Immigrants & Benefits

PaulF81

Perhaps if British plumbers, HETAS and sparks didn't charge a blinking fortune for their services they would get hired more.

200 a day for a spark or plumber (most plumbing doesnt require qualification anyhow and with the advent of push fit is easy work) and over 700 quid to get HETAS in to do a job that took me 3 hours on my Todd is the reason why British trade are out of work. 50k a year for a technical trade? Too much.

They have prices themselves out of the market. provide good value and you will do well. Screw your customers and bad news travels fast. The problem uk trade has Is the old rumours of the Hungarian plumber are long gone, very often Eastern European trade provides a better finish at half the cost. Why would you pay for uk trade when you can get it cheaper, with a better work ethic and end product?

Very interesting that the 18th edition of the electrical regs will probably be a deregulatory move requiring less safeguards, as those required in the 17th are fine in theory but not particularly practical to implement.
I hired British plasterers as they were frankly awesome and the finish was second to none. Did all my wiring, non gas plumbing (copper soldered not push fit !!!!) and wood burner flue and got bc round to certify the lot as I started to get narked at the attitude of British trade when you told them their quotes were not competitive.

Did all my own joinery too, great fun and a cracking new hobby. Used the cash I saved on trade to get some awesome tools.

StevieJ

PaulF81 wrote: »

Did all my own joinery too, great fun and a cracking new hobby. Used the cash I saved on trade to get some awesome tools.

Sorry couldn't resist

kabayiri

PaulF81 wrote: »

Perhaps if British plumbers, HETAS and sparks didn't charge a blinking fortune for their services they would get hired more.

200 a day for a spark or plumber (most plumbing doesnt require qualification anyhow and with the advent of push fit is easy work) and over 700 quid to get HETAS in to do a job that took me 3 hours on my Todd is the reason why British trade are out of work. 50k a year for a technical trade? Too much.
...

You wouldn't like it if I suggested we get Romanian or Polish air crew to do your job.

Much cheaper I would imagine. Why pay more than £20K?

It's easy commenting on other peoples' livelihoods and income expectations isn't it?

I pay for English tradespeople and I get exactly what I pay for, quality.

ash28

PaulF81 wrote: »

Perhaps if British plumbers, HETAS and sparks didn't charge a blinking fortune for their services they would get hired more.

200 a day for a spark or plumber (most plumbing doesnt require qualification anyhow and with the advent of push fit is easy work) and over 700 quid to get HETAS in to do a job that took me 3 hours on my Todd is the reason why British trade are out of work. 50k a year for a technical trade? Too much.

They have prices themselves out of the market. provide good value and you will do well. Screw your customers and bad news travels fast. The problem uk trade has Is the old rumours of the Hungarian plumber are long gone, very often Eastern European trade provides a better finish at half the cost. Why would you pay for uk trade when you can get it cheaper, with a better work ethic and end product?

Very interesting that the 18th edition of the electrical regs will probably be a deregulatory move requiring less safeguards, as those required in the 17th are fine in theory but not particularly practical to implement.
I hired British plasterers as they were frankly awesome and the finish was second to none. Did all my wiring, non gas plumbing (copper soldered not push fit !!!!) and wood burner flue and got bc round to certify the lot as I started to get narked at the attitude of British trade when you told them their quotes were not competitive.

Did all my own joinery too, great fun and a cracking new hobby. Used the cash I saved on trade to get some awesome tools.

Hetas fitters are very expensive - I don't think it matter where you live.

I guess they charge what they do because they can.

If you think British trades are too expensive then don't use them. Most of them will be self employed or subbies and at the end of the day have a business to run and a living to make.

We had a bathroom and down stairs toilet replaced not so long ago. We supplied the suites and tiles and the plumber provided everything else. I don't know how much the sundries cost.

The old suites and tiles were removed and disposed of - new suites installed, subfloors laid, floors and walls tiled, pipes boxed in and everything cleaned - it took 2 of them working 5 days - 8:30 till 5 - with a half hour break for lunch (sat in the van and ate their sandwiches). They did an absolutely fabulous job and it cost us £1700. We were over the moon, the cost, I thought was more than reasonable.

