The bias towards migrant workers

RMcGeddon

Trapped on benefits - Labour's legacy for layabouts. Many Britons emerging into the jobs market do not have a work ethic inculcated into their character. Some leave school with a 'wannabee' mentality - 'I wanna be famous', 'I wanna be rich', others have an attitude problem plus an 'entitlement' mentality.
So many seem to be the end product of the 'Education, education, education' era...

marc antony

As one who employed hundreds of people in the restaurant business, I can speak from experience.
British workers are both lazy and unreliable. They are also troublesome. It's a cultural thing, I think. Rights and entitlement are presumed rather than earned.
British society is in decay and those that seek to prolong the process, like the idiot bishops, are the main part of the problem.
The question is, do the powers that be have the gumption to address this, or would they prefer merely to garner votes? IDS is trying, he should be supported.
I repeat, no boss wants British workers, because they don't know how to work. That's a bit of a drawback.
We need a proper diagnosis before adminstering the cure.
Life is tough, but your average slob Brit isn't.

Baroness Helena Handcart QC

Most interesting and borne out by experience: my daughter, Gladys Bracegirdle, never got so much as a reply when she applied to Pret for summer work in Manchester last year. To be serious, when one looks at the cream of British youth, slack jawed and menacing on street corners or hunched over some stupid bloody game on a smartphone, cursing and with their underwear on show at the back of their jeans, one wonder whether any will ever be thought capable of even wiping his own nose let alone working for a living.

Ian Walker

I wonder if there is a systemic bias - immigrants work harder because they are immigrants, not because they are Polish or Czech or whatever.

The Poles who over here working in the factories and the fields, or the Czechs and Slovaks working in the shops and the hotels are the people from that country who have made a conscious decision to undertake a massive upheaval in their lives to escape the situation in their own country.

Ergo, they are more motivated to follow through on that, but also by the fact of their migration, they are likely to be the sort of person who will inherently fit better into the world of work.

I suspect your contact who is flying in Poles recruited in Poland might actually find that the quality drops over time, because he'll be losing that element of self-determination from the people who end up working for him.

Fraser

Doing his best to remove the difference by lowering in work tax credits and giving a full inflation rise to those on out of work benefits. I know you are in love with IDS but his reforms are weak, where is the compunction to work in his proposals? why not cut the benefits paid to make work more attractive? The proposed benefits cap is at a ridiculous level. Why does the universal credit have to cost more not less?

Austin Barry

The Pret foreign staff are unfailingly cheerful and chirpy to a nauseating degree.

I’d much rather be served by sullen, shaven-headed, tattooed London lads, mumbling in that interesting patois, and their nose-ringed, eyebrow-pierced sisters who one rather suspects are suffering from some intimate rust ailment. They are ours and they need the work.

TrevorsDen

You have just woken up to a situation which is rife all over the country.
And on the day after the govt attempt to cap benefits.
We all remember I am sure that virtually all the new jobs created by labour went to immigrants. The labour govts 13 year rule has had a disasterous affect on British society.

Peter From Maidstone

I know lots of decent young English people who would be glad of a job in Pret. In Maidstone it does seem staffed entirely by immigrants. There is no good reason why this is so other than systemic discrimination.

TGF Euros

So business prefers employees who work hard and don't come with an entrenched attitude of entitlement. The bigger impact of this is not well understood yet - only a madman would try to invest or build a business in the UK given the far better conditions for investment in countries like Poland, the Baltics etc. It isn't just that hard working eastern migrants go home after a while - it is the jobs that follow them. Until the penny drops in Westminster that the UK has become the high tax, high regulation socialist economic basket case of Northern Europe, this is going to continue.

Andy H

When you remove political and ideological discrimination from recruitment (quotas and the like) you can see that the market will pick people on merit.

Pret have every right to choose the best person for the job - it is called competition.

The sooner that our children realise that they have to compete (starting at school) then the better prospects they will have.

The socialist ideal that everyone can win, and that no one is poor will destroy this country.

Vulture

We can only hope that the Poles stay and breed, injecting some of their fine genes into our decayed stock.

Kids born here after Thatcher's fall are a generation lost, thanx to Labour.

Possibly the coming war with Iran will soak up some as cannon fodder.

