lake District and similar places to survive then pay what it costs for them to pay people properly.

I didn’t think you were quite that economically illiterate dazh.

I'm talking about voluntarily slashing the available labour force who are willing/forced to work for crap pay overnight. They seem to have assumed that there is a massive pool of desperate unemployed people who will step into the jobs vacated by foreigners. The trouble is that in the places where the jobs are there are no locals available to work, because thanks to property price inflation fuelled by the industry which employed these low paid foreign workers, they were all forced to leave.

It's not slave labour so stop repeating that bollocks.

Your vision sees domestic tourism destroyed, leaving folk to either go abroad or just never have a holiday. Making a job year round just because you want to eradicate season work just has someone sitting on their arse most of the year (or more likely the business will close as some do here) since nobody wants to visit Largs for 10 months of the year to stare at horizontal rain from a cafe window.

Has daz finally lost it?

When I see supposed lefties or labour supporters whining that their cheap weekend in the Lake District isn't possible any more because there aren't enough foreigners willing to work for shit wages then yes, I have lost it.

Your vision sees domestic tourism destroyed

Places like the Lake District would benefit from less tourism. It's been turned it into a theme park where rich landlords from outside the area have bought up all the property so they can rent it to tourists and forced out all the locals. Like any other industry, tourism needs to be sustainable, and in equilibrium with other industries and local populations. In the Lake District and many other places (Cornwall being the best example) it's out of control, and extremely damaging to the area.

their cheap weekend in the Lake District

Maybe if you're having a weekend in Barrow or Whitehaven.

I'm guessing you don't holiday around there?

foreigners willing to work for shit wages

Same wages you want locals to do it for. Why are they willing to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to do it if the money is so awful?

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't do it but a younger me did and was quite happy for seasonal work during uni. Just as many of my peers genuinely benefited from a zero hours contract.

It's not the terms of employent that are at fault but the abuse of them. As already pointed out you are trying to assign simple solutions to a complex problem and in doing so making yourself look like a total ****. What other industries should we be sacrificing at the altar of your twisted vision of socialism? Or should we just stop ****ing about and just do a full on Year Zero?

As said above there’s a threshold at what customers are willing to pay.

That is about to be recalculated in this Brave New World.

Your vision sees domestic tourism destroyed, leaving folk to either go abroad or just never have a holiday.

This may well happen and I'll be out of a job. It's going to be more expensive all around for everyone. I hope that's the opposition game plan, it should also knacker the Tory voter majority in domestic holiday areas.

Restructuring costs time and money we have neither.

There will be no real investment in poor people jobs.

The modern dark satanic mills of today (Amazon, Sports Direct etc) will absorb some slack.

That's about it.

their support for slave wages

I stopped reading there. Not worth engaging any further, is there.

Your vision sees domestic tourism destroyed, leaving folk to either go abroad or just never have a holiday

so he is right then that your right to have cheap UK hols means peasants have to work for peanuts?

😉

molgrips
Full Member

Simply raising low workers pay isn’t going to help, that’s just going to drive inflation.

By most metrics, low paid workers' wages have fallen drastically over the years. And yet inflation still happened. That's a big part of the issue- people have been priced out of areas, life has got far more expensive.

I think we have to be honest and say that we don't really know what the relationship between low paid workers' salaries and inflation is. It's clearly a small part of a very big equation. Simple "X leads to Y" arguments in economics are pretty much always wrong.

Plus the previous link between inflation and employment seems to have gone wrong over the last 10 years and don't follow what happened over the previous 60 years.

One of the ‘unique’ qualities of the UK over other developed economies is poor productivity per capita as well as the low levels of business investment in comparison to our peers. The economy has been heavily ‘subsidised’ by cheap imported labour plus a lot of financial ‘stimulus’ was simply used by businesses executives to boost their bonuses through share buybacks rather than investing in the business.

In terms of how that plays out locally, here on Mull the building company who built my house is primarily a Polish crew who have been here for 14 years. A lot of businesses here are struggling for staff due to lack of cheap, rental accommodation and people willing to pay £30/day to come over on the ferry from the mainland to be paid £10/hr. Not entirely Brexit related, but rental property owners can’t find cleaners to do weekend changeovers - someone was offering £200 for 6 hours work but still can’t find anyone.

By most metrics, low paid workers’ wages have fallen drastically over the years.

Unless you’re pretty bloody lucky, or rich, EVERYONES wages have been static, at best, and dropping in real terms for ten years+ now.

I know it hits the lowest paid hardest, but the present economic model means nobody but those at the top have seen any rise in their incomes for the last decade.

I’m sure Brexit will change all that

Oh… hang on a minute….

dazh

stop repeating that bollocks

Are you new around here?

dovebiker
Free Member

One of the ‘unique’ qualities of the UK over other developed economies is poor productivity per capita

This basically depends on how you measure productivity though. Even the very simple "divide GDP by the number of hours worked"- which incidentally puts us bang in the middle of the G7- gives results that vary wildly on how you calculate those hours. Public sector industries are generally undervalued against the exact same activities done for profit since they don't "make money". And of course the financial system enables people or countries to claim "productivity" by taking it from others (which is why Ireland's often named as the most productive country in the world- companies book a lot of profits there which are really made elsewhere)

IMO, but I don't think this is contentious, there isn't really an accepted definition of productivity which actually really measures productivity itself. It's a very difficult thing to measure but we've pretty much just accepted definitions that don't really capture it and aren't really very useful for comparison between countries or between two different economic states in the same country. Which is fine til people use them that way, which is pretty much all the time with pop economics.