E-Petition on overcrowding hits 100K

olly300

darkpool wrote: »

i'd imagine illegal immigrants go the local hospital if they break their leg though.

They don't get medical treatment unless they are desperate. (I've got friends and family who have dealt with such people.)

Also lots of people, regardless of background, break bones or have serious illnesses and don't know. In the case of the bones they can heal themselves, but with the illnesses they turn up in a desperate condition.

darkpool wrote: »

i just don't understand why the UK taxpayer is expected to give any benefits to people without a UK passport. why should a Polish builder etc get anything in benefits at all? he's not British and has nothing to do with Britain. If i went to Poland i doubt i'd get any benefits.

Reciprocal agreements between EU countries. (Someone pointed me to the legislation in the past.)

So if you go to Poland you are allowed the benefits Polish citizens get if you are eligible. However as Polish citizens get f**k all if they are unemployed you will get f**k all too.

Hence the British government has to change the eligibility of long term British residents to claim benefits.

They also have do the checks on things like child benefit properly. Other EU countries that give child benefit/child tax allowances check before giving them out that the children exist, we do the checks afterwards.

homelessskilledworker

julieq wrote: »

It's like a pack of baying dogs here sometimes.

There are plenty of studies on the pattern of EU immigration and the flow in and out of workers, and in particular the A8 countries. Most workers stay in the country for short periods of time. Some stay longer, true, but that's on the basis of having built a life here. The total numbers are small as a comparison to the UK workforce anyway, and the demographics are different in that an A8 or EU immigrant is far more likely to be working. There is a net benefit in taxation.

Now you may not like that, but that's the way the data points. Anyone here can look at the ONS data, the data provided by the healthcare authorities, studies by universities and so on, this is such a big subject that most of it is online and searchable.

Jimmy, you're what? A builder? I can find you 20 crap English or UK builders for every bad Polish or A8 builder you can point at, if not more. The reason foreign nationals are employed as a rule is that they do the job well and usually cost less. Again that is a hard message to swallow for many of the hard core brits, but ultimately the test is in who gets the job. Again, this gives the country a net benefit. It makes life difficult for some of the people who aren't prepared to work as hard, but do you know what? I don't really care about them. I have to compete against others internationally for my wages, and I don't see why a hod carrier or plasterer doesn't have to. In most parts of the country there are less than 50 per 1000 workers from non UK origins. It's hardly an immigrant flood.

As far as non EU nationals goes, the level of scrutiny is I can assure you intensive and ridiculous. Virtually no-one on this board born in the UK would pass the citizenship test, and it's a costly process to settle here long term. A great deal of the migration is for education anyway, is short term, and subsidises our universities. It's a benefit, not a cost.

I'm fighting an uphill battle here, I know, because the erroneous beliefs around immigration are hammered in and reinforced day in day out by newspaper headlines and unscrupulous politicians. It's always nice to have someone else to blame for your troubles (if there is one theme from the bearish side it is that, someone is always doing them down in some way and eroding their quality of life). Well I'm sorry, it's a competitive world now, and you're in global competition with a lot of other people after a slice of prosperity - the true 99% in other words.

If you win your battle, what you'll find is that you're locked into a future of diminishing pensions and poverty while the rest of the world just decide to get on with things without us. It is a GOOD THING that people want to work and maybe settle here.

Hi Julie

I take it you are in some kind of relationship with a immigrant/foreign national, going on your emotive outburst....
While I agree it is the dumbest thing in the world to dislike a person because of the colour of his skin, the UK has long since done it's bit when it comes to taking in foreigners.
The UK is now full up and needs to look after it's own, those that fall in love with a eastern european, Thai, Russian, Asian maybe want to think about setting up home there, seems funny how 99.9% of these love affairs seem to settle in the UK.

olly300

Jimmy_31 wrote: »

It is NOT A GOOD THING that thousands of immigrants want to come to this country to work in jobs that the citizens of this country need.

We may need jobs like fruit pickers, cleaners, security guards, etc but you will find lots of British people who only have the skills to do these jobs won't do them as they expect the wages for a job they don't have the skills, education and experience for. It's easier for them to claim benefits.

Jimmy_31

olly300 wrote: »

We may need jobs like fruit pickers, cleaners, security guards, etc but you will find lots of British people who only have the skills to do these jobs won't do them as they expect the wages for a job they don't have the skills, education and experience for. It's easier for them to claim benefits.

These are the jobs i could do when im out of work in the construction industry.

I may as well take a low paying job to get a bit of money coming in seeing as i am entitled to not one single penny in benefits. 9 times out of 10 all the low paying jobs are taken by immigrant workers so thats a none starter.

I agree that plenty of british spongers wont get off their ar5e to earn a living but there are also plenty of british workers who will but cant due to the lack of employment opportunities.

kabayiri

olly300 wrote: »

We may need jobs like fruit pickers, cleaners, security guards, etc but you will find lots of British people who only have the skills to do these jobs won't do them as they expect the wages for a job they don't have the skills, education and experience for. It's easier for them to claim benefits.

So why do we give them the ready excuse for claiming benefits ? It's all about training (or lack of).

For many years, the concept of apprentice faded dramatically. Why should a business try and invest in the youth in the UK when they can go and pluck a ready made worker with a skill from another European country.

It's all very short termist in my view. When the economic immigrant has been here a few years he/she too will expect their pay rate to increase markedly. They don't just want to earn NMW for picking fruit forever. What do we do then? Look to bring in even more cheap labour ?

lostinrates

Jimmy_31 wrote: »

Sounds to me like you are trying to stretch your budget too far if you cant afford the going rate of pay to the people who you want to employ.

well...you know what you are saying about affording to pay your insurances and live...that's us (and many people) too. We have two budgets...one for personal work on our home, which took a hit this year due to unforeseen circumstances and planning delays, and one for business purposes, which by nature of it is a less fussy job . Consequently, our approaches to them, and the type of work needed, are rather different.

but yes, like most people, purse strings are tight and while we're prepared to pay fairly for a fair job we're not willing to pay over the odds for a mediocre one!