Russell

A boycott of Pret would soon change their employment practices.
Similarly a boycott of French cars would be welcomed by most English people.
Selective boycotts can be very effective.

Mac

"Why are you never served by a Londoner in a London branch of Pret A Manger?"

So speaks a Scotsman living and working in London.

You either believe in a free labour market or you don't.

The fact that the British have been termed lazy is due to entirely to a series of myths pronounced on a regular basis by journalists such as Fraser Nelson.(Shock, horror!)

Now I call that getting your cake and eating it.

Dimoto

Peter from Maidstone:
I (unfortunately) often walk the streets of your depressing town.
Until very recently, it was notable for "help required" notices on the majority of retail outlets .... and streets full of aimless young people (chavs in the vernacular), who just will not work, and wouldn't know how.

Nowadays, the "help notices" have gone, some of the shops are closed, but the feckless bands cluttering up the streets are swelling.

It has nothing to do with this government.
It is all about feral youth, taught through long years of schooling that "their opinions are equally valid" and that "discipline is fascist and they have a right to do their own thing, with the state picking up the tab".

That's what the anti-immigrant types on CH miss - we have a simple choice, tolerate the immigrants and keep the economy moving, or get rid of them and watch the economy grind to a halt.

Changing the culture of the natives (which will require a degree of coercion), would take years, decades, and our liberal consensus will never tackle it.

Fraser Nelson is part of that consensus, sitting in London, wringing his hands.

And Maidstone is in the south-eastern "arc of prosperity" ....

David L

Austin Barry (11.10) put your money where your mouth is. Set up an all_english sandwich bar (Pret-a-F**k-off, perhaps). And see whether others want to be served by mumbling workshy Brits or the perky, cheerful staff in Pret down the road.

Wilhelm 1

Frazer

'' Some suspect there is a bias in favour of immigrants, if your name doesn't sound exotic, game over.''

Sheesh !! It's pathos, isn't it ? what a dopey statement from our illustrious sage.

I think it's more to do with cheap labour, pay peanuts and you get monkeys.

The phrase Neathergate to Fraser is like garlic to Dracula.

Chris lancashire

I'm afraid I can only endorse the bias. I employ Poles and Lithuanians along with British employees and they are outstanding in attitude, quality and quantity of work and they turn in every day.
However, there's hope yet, one of our Polish workers recently started declining overtime as he had discovered he could claim Family Tax Credit for his family back in Poland which made overtime pay marginal.

Brian

If employers are discriminating against Britons then surely that is against the law, as it is against the law to discriminate on the basis of nationality against any EU citizen.

I would like to see that law enforced.

Andy Carpark

Darryl, Cheapside outlet. Thoroughly nice chap.

Radford NG

It was the same 100 years ago when London was flooded by Jews fleeing the Tsars Cossacks. In those days of upstairs-downstairs ,the Ruling Class,an elite group from Eton,Oxbridge and the Guards,did not turn on their own native people:did not call them racists,scroungers etc.(And there wasnt any "Welfare-ism").They realised there would be problems and prejudices ,many of them justified.They,along with the leaders of Anglo-Jewery,openly addressed the issues.I suggest you look-up the Committee Reports in Hansard.It was this situation which lead to the first Acts to restrict immigration.

Biggestaspidistra

I don't believe the British prefer to be served by foreigners. I'm very happy when I hear a Newcastle or Scottish accent when I call my bank, BA or BT, rather than the bleep of a satellite from Asia, they give better service. If we applied the same negative stereotyping to 'black workers' or 'female workers' we'd see this for what it is: economic exploitation and discrimination.

Chris lancashire

Brian: And how exactly are you going to prove that discrimination? Or the discrimination that may exist against women of a child bearimg age for example? I and thousands of employers like me need to do the best for our businesses and protect them, as best we can, against government "employment protection" legislation. You clearly believe that just passing a law makes it happen. It doesn't.

Hexhamgeezer

I endorse pretty much everything in the responses so far. There are plenty of things that need to be tackled and I know for sure that the current political class are incapable of taking this on.

However the English (British?) as a whole will have to change. Service industry jobs are looked down on by too many in this country and youngsters know it. Until there is a general societal increase in respect for those doing those and other 'menial' jobs nothing will change.

