Ooops: Britain opens its doors to 3.5 million visitors from eastern Europe

[threaded]

But it keeps the interest rates down.

[Hart-floot]

A friend of mine is adamant on becoming an academic. Having just completed his PhD in February and in significant debt, he needed some money pretty quick. He approached the high street job agents in Victoria; without fail the most they could offer him was £11/hr, unless he wanted to 'teach' in which case it would be more.

As a student, 10 years ago, guess what I was earning for beer money while living under the parental roof during the holidays? Nearly £11/hr.

There's a nice article in todays Telegraph detailing the lives of recent Poles coming to UK and the impact they are having on wage rates..


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.../ftpoles25.xml

From the article .....

A report at the weekend from the Ernst & Young Item Club said that Polish plumbers and other migrants from the newest members of the EU last year boosted the UK economy by suppressing interest rates. So everything's great, right?
Well, no, because if you put aside these statistics and look at the reality that I was witness to, a rather different and more depressing picture emerges.
However much they economise in order to send their money home (not stimulating the local economy, incidentally, but taking money out of it), migrant workers from eastern Europe are consumers of accommodation. In the two London boroughs of Ealing and Hammersmith alone, there are at least 5,000 Polish workers, all in need of a roof over their heads.
The result is strong upward pressure on the property market, causing already sky-high prices to rise further still. If the Government really cared about the less privileged, they'd be concerned.
Furthermore, an unlimited supply of cheap labour might be nice for employers, but it has knocked the bottom out of the labour market. Again, bad news for the less privileged. And not just for them, since the massive supply at the bottom end of the market is having a knock-on effect higher up. In the Jobcentre close to my temporary home, a whole range of worthwhile and by no means unskilled jobs now pay the national minimum wage (£5.05 per hour pre-tax, £4.20 post-tax). That's about £700 a month after tax. I would argue that it is not possible to function as an ordinary adult on this and certainly not in London and yet it has become the standard wage for millions of people, migrants and British alike.
Upwards pressure on property prices, and downwards pressure on wages. In other words, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Tony Blair isn't just importing cheap labour. He's importing poverty, too. And it will only get worse when others from eastern Europe start arriving - the Romanians, for example, who are provisionally scheduled to join the EU in 2007.
Will anything open Blair's eyes?

[Fleetwood]

<Fleetwood mode>benefits
unemployed</Fleetwood mode>

That was my first post of the day and the coffee hadn't yet kicked in.
Sorry.

[DodgyAgent]

There's a nice article in todays Telegraph detailing the lives of recent Poles coming to UK and the impact they are having on wage rates..


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.../ftpoles25.xml

From the article .....

A report at the weekend from the Ernst & Young Item Club said that Polish plumbers and other migrants from the newest members of the EU last year boosted the UK economy by suppressing interest rates. So everything's great, right?
Well, no, because if you put aside these statistics and look at the reality that I was witness to, a rather different and more depressing picture emerges.
However much they economise in order to send their money home (not stimulating the local economy, incidentally, but taking money out of it), migrant workers from eastern Europe are consumers of accommodation. In the two London boroughs of Ealing and Hammersmith alone, there are at least 5,000 Polish workers, all in need of a roof over their heads.
The result is strong upward pressure on the property market, causing already sky-high prices to rise further still. If the Government really cared about the less privileged, they'd be concerned.
Furthermore, an unlimited supply of cheap labour might be nice for employers, but it has knocked the bottom out of the labour market. Again, bad news for the less privileged. And not just for them, since the massive supply at the bottom end of the market is having a knock-on effect higher up. In the Jobcentre close to my temporary home, a whole range of worthwhile and by no means unskilled jobs now pay the national minimum wage (£5.05 per hour pre-tax, £4.20 post-tax). That's about £700 a month after tax. I would argue that it is not possible to function as an ordinary adult on this and certainly not in London and yet it has become the standard wage for millions of people, migrants and British alike.
Upwards pressure on property prices, and downwards pressure on wages. In other words, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Tony Blair isn't just importing cheap labour. He's importing poverty, too. And it will only get worse when others from eastern Europe start arriving - the Romanians, for example, who are provisionally scheduled to join the EU in 2007.
Will anything open Blair's eyes?

So you think we should encourage wage inflation and pay tax to keep 3 million people out of work?

I have a better solution: Put a stop to welfare with the exception of the mentally handicapped and people with terminal illnesses.

[NoddY]

So you think we should encourage wage inflation and pay tax to keep 3 million people out of work?

I have a better solution: Put a stop to welfare with the exception of the mentally handicapped and people with terminal illnesses.

Thus increasing the supply of labour reducing wages further. It's job creation that's required not labour creation.

[DodgyAgent]

Thus increasing the supply of labour reducing wages further. It's job creation that's required not labour creation.

What is the point of creating jobs if there is no one to do them? These Eastern Europeans are mostly working in the private sector which is struggling to support a very wasteful and unaccountable public sector. If wages were to rise then costs of production for private enterprise would also rise. The effect would be to squeeze the costs of goods and services that you and I buy on a a day to day basis.

[John Galt]

According to some bloke on the radio at the moment, talking about this very subject, the Government predicted that 13,000 approx Polish workers would register in Britain. This number has exceed 200,000. These people are all registered for tax and NI - so pretty permanent I would think

[wendigo100]

So you think we should encourage wage inflation and pay tax to keep 3 million people out of work?

That's not how I read it at all.

Objectors are not encouraging wage inflation. They are against wage deflation.

Keeping what 3 million people out of work? If you mean eastern Europeans, then why should that be our problem?

[wendigo100]

According to some bloke on the radio at the moment, talking about this very subject, the Government predicted that 13,000 approx Polish workers would register in Britain. This number has exceed 200,000. These people are all registered for tax and NI - so pretty permanent I would think

I remember Jack Straw predicting this, 7000 a year I think he said.

When the eastern Europeans joined the EU, ours was the only government to allow them unfettered access to work over here. All the other governments, even the feck-witted Italians, did not because they knew what would happen.

Even a small child could think its way through issues better than HMG.

[milanbenes]

I think part of the problem is the little Britain attitude

we have to stop thinking that the whole world revolves around Britain and we have to stop thinking the world ends at Dover.

Britain is part of the European Union, the United States of Europe,
as a member state we can all work where the work is and if we are
so motivated we have the freedom, us Brits as well to go to where
the work gives us the best financial rewards - as our Central and Eastern
European cousins are doing.

So what is the big deal ?

The Poles are doing what Aufiedersen Pet did in the 80's !

All the complaining highlights the fact that British wages are being
drivien down, British people have the same freedom as the Poles
and can if so motivated find work else where within the European
Union where rates for their labour and skills may be higher, through
a combination of wages and cost of living.

So why all the complaining ?

Milan.