£340 a day minus the cost of all the stuff like, cement, grout, pipes, subfloor, boxing in materials, fees for the tip, insurance, cost of running a van etc, and wages for 2 men.

We also had a large flat roofed extension refelted. It took a day - there were 4 of them working, the cost included all materials and removal of the old. They even extended the over hang of the roof by a couple of inches because they thought the original over hang was too short. Cost £1100.

None of the work we've had done would I class as expensive for what was done and that was in Berkshire - not the cheapest area for trades by any means.

If you want to pay peanuts you'll in general get monkeys.

PaulF81

kabayiri wrote: »

You wouldn't like it if I suggested we get Romanian or Polish air crew to do your job.

Much cheaper I would imagine. Why pay more than £20K?

It's easy commenting on other peoples' livelihoods and income expectations isn't it?

I pay for English tradespeople and I get exactly what I pay for, quality.

Already happening. Funny old thing, when you can fly round the world with your work, your employer can employ globally.

Unfortunately, British trade doesn't always = quality, and very rarely = good value, plasterers being the exception it seems. As for pay expectations, you won't find many trained long haul first officers getting out of bed for less than 55k, captains 100k. That's a global fee by the way, not localised to the uk. But then again, it took over 5 years to train, and another 7-10 years to gain the experience required to be employed long haul (apprenticeship if you will). About 30% have extensive military experience to boot.

50-60k annualised for a trade is nothing less than extortion, we all have to pay indemnity and we all have cars or vans to commute to work, trade are not the exception, so why do trade make out they have a special right to push up their day rate to cover this? Not forgetting that these Costs are tax deductible anyway....

leveller2911

PaulF81 wrote: »

But then again, it took over 5 years to train, and another 7-10 years to gain the experience required to be employed long haul (apprenticeship if you will). About 30% have extensive military experience to boot.

Oh perlease, talk about full of your p*ss and importance ,most 12yr olds with a X box have the skill level of a pilot today..The planes fly themselves technology has evloved your just another passenger taking up space, only difference is you have more leg room ......;)

Your average pilot just has to sit there and amuse themselves for an hour or two.....Money for old rope IMO.

eldaniel

Interesting debate finally I managed to go through all the post I would like to comment on some of the statements:)
- Doughnutmachine - you wrote that you don't like to feel foreign in your own country yet you live abroad. is that correct? If it is that would be a bit hypocritical.

Sampong - yes, there is quite a lot British people working in Poland actually. Usually in IT where salaries are quite high. In many of this jobs they don't require you to speak Polish.

- Tesuhoha - first of all I am sorry to hear that your husband was affected by immigration. It might surprise you but a lot of recent migrants have mortgages. I have one and at least 5 of my close friends have one too. You also wrote about living in 10, which perhaps happens, but from my experience living in 4-5 ppl in 2 bed house/flat is more of an example from a real world and is actually quite common. But this has its purpose. I lived in my first 2 bed flat (6 ppl) for the first 6months, then i moved on and lived for 2 years in 5 ppl in 2 bed, then another year or so in 3 ppl in 2 bed. That was all for a reason. To save money and get on the property ladder instead of winging that life is hard. I knew that in order to get somewhere I have to work hard and have a plan. Many of my friends did the same. I came here with my wife with £500 in total and after 8 years we are well ahead our original mortgage repayment plan. This is all thanks to hard work and determination. The only £ paid to use by government is maternity benefit, which I hope many of you would agree that we deserve it equally with other people living here especially after 8 years of paying tax and NI. So my point is that so many of my friends did the same and don't get any benefits whatsoever (apart of maternity where applicable).
You also wrote how your country was at the end of world war II. Please don't forget many Polish soldiers (especially pilots) fought in Battle for Britain. I think we deserve at least a little credit for that.
In regards to substandard work from foreign builders - I simply don't agree with that. You can get good service or bad service from any nationals. My friend in Norwich is a builder and did setup his own company. He is in business for 3 years now. A lot of this custom comes through recommendations from happy customers. So I would not generalise that matter. For example I had a British specialist to fix my boiler. He spend 1 hour on the phone for support as he did not have a clue what to do as my boiler was for economy 10 tariff and he never dealt with that before. So at the end it was enough to press the button to reset it and he charged me £60 for it 5 years ago. I don't think it was particularly good job on his behalf.