Youngsters for their part need to accept that at the start of their working life money and time will be short but there is another side to it.

My parents and grandparents found it virtually impossible to get reliable young casual staff in their small catering business even though tips could be good and a lot of this was down to the perceived 'menial' nature of service work - and where do they get that idea from?

walter

Its not so rosy I would say ( for Poles). As a Pole myself ( living in the UK since 2004) I soon discovered that taking overtime very often makes no sense as I was taxed with so called Brutal Rate tax ( BR code). So what made more sense was working one full time and claiming working tax credit. Absurdity of that system was clear but it wasnt really my idea.
Since 2006 I set up my small company (removal service) and started working for myself. For all I can say UK is a land of opportunity for people who want ( and obviously can for health reason) work hard.

Kennybhoy

Dimoto on January 24th, 2012 11:42am

Absolutely magisterial.

john gerard

5 minutes walk from my house, I have a McD's, Burger King, KFC, Subway, Costa, Starbucks, and Pret. Not to mention various other independents. There is one British born person on the staff for all these businesses, in McD's. There's also a big, 4 star hotel that employs two Brits only. I know because I asked the manager, and he's one of them...

Wilhelm 1

David L crawls out of a sewer, opens his big fat gob and squeals

'' and see whether others want to be served by workshy Brits or the perky cheerful staff in Pret.''

The self loathing of ones OWN native people is quite staggering, isn't it ? It borders on the supernatural.

'' set up an English sandwich bar, Pret a F**k off perhaps ?

This guys a real comedian, isn't he ? He should be in the circus as a clown.

In2minds

@Austen Barry - "sullen, shaven-headed, tattooed London lads" -

A lot of the police look like that!

Frank P

David L

I fear you did not quite get our Austin Barry's s.o.h. You therefore won't do well here.

Dimoto

Wilhelm I - some truth in what you say, but the mass of ordinary Englanders have no problem in admitting the failures of their society and education, and the growing rump of unemployables.

Of course, you probably can't understand that, given the perfection and rosy wonder of Scottish society, at least according to the Chief Minister.

CS

Of course it could just be that migrant workers are the only ones prepared to work for the crap pay and conditions you lot offer. Oh it's wonderful, I can screw over my slaves as much as I like and they're still grateful.

Essexboy

Three years ago my young Eastern European lodger had a friend to stay who wanted to work in the UK.He walked the streets looking for work and within a week was employed by a 4 star hotel to clean rooms. His only complaint was that most of the staff were Polish and they spoke Polish at work making it harder for him to learn English.At the same time one of my sons and his long term unemployed friends all said they could not find a work in the same town. I asked many times if they were under pressure from the job center to look for employment and they said " no they just tick the boxes and send you away"
This is New Labours legacy, high unemployment and a cannot be bothered attitude in our youth and a huge rise in uncontrolled immigration with the latter now firmly in the work place making it almost impossible to fix the problem of youth unemployment and high welfare costs.

Wilhelm 1

Dimoto, with more self loathing of ones own nation

'' the ordinary Englander has no problem in admitting the failure of their society and the growing rump of unemployables''

Have you done a national poll ALL by yourself ? Are you suggesting that the country is so crap that we need primitives from Africa and muslim immigrants to help us out ? That's national cultural ethnic suicide, is it not ?

It's amazing how we created the Industrial Revolution, built the Empire, won 2 world wars, ruled 25 % of the worlds land mass all by ourselves without the benefit of African and muslim immigrants. How on earth did we do that then ?

Ps. I am not Scots.

Mirtha Tidville

Just returned from a few days in Cornwall at a hotel that employs ALL local youngsters.A more hard working pleasant bunch you could not wish to meet.NOT a foreigner among them.There are plenty of our own youngsters who wuould do a great job if given a chance.

The CEO bollocks that was quoted was just that. I bet he brings them in on less than minimum wages, and sends them home when the jobs done. Maximises the profits and stuff his country and its people.

