Does This Reveal British Hypocrisy On Immigration?

[Kromovaracun]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-24108665

As a native of Cambs, I've always had the impression that this is something that absolutely everybody knew was happening and wilfully turned a blind eye to. Migrant labourers have been exploited to provide cheaper food prices.

Are the British willing to complain about youth unemployment (or migrants "stealing jobs"), but unwilling to pay more for the alternative?

[emmie]

i buy what i can afford, however i try and source out British produce whatever it is. However how is one supposed to know that the workers are supposedly being exploited

[Kromovaracun]

I won't pretend to know about elsewhere, but it's just pretty common knowledge in Cambs. Everybody knows. As another poster said, it's similar to people knowing how their clothes are manufactured and buying them anyway, but I think has a greater air of hypocrisy because British people tend to care more about immigration than they do about third-world sweatshops.

And sites like the ones you linked to are a big part of the problem. I don't know how honest that particular one is, but there are plenty that entice people into the hands of gangmasters promising great accommodation, pay etc., only to then find they've been duped when they get here and are incapable of affording a journey back home.

[emmie]

i would rather it be British workers, however the EU allows people from these countries to come here, if they are being exploited as you say, why do they not work elsewhere, somewhere with better pay, after all they are not limited to the work they can do surely. You think that the reason we have cheap food is because of the low wages of these workers, isn't it more to do with the rates the supermarkets set with the farmers on produce, and how does that explain produce from Spain, France that is not expensive....

[emmie]

and there are sites that spell it out, rates of pay and conditions, they may not be ideal, but no one forces them to do it, as i said this work was once done by British working class folk, travel down to Kent to pick hops for anything up to six weeks, the conditions were not ideal then i can tell you, but they did it to earn money, have a bit of a holiday and get away from the smoke.

[Zeuhl]

/the low wages of these workers/

/the rates the supermarkets set with the farmers on produce/

do you think there might be a connection emmie?

[emmie]

the supermarkets hold the cards, they are the ones who set the tariffs, haven't we heard this often enough, like milk production,
the workers on the programme were interviewed, and seemed happy enough with rates of pay, the more they picked the better the pay, perhaps they were in relative terms earning a lot more here than they would back home. If you think we are hypocrites over this matter so be it, however i know i have a budget and buy what i can afford...

[emmie]

one woman said she can earn up to 70 quid a day, is that a low wage?

[Kromovaracun]

" if they are being exploited as you say, why do they not work elsewhere, somewhere with better pay, after all they are not limited to the work they can do surely"

Because travelling costs money - and many of them are, between their landlords and gangmasters (and yes, perhaps family obligations at home) that they cannot afford to move.

"and how does that explain produce from Spain, France that is not expensive...."

I would bet good money that the same thing happens there.

[Zeuhl]

/is that a low wage? /

How long 'a day'?

If it's around 10 hours then it's Minimum Wage.

[Kromovaracun]

Plus its easy to be paid a lot on paper, but in practice for that money to cover a much longer period of time and therefore be a very low wage:

"Another migrant, a man in his 20s from Lithuania, told the BBC he was being paid below the minimum wage. He showed us pay slips recording that he worked one hour at a rate of £84.47.But he claims that was for three days' work, meaning he was earning just £2.30 an hour."

[emmie]

what seems like exploitation to me, is paying a worker 2 quid a day stitching clothes for mostly western markets, not just UK, as they are doing in Bangladesh, those that work in unsanitary, unsafe factories, to me that is out and out exploitation. Not farm workers who can be earning a fair wage for a fair days pay, or who can find other work within the UK, or who can return to Poland, Lithuania, Romania, if they wish.
Not only that they have protection under the EU, don't they?

[Kromovaracun]

Here's a local news feature from Look East in Wisbech on the conditions these people end up living in:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-22707084


Yes, in theory, these migrants are free to move, like anyone else is. But this means precious little if their wages are being fiddled by unscrupulous gangmasters and farmers who I suspect simply hand over the cash and turn a blind eye. They can't move if they can't afford it.

[emmie]

why do farmers always get the blame, i say the supermarkets are mostly at fault over these matters, they do set the tariffs with the farmers, if the farm sells it's milk for slightly less than it takes to produce it because the supermarket will only buy at X then why produce the milk, as to farm workers, no one ever got rich working on a farm, well not many,

[Kromovaracun]

Yes, I suppose you have a point re: supermarkets. I'm just uneasy with the implication that's in the BBC article that farmers are wholly innocent on all this and have absolutely no idea - I find it utterly implausible.

the problem isn't that they aren't rich, it's that they're consistently being paid less than minimum wage.

(I have a Russian lesson now so have to disappear for a bit)

[emmie]

so says the BBC, one would have to speak to the people at length who work on farms, and farm work by the way has never been well paid, for many it was summer work, done by students in their hols, and as mentioned - also it was seasonal, now it can be all year round...

[Zeuhl]

The devil is in the detail

A colleague has an invalid mother visited twice a day by Carers

They are paid close to Minimum Wage hourly rate

But, they are only paid for the designated time at a patient's home and not paid for any travel time (or expenses) in between appointments

[ludwig]

// Are the British willing to complain about youth unemployment (or migrants "stealing jobs"), but unwilling to pay more for the alternative? //

We pay the price that it says on the label. There aren't two boxes of leeks -one labelled 'ethically sourced' and another labelled 'produced by exploiting cheap migrant labour' at half the price. If there were, and the ethical ones didn't sell but people still complained about youth unemployment, then we'd know the answer.

It's not a question of turning a blind eye to things - you have to trust that employment laws etc are in place to prevent criminals taking advantage of people, and that the people who are supposed to monitor these things are doing their job.

[rockyracoon]

Clothing labels have been named and shamed in the past for using sweatshops, perhaps similar should be done with the supermarkets, make them check out suppliers to ensure employees are treated properly.

[society]

I think illegal immigrants everywhere in the world are exploited, but, then they put themselves in that position.