Has the massive influx of migrant workers from Poland and eastern europe affected the UK workers and tradesmen

Question

adversely,bringing down our wages and standard of living.

Answer 1

I think in the case of British plumbers they have done it to themselves. I got a quote to fit a shower in my bathroom (a two hour job) from an English plumber- £300. (£150 an hour) and a Polish plumber £135 (£67 an hour). British plumbers have been ripping us off for too long now and they are getting their cummupance.
But overall the mass influx has been terrible for wages in factories, warehouses and for normal British folk. Not to mention the overcrowding, pollution, strain on public services.
I really think we should stop anymore Poles coming in and send about half of them back home, we cannot cope with the extra numbers.

Answer 2

I have two brothers in the building game and they have seen the site forman lay off all the bricklayers on some sites only to replace them an hour later with polish workers who will do the job for a lot less than the British workers.
I wonder how long it will be before the British workers fight back and start rioting.
Most of the Polish workers will work cash in hand so they do not pay tax so therefor they do nothing for the economy apart from sponge off the state and take take take.

Answer 3

Not as much as you might think.

In some areas, particularly where there was already high competeion for tradesmen and a large influx of Polish and East European (PEE for short) tradesmen, then straight economics shows that it will have affected wages.

Stories about gangmasters paying £2/hr are thankfully unusual (rather than rare), but in any case are illegal.

Basically though, we just don't know! But, as you mention workers - who is really doing the shafting? Clue - it's not the immigrants...

Answer 4

Well my partner recently got a job as a car/van driver for a hire firm. He really wants to do his HGV licence and asked his employer if they would be able to train him up to do this. HGV drivers can make quite good money.

His employers said that they would not - in previous years they would train up staff to drive HGVs as it benefitted them - it was often hard to find good HGV drivers and training people up gave a sense of loyalty to the company. But these days with the influx of easily available labour there is no need to train employees up. Its cheaper just to hire em and fire em.

So my partner is stuck at a minimum wage level because he cannot raise the money himself to pay for his HGV training.

We also have a friend who qualified as a plumber last year but is currently pulling pints in order to pay his rent as he cannot get enough plumbing work to survive on.

Answer 5

Tradesmen?
The problem with this country at the moment is the fact that we do not have enough "tradesmen" as we are all going to university and doing a degree in media studies.
The only place that we can get tradesmen is from foriegn countries & until we start training our own people, things will only get worse.
Get back to real apprenticeships.

Answer 6

Yes it has brought in competition for jobs, and as the Eastern Europeans will work for less, has put some tradesmen out of work.

But should the solution be to get rid of them, or to try and get people to employ more people who were born in the UK?

And immigration has brough other beneifts. Remember, each immigrant working here pays tax, tax that goes to funding the NHS, education the police, pur armed forces and the like. Get rid of them, and pay more tax as they pay for our pensioners.

Answer 7

Alfonze H your a tight git, not even i would work for you if i could but i got 8 children to look after.

Answer 8

i have nothing againced these blokes coming hear and earning a wage to better them selves and their families. in fact we need tradesmen here. and i welcome them. but iether we close our borders and clean up the illegals 'thus making some room' or we face the fact that we are NOW!! full up. for god sake all you smug racist accusers. we cant fit the whole world into Britain. grow up for crying out loud.

Answer 9

Same in USA! Claiming they are doing Jobs Americans won't or that we are too dumb to do. Aren't you tired of the slap in the face? Is that what you are hearing as well, while being called racist?

Answer 10

No, what affects your wages and standard of living, is the arrogance, apathy, and laziness of nationals like you to take the jobs that migrants perform. What affects the economy is people standing on the unemployment lines (mostly white, unwed mothers) instead of trying to earn a decent living, whatever the wages are. Stop pointing fingers at people that want to do well and live decent lives.
Don't ask for "whom the bell tolls" it's tolling for you.