About time the gangmaster legislation applied to British CEO`s

Louise Bacon

I have to agree with Marc Antony, I worked in the restaurant business for years and British workers were lazy and unreliable. They had no sense of responsibility and would regularly call in sick on busy nights or just not turn up. My experience with foreign workers was more positive, certainly a much better attitude, if i found myself in the position now i'd hire foreign wherever possible. Although I do wonder how long their attitude will last. A few years down the line they may have adopted a similar attitude, having been tainted by the British.

Wily Trout

Repatriate the lot of them, including the Scots.

Timac

It could be worse, you could be young and unemployed in Spain. It would be useful if, when discussing youth unemployment, the British media mentioned that it is far far worse for our European neighbors just to put our own minor woes in perspective.

Wilhelm 1

Dimoto puts on his Mortar board hat and gives us all a lecture

'' It has nothing to do with this government, it is all about feral youth.''

Really ? no kidding, Sherlock.

'' That's what the anti immigrant types on CH miss, we have a simple choice, tolerate the immigrants and keep the economy or get rid of them and watch the economy grind to a halt.''

First of all '' we types '' don't miss anything,

It's YOU with your Cultural Marxism fail to grasp the fact that with your open door policy on immigration which buggers up the cohesion of the nation. According to David Coleman professor of demographics at Oxford University, England will cease to be a white country by 2066. I think it will be a lot sooner.

A nation is defined by it's people, change the people you change the country, Fill the country up with Africans and muslims who don't share our culture and customs, it wont be England anymore, will it ?

The more you give blacks and muslims, the more they riot.

And to quote an old Dutch proverb '' If you let monkeys out of the zoo, you're liable to have a pretty wild time in the streets.''

As the London race riots demonstrated, of course I am not equating blacks to monkeys, that would be racist, but you get the drift.

How does Japan and South Korea cope without blacks and muslims ?

Tiberius

One can only wonder how this country survived as an independant trading nation before 2004 when the east europeans flocked in. Wow did we cope ? Anyone who has had experience of Polish female workers knows that, generally, they are a surly, unproductive bunch...but then attractive features with blond dyed hair seems to fool Uk employers most of the time. Also having been a tourist in eastern europe on many occasions during the 1990's I can honestly say that the general level of service was not memorable.

Cynic

If British workers don't even get a look-in, we can put that down as another "benefit" of the EU.

Cynic

@ marc antony "British workers are both lazy and unreliable. They are also troublesome. It's a cultural thing, I think. Rights and entitlement are presumed rather than earned." It never used to be. It was New Labour who really pushed the entitlement culture of rights without responsibilities, although it started with the Children Act. The ECHR doesn't help, of course.

Edward McLaughlin

This has taken some time hasn't it: the Spectator coming round to the idea that our (former) working class have been and are being royally shafted?

Interesting isn't it, that the great mass of displacement in the workplace, has been concentrated in the lower bands?

Surely there is some genial and talented Miroslav who could do the job of any (or at present production rates, all) of our resident Spectator bloggers?

Think of the savings to be had there.

(What's Pret a Manger btw?)

Vanessa

You know what Fraser, I NEVER eat or drink out these days, 'cos I'm sick to death of being served by a foreigner.

I agree with Austin, give me a bolshy brit anyday, I like a bit of a challenge, and I usually get them to smile.

Percy

Wilhelm 1

I'm so glad I'm not you.

Yow Min Lye

Oc course, we Brits are perfectly capable of hard work when we're packed off to work on construction sites and refineries in Saudi Arabia.

Perhaps it's because - like the Poles, Filipinos and Nigerians working in London - we would be earning a small fortune compared to what we could earn doing the same job back home.

AlexW

So why not restrict both EU and non-EU immigration and then put a 2-year time limit to claiming out of work benefits?

2 Years to pull one's finger out and get into work, training or education seems about right to me. Naturally the socialists will faint in horror, so the idea must have some merit no?

Hexhamgeezer

What EM said @5.19

I've long wondered why the MSM, top Civil Service, HoC/HoL is so dominated by over educated expensive useless Brits telling us how effing marvellous our multiculti EU Nirvana is without any risk to their own overpaid positions.

Why isn't the BBC, ITV,C4 the newspapers, the Spec etc etc full of far cheaper intelligent and better looking Italians, Swedes, Poles, Danes etc than the smug pro -EU British effluent that is inflicted on us?

Think of the savings.

