Quote Originally Posted by Robmac View Post
I've used it to defend myself because I am anti immigration - but definitely not anti immigrant - huge difference!
Ok i must be stupid...how can you have one without the other.....surely if you have an immigrant iits because of immigration ?
I can agree with the first statement. To give an example of the reason look at my employment in the mid to late 2000s.
I was employed as a setter operator machinist in an automotive engineering company. When the company changed the manufacturing side to a 3 shift system I elected for personal circumstances to join the assembly section. As we were in a period of boom new staff were engaged but to keep costs to a minimum staff were found from elsewhere.
I know not if you can cast your minds back to the late 1990s most of our manufacturing base was exploring itself to China, India or what was formerly Eastern Europe. Some of the results were variable and several companies who were going to save a fortune went bust.
The mid 2000s were the point where people from some of the former communist block countries could then work in the EU. Germany and several other states held a delay on this. We the UK were still in a boom the CBI wanted the immigration and Tony Blair was in desperate need for some cheaper plumbers and chippies for his thriving London property development empire.
So the company I worked for instead of exporting itself to Eastern Europe imported Eastern Europe here. No Czechs but Slovakians and Poles. So other than realising that Poles can be a bit inquisitorial when asking questions (I knew this anyway coming from an area with a high Polish residual from WW2) what issues did I have with my new workers? Absolutely none.
Their English skills certainly surpassed my other language skills and they were most obviously numerate and able to follow logic if not always a complex spoken argument. So how come I dislike or even hate these individuals? I don't, how could I dislike people trying to do the best for themselves and their families. On a personal level I got on very well with at least three of them and occasionally met up after work.
So what is my complaint then? Europe is supposed to be a free labour market and that is fine when conditions are broadly equal or economies stable. e.g. Many would say the North of England is depressed and that wages and job prospects are better in the South East. There is some movement of people but even though the population of the UK is quite homogeneous it's relatively little. It's a known constant. My complaint is that citizens from countries with ravaged economies were brought here to depress wage rates. As sure as bust followed boom I also despise the unions who let management cherry pick who they retained forgetting about the older concept of LIFO so it was all those with the best terms and conditions or as important in this case the best prospective pensions who got dumped. (Before you think I'm just bitter no I wasn't made redundant I was living in various hospitals on long term sick at this point.)
Please look at this article
Let more immigrants into UK because Brits won't take our jobs, says Domino's Pizza boss - UK - News - London Evening Standard
As the man says
“I’m a free market economist – we operate in a free market. If these people want to come here, and work the hours they are prepared to work for the wages they are prepared to work for, then so be it,” he said.
He is working for the benefit of his company which is not necessarily the same as for the benefit of the South East or the benefit of the UK.
If it were possible this man would fly people in from Indian or Chinese sweatshops pay them £2.00 per hour housing them in company pens. Anything that made economic sense for the company. My thoughts are that if you can't get people to perform unsocial hours jobs in the South East for minimum wage then you should accept that limit for that area. Importing more cheap labour is a race to the bottom.
One other stated reason for the need for an influx of new workers was Britain's aging population. So we lacked young workers? Would that be after years of less family friendly taxation and support? So government causes a problem then causes a second one when trying to fix the first one.
Domino's just sees a cheap worker, if that worker then claims working tax credit or claims family allowance for his three children in Roumania it doesn't concern them. If the proof required for the size of your family is less than the proof if they lived in Britain so be it, it's not a Domino's expense.
Family move to London and need social housing. Not a Domino's expense. Wife or one of the children disabled so adapted housing and increased benefit required. Not a Domino's. Increased costs of schooling children with Roumanian as first language. Not a Domino's expense.
So just who is paying for most of the remuneration package the Roumanian gets?
Immigration loved by business because they don't pick up the tab.
Written by a second generation immigrant whose father was invited over in the late 1940's because of labour shortages.
Britain should be run for the benefit of the majority of the people who live here. If only, we now have less social mobility and a less equal split of wealth than in large portions of the second half of 20th century.
Back to Germans. I think people can be charged with "racist" offences when there is not necessarily a different race involved. Be it some other division, gender, sexuality, age, nationality. Somehow encompassed within "Hate Crime" (Do people commit love crimes) I recall Anne Robinson being investigated by the police (North Wales Police obviously impartial) following her comment about the Welsh.
I'm still confused why people are not admonished for positive statements about a nationality "They are very hard workers" must surely be as deplorable as a negative remark?
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