[Art]

Yes you did read it correctly £6. That's what some polish cleaners are charging around here at the moment.
Must be a struggle for them when they pay there running costs, PL insurance, uniforms, H & S etc..

[STUART]

Yep, I recently lost a contract becuase there was an influx of polish workers. they are willing to work for low pay and walk half way round town to different properties.

[stains-away]

Yes you did read it correctly £6. That's what some polish cleaners are charging around here at the moment.
Must be a struggle for them when they pay there running costs, PL insurance, uniforms, H & S etc..

Thats expensive  , I'd better give the wife a payrise then, Andy

[Fast 1 *]

its happening in all trades now.Whats being done about it?*uck all

[The Great One]

Hi

Not surprised...

Read in the paper yesterday that some building sites won't even entertain British workers, only Polish, etc, as they will work for much less, don't need overtime and work 7 days a week.

Unemployment has just gone up also..... :

Regards

Martin

[pes]

Great workers though, respect their employers, never winge, just get on a get the work done. 

[drivewasher]

If someone offered to clean my house for £6 I'd send em on thier bike.
How can a price like that include insurance tax and national insurance etc

[The Great One]

Hi

As you are an experienced cleaner of course you would, but what about joe public?

They don't even consider our:
PL Ins,
petrol,
materials,
tax,
Ins,
vehicle wear 'n tear,
time,
Paperwork
profit,
Etc ,etc...

Regards

Martin

[drivewasher]

Hi Martin,
Yes I see your point, It was just the £6 surely £6 to anyone is a ridiculouse figure.
I'm not an accountant, but if Iv'e paid say £350 a year for the last 5 years, and a polish accountant said he could do the job for £35, that would set alarm bells ringing?

[The Great One]

Hi

Yep it would, I think I would personally think they had missed 1 or 2 zero's off!

Regards

Martin

[angela carlton]

I really feel that this is the thin end of the wedge and there will only be one outcome at the end of the day, when employed people find themselves becoming redundant.

The problem is, it will happen much more quickly than you all expect and polititians will sit on their hands until it's too late.

The theory being put about by polititians, is that Polish people shoud be welcomed into this country as they are filling jobs where there is a shortage of homegrown skills!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is similar to what happened with massive Asian immigration 30 - 40 years ago.

Unions had fought, successfully, to get the working week reduced and get a better deal for the working class. But the Asians effectively turned back the clock by working double shifts and in doing so, cost jobs.   

With the Poles working for washers, the service industries, are going to be decimated and your futures are looking very uncertain.

Worried

You should be

Sorry for getting political, beginning to sound like my old man

Angie

[izabela]

I am Polish and I would care to differ from your views.
However I can understand your anger and worries but I don’t fully agree.
I have been in England for many years and I will stay. I also run a cleaning company and have for 5 years .I  pay my taxes, NI, petrol, insurances and employ my cleaners.
Maybe it is true that some desperate Polish sod does the full cleaning for £6 but I don’t think he/ she will be doing it for long , soon they will realise the price of “bread and butter” here and they will have to adjust to the cost of living in England and revise the prices for the service. Same for other industries.
The Majority of Poles coming here are not even speaking correct English. So how can they be taken seriously. There will always be a market for slave/cheap labour. So not to worry guys you will stay in control.
From  my point of view if  a customer is looking for a secure and quality service they will know where to find  and how to look for it.
As for unemployment - for some  people out of work it is just better for them to stay unemployed, as the state will pay for rent, doctor, dentist, schools, and it will even pay you to sit on your backside all day. Ok £40 p/w is not a lot but when you don’t have to pay bills……………well you work it out!
The people who complain the most tend to be the laziest people anyway. I offered a single mum part time job that was convenient around her children school times and have been turned down.

If the English people are so worried why are not doing their own jobs properly……I.e.:

Last week on a train I overheard 3 labourers complaining about polish workers………….about how hard and fast they work…………….sounds to me that they are worried about losing their own jobs to polish workers……………so what was their great plan…work hard and fast like the poles???     No slow down and let the poles do even more of the work. So when the foreman comes on the site and  observes that the poles are covered in dust  and  dirt………..they English have barely gotten their hands dirty……..the foreman thinks hang on a minute…….the poles are on less money but do twice the work of the Englishman,
If you were the boss who do you keep employing?



iza

[ics highland]

Hi Izabella

Could not agree with you more, and no I'm not polish but scottish.