This HA expects tradesmen to graft like a madman and do a top notch job for supermarket wages, i am currently managing to make a wage and do a proper job but some people cant keep up the pace. lots of the older fellas have had to walk away from a job they have done all their lives or risk the job killing them in one way or another.

Luckily, we approach work differently. We want DO want a top notch job and a good long term relationship with the people doing it over a period of years..its not in our interest to set the working relationship off on a back foot by making unreasonable demands or requests or making the work environment anything but goos, easy and with us out of the way but for tea and cake deliveries (we plan to live in a different part of the house)

Its worth, in the first phase, a very tidy six figure sum, not a bad for private work, and several installments of the similar amounts over future years...so while its private work not on a multimillion pound budget its not the worst gig in the world I'd have thought...particular as its not being approached in a ''Grand Designs'' indecisive owner project managing with inadaquate plans sort of way!

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You could try looking for qualified tradesmen instead of builders as i think the quality you are after is quite easily found. This will obviously cost extra.

The reason most tradesmen dont want the little jobs is because the customer usually gets a gob on at the price that is quoted, ive had one or two customers tell me im trying to rip them off after i have given them a quote for a small job. The tools, bits,blades etc i use for the small jobs cost just as much as the tools i use for the big jobs, works the same with with the van and fuel as well.

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Again, dh and I understand the costs of being self employed or running your own business....these constraints also impact on the second building project here.

The job has been itemised down to minutiae and well drawn up plans for tender, and so no surprises (other than those that noone can prepare for with old buildings) are likely to occur, and those that do are nasty surprises for us not the person doing the work, because we stump up for them. We're specifically going for firms not individual trademen for various reasons on the personal job, but would consider individiuals for the business job. (the firms we are looking at are specialised, with experience on similarly cantankerous and listed properties as ours and with employees or regular contractors with traditional skills, lathe and plaster and so on)

Nor are we looking for the cheapest price necessarily, its a long term project over four phases, maybe five, and then there could be more in the future. We want people who we can have a relationship of trust and reliability with and feel confident that we (and the architect and structural engineer involved) can feel confident in the work. The forerunners, recommended by the structural engineer have the best portfoilo of past wrok and are the second cheapest. The most expensive had some flaws in the work he wanted us to see as examples of his best.

Once next april arrives and our prices get knocked down again is when the quality of the work we do will suffer, plenty of lads will just say fcuk it and do the bare minimum required to complete a job. once our prices are so low its a choice between doing a proper job or earning enough to pay the bills.

That sadly, is I think a struggle in many industries atm, so while its not nice, I don't think you need feel you are alone as an industry in feeling that.

lostinrates

Jimmy_31 wrote: »

These are the jobs i could do when im out of work in the construction industry.

I may as well take a low paying job to get a bit of money coming in seeing as i am entitled to not one single penny in benefits. 9 times out of 10 all the low paying jobs are taken by immigrant workers so thats a none starter.

I agree that plenty of british spongers wont get off their ar5e to earn a living but there are also plenty of british workers who will but cant due to the lack of employment opportunities.

or rather than taking a NMW unskilled job you could try and get something better paid but less than you'd usually expect in your own trade when times are busy? That's happening in some other industries.

olly300

Jimmy_31 wrote: »

These are the jobs i could do when im out of work in the construction industry.

I may as well take a low paying job to get a bit of money coming in seeing as i am entitled to not one single penny in benefits. 9 times out of 10 all the low paying jobs are taken by immigrant workers so thats a none starter.
.

The bad news for you is those employers, unless you know them personally or where introduced by an acquaintance, wouldn't employ you as you are too highly skilled.

There as they would employ an immigrant with the same skills as they would think:
1. They are easier to exploit
2. Wouldn't move on so quickly

olly300

kabayiri wrote: »

So why do we give them the ready excuse for claiming benefits ? It's all about training (or lack of).

Those sorts of jobs don't need much training.

You forget in days gone past students and recent graduates did some of the jobs.

kabayiri wrote: »

For many years, the concept of apprentice faded dramatically. Why should a business try and invest in the youth in the UK when they can go and pluck a ready made worker with a skill from another European country.

It's all very short termist in my view.

Lots of companies are run by accountants, and these people know their legal duty is give good returns to their shareholders.

Incidentally I did work for a company once that was sold and then managing director did everything in his power (and managed it) to ensure the buyer wasn't an asset stripping company. He however wasn't an accountant but a trained and qualified engineer.

kabayiri wrote: »

When the economic immigrant has been here a few years he/she too will expect their pay rate to increase markedly. They don't just want to earn NMW for picking fruit forever. What do we do then? Look to bring in even more cheap labour ?

Lots of them go home or to another European country if they can't get a higher skilled job related to their education and training here.

Most of the immigrants who come here and take the lower paid jobs actually have a higher education and skill level than the equivalent British employee in the company.

Oh and in the construction trade I've been warned that a lot of the Eastern Europeans lie about their previous experience just to get a job. Some of them are highly qualified and skilled in other fields, but know it's easier for them to get a job in construction in the UK than in their own field.

Jimmy_31

lostinrates wrote: »

or rather than taking a NMW unskilled job you could try and get something better paid but less than you'd usually expect in your own trade when times are busy? That's happening in some other industries.

I will be doing that next april probably.

Thats if there is any supermarket work available at the time.

Some trades are already earning less than supermarket wages around here.

Thats why lots have left the building game and gone to do less skilled work because it now pays the same.