According to a news report I heard this morning, working class people are much less in favour of migrants coming to work in the UK than middle class people. There the story ended.
What it didn't and should have said is that this could well be because migrant workers mainly take low-skilled low paid jobs (although not exclusively so) - precisely the kinds of jobs that working class people hold.
BUT - and this is a huge huge BUT - a large proportion of migrants coming to the UK are actively recruited by agencies. Migrants are mostly NOT enterprising Poles or Latvians or whoever getting on a cheap flight to the UK to try their luck, but people recruited in Krakow and many other small towns, by UK employment agencies who have opened offices there, who tempt workers with promises of great riches, and get them to sign on the dotted line in their home town. These agencies in turn have contracts with employers to get workers. Look at some of these agencies' websites and slogans to open your eyes! In other words, the driving force behind much migration from Eastern Europe is UK employers themselves.
The British working class is right to be worried - but not about the migrants. Instead they should be concerned about the employers and agencies who are prepared to go overseas in their search for cheap, compliant labour rather than improving their pay conditions.
Thursday, 6 March 2008
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5 comments:
Yes your right, but whether we shout at the agency or the workers it makes no difference does it. The fact is they are taking our jobs and they are for some reason wanted more then we are.
The reason the migrant workers are more desirable for bosses is that they can play one group against another, migrant workers are less likely to join a union (despite Solidarity and the whole Polish experience) and far less likely to know their rights in terms of sick pay, holiday pay and other work-related rights.
That means the agencies can dump a sick or injured worker (in some cases even kicking them out of their tied accommodation) and simply get a new worker in.
Getting migrant workers unionised is the key to sorting this issue and ensuring that NO workers are exploited by unscrupulous bosses.
thank you to for finally have the guts to say what has been happening, yes the recruitment agency are far too powerful and employers don't care about their workforce, if you can get labour in for half the price as an employer no matter who you are going take it. this is something that the Government in London and Cardiff continues to deny and so wont take action, the working class have been forgotten you only have to look at the vote for the BNP in recent elections in Wales, we could have had a BNP representative voted in on he list in the Assembly, you would have thought that people would do something but i don't think the politicians really care enough.
Agencies are taking us back to the Victorian era of queuing up for work on the dockside, of no workers rights and no protection.
Plenty of "respectable" companies - like Aerospace and Toyota - use long-term agency workers. How many government bodies employ agency workers?
Hello,
I have been blogging about this for a while, and have the benefit of actually working for a recruitment agency...
http://southpawgrammarwales.blogspot.com/2008/02/second-reading-of-andrew-millers-bill.html
http://southpawgrammarwales.blogspot.com/2008/02/they-work-for-you.html
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