Many people seem to be under the misconception that the polish works are cheap labour.  Well to some this may be the case, but they better watch out. 

Polish works, and infact any worker that comes to the UK from a country that is part of European Union,  has the same employment rights with regards to the national minuim wage.

I have had jobs advertised for many weeks now, with the same rates of pay no matter what colour, sex, religion, age, or nationality. Its called being an equal oppurtinities employer.  Everyone gets an application, everyone gets a chance to explain there experience and what they have to offer the company.

The fact of the matter is out of over 95 enquiries about the job, only 60 application forms came back in, out of the sixty 50 were offered an interview, 31 turned up for interviews, out of that 7 were offered jobs, 3 Polish, 2 English, 2 Scottish.  All seven accepted the job offers.  (But only 4 Turned up for there first day at work, 3 Polish and 1 Scottish).  That says somthing.  The Polish workers are prepared to do a fare days work for a fare days pay. Thats more than I can say for some people.

Give these people a chance, they will work hard for you.  But please adopt the attitude that I have over the years  (don't ask anyone to do, what you would not be prepared to do yourself.


Regards

David
ICS Highland

[spindle]

i know who i'd employ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[The Great One]

Guys

Of course it doesn't matter which country you are from, you get your workers and your lazy gits, wether they are Polish, British.

The flat down from me has been partially redeveloped by Polish workers.

When the job got cancelled they squatted for 3 days, chuffing ciggies all day, drinking and playing music until 2am.

Took me 10 days to get rid of the stench in my place, they weren't re-employed thank god but there are good and bad in all races.

Regards

Martin

[drivewasher]

Bit of point I know, but here goes, I do some trucking in my off days for agencies class 1 work. A transport manager told me that he was offered a large premium to take Polish drivers from agency pool.
But after researching with other depots, decided not to as most could not speak or read english, this posed a problem for h&s and directions etc. plus the enormouse amount of damage that was caused.
But having said that one large superstore company in south I believe give the Polish driver one designated store that they have been to a couple of times with a trainer and they just go from depot to their "own" store every day, problem solved and works quite well

[bluecrescent]

The Polish are probably good Polishers! 

[Robert Parry]

Its all about attitude, poles, like I have stated before on another post, great workers, if you treat them fair and with respect, you will, as a general rule get it back in spades, only problem really, is the little englander attitude of clients staff sometimes, regards,

Rob

[keith b]

Angie,

I agree with your sentiments,

One of the real problems is that politicians have no regard for controls on work permits or boarders because they have business interests in the private sectors. and are willing to adopt the free market dogma at all costs. and it all started with Thatcher.

What they should do is by all means let people in here to work, but only if someone leaves this country to work in their country.

If these foreign workers had to pay rent, taxes, accomodation, council tax, gas/electric bills etc, and had to live here fulltime over a period of time, then they they would not survive. and thats without the pressure its putting on our housing and health services on this little island of ours.

Much of the money they make go`s home to countries like Poland to feed there families, so the question is it good for the long term economy of this country if most the money being created here is not being spent or recirculated here?

Much of the other problems is that the national minimum wage is too low to attract workers from this country, especially for those who live in the southeast of the country where its more expensive to live. and that without the stealth taxes we now pay under gordon brown.

Even though i don`t agree with most of his policies, Ken Livingstone got it right when he said that the minimum wage should rise to £7.20, then we could do away with tax credits to top up low incomes.

I feel better now!

 


 

[pdl]

In reply to your last thread KP.

What a load of tosh.  I employ Polish workers, they pay rent, they pay taxes, they pay gas/electric, they pay their taxes in every way shape and form and they have been living here for two odd years, so of them with their families  Some of them have even told me they will noyt be going back to Poland.

They get paid well ( the same as their English counterparts), they are not afraid of a bit of hard work.

I agree with you about the national minimum wage aspect of your thread, but it's very diffucult to get  the clients of the industry that we work in to pay such high prices for something as simple as cleaning, although those of us in the industry know it's not as easy as some people might think.

Cor, I feel better now as well!!