What about it Mr Nelson?

anthony scholefied

I agree . Workshy Britons infest all levels of scociety including serious periodicals. That is why I have set up a company which will supply hardworking East Europeans as journalists and you can get rid of all the whingers and slackers at the Spectator.
look forward to hearing from you.

AliC

What Alex said. You Brits can only claim benefits longer than two years if you have paid in enough national insurance by working. simples.

If you're from Poland, you get Poland's level of benefits. If you're from Afghanistan, you get Afghan level of benefits...(zero) etc.

Ruby Duck

Chris lancashire : "one of our Polish workers recently started declining overtime as he had discovered he could claim Family Tax Credit for his family back in Poland which made overtime pay marginal."

Best sack him before he tells the others.

Dimoto

What we are discussing here are well-motivated, (reasonably) well-educated EU citizens, and the impossibility of our unemployables competing with them.

Amongst our friends, in the village where I live, there is universal fear and loathing for "immigrants" (pictured as Islamist / Afro-Caribbeans storming the country in their millions).

Most of these gentle souls have never met an immigrant (except, casually in London), but have been efficiently misinformed by the Telegraph, Mail etc.

Wilhelm 1

Percy squeaks

'' I'm so glad I'm not you.''

And I'm so glad I'm not called Percival.

Wilhelm 1

Dimoto

'' In the village where I live. Most of these gentle souls have never met an immigrant, blah blah blah.''

Dripping in condescension.

JimB

Judging from many of the comments posted here, people are more concerned that they are served their cappuccinos by cheerful imported cheap labour (and enjoy the services of cheap nannies, plumbers etc) than they are by the loss of this nation's identity and the abandonement of our indigenous young people by successive lazy LabLibCon politicians

peejay

Yes I agree. This convenient and very unpatriotic attitude (there's a word not many people would understand) that the British are lazy is very short-sighted.
It will lead to more and more young people living a life on benefits and costing the country more and more. It encourages employers to lower wages and conditions of work.
But the greatest effect is the ever-increasing population. This is going to eventually lead to the destruction of this country -- but no-one will even discuss it!

Andrew

So British workers are all slack jawed lazy idiots are they?

I presume the writer and the posters endorsing this view do not include themselves or their offspring in this assessment.

The reality is that companies want people who work for cheap. They do not want to pay good wages, pension contributions, sick pay, or even national inusrance if they can get away with it.

So all we have to do is scrap all the progress that make ordinary peoples lives a bit bearable, rejoin the developing world and British employers will be happy. Fab!

If they can get slave labour that would be just the job. Getting foreign workers who will live eight to a room and who can be sacked at a moments notice is an acceptable alternative.

It makes me sick the way middle class British people will do down their own countrymen in this way. Rest assured it will not be the same in the far east. They may be oppressive but when push comes to shove they put their own countries first.

Just remember its the "slack jawed youth" of Britain who will be defending you if this county ever needs to go to war again, not the cheap as chips foreign workers. they'll be long gone - if not fighting on the other side.

Kennybhoy

Andrew on January 26th, 2012 11:44am blethered:

"Just remember its the "slack jawed youth" of Britain who will be defending you if this county ever needs to go to war again, not the cheap as chips foreign workers. they'll be long gone - if not fighting on the other side."

Then we are doooomed! lol

http://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/Chav

John.

Introduce Swiss nationality law, (substituting "British" for "Swiss"), retrospectively whereby the child of two foreigners or of one foreigner and a Swiss national takes the nationality of the foreign parent/s. Copy the Swiss by only allowing foreigners in on time limited work permits. Then abolish or cut every possible welfare benefit so that the indigenous British are obliged to begin working again - and the problem's solved. No foreigners who are not here on time limited work permits and the young all employed. The time-honoured myth of "we need them because they do jobs our people won't do" can easily be solved by re-introducing National Service and getting the servicemen and servicewomen to do just those jobs for two years. There are solutions but we just don't have the guts or the resolve to implement them.

Ian Peter MacDonald

Although immigrant applicants are often more enthusiastic etc, I do suspect that so many of the managers are themeselves immigrants. They are possibly more inclined to hire immigrants.
More importantly we now need to educate our young to suit the demands of these jobs.