Also you mentioned something about debt. Not sure what was that about, but i am writing from mobile phone so hard to navigate it to find it now. So I will just say my opinion in general about debt in UK, not necessary relating to what you wrote.
I think debt of British people have lot to do with current problems. People live way beyond their means and then easy solution is to blame migrants for your problems. If people would have a bit of brain (assuming they are healthy and able to work full time etc) there would not be that much trouble for British people. But many people can't resist. They must have a new car, new gadgets, must go for a night out religiously every week or more often. For me it is simple - you don't have money, start saving, cut spending. If I managed to succeed in UK (that is how i see myself) so should every other UK national who is willing to work and is healthy. I.e. I bring my own lunch to work made at home, but lot of my English colleagues always buy lunch at work, buy take away etc. If they can afford it then enjoy it. But many of them will complain that they don't have money at the end of the month and when the salary is in bank account it is like the happiest they of their life. Why? They can spend it all in half a month and struggle for the rest. Obviously not everyone is like that, but definitely majority of people I know.

Mortgages for over 100% LTV, generous credit card balances for people who have no money, etc.. It is all very tempting, but this actually caused a lot of problems in UK too. No wonder now people don't have money to spend for a quick recovery.


The last thing I will write is brief history how did I end up in UK. In 2005 it was so hard to find employees for catering businesses in UK that one of the biggest catering owner in UK came to Warsaw to do interview to employ 100s of people. I did not even have to come to UK for it. They came to Poland. They are well respected Company owning masses of catering units on airports and railways mostly. I think there was approx. 4.5% unemployment in UK. Simply there always will be people who are not willing to take jobs and that is why they had to come all to well to Poland to find people for coffee shops and restaurants. The rates of pay was advertised upfront. I think it was £5.35 and rate was the same to ppl in UK and the same was offered to us.
Then somewhere along the line in 2007 when I was already assistant manager in that unit (after starting as a CSA) we gave an job offer in Jobcentre and for 2 months when the job was active we did not have a single British person applying for it!

So after inviting us here (not necessarily any of you personally) to help fill the vacancies in your country and in effect helping British economy, now many British people like to make us feel like we are spare wheel.


Before anyone will criticise me I would like to say that my overall point of view is that immigration is needed in healthy numbers

and benefit system should be changed to work in a way that you have to work lets say 1 year in UK to be able to claim anything. Not saying that benefit tourism exist, because all the people I know are here for work and to build better life for themselves.However that would definitely eliminate 99% of any potential benefit tourism.

Sorry for a long post. Hope you did not fell asleep

eldaniel

Btw I forgot to mention that my first book which I did read in English language was book of ... Martin Lewis about money saving

PaulF81

PaulF81 wrote: »

Already happening. Funny old thing, when you can fly round the world with your work, your employer can employ globally.

Unfortunately, British trade doesn't always = quality, and very rarely = good value, plasterers being the exception it seems. As for pay expectations, you won't find many trained long haul first officers getting out of bed for less than 55k, captains 100k. That's a global fee by the way, not localised to the uk. But then again, it took over 5 years to train, and another 7-10 years to gain the experience required to be employed long haul (apprenticeship if you will). About 30% have extensive military experience to boot.

50-60k annualised for a trade is nothing less than extortion, we all have to pay indemnity and we all have cars or vans to commute to work, trade are not the exception, so why do trade make out they have a special right to push up their day rate to cover this? Not forgetting that these Costs are tax deductible anyway....

leveller2911 wrote: »

PaulF81 wrote: »

But then again, it took over 5 years to train, and another 7-10 years to gain the experience required to be employed long haul (apprenticeship if you will). About 30% have extensive military experience to boot.

Oh perlease, talk about full of your p*ss and importance ,most 12yr olds with a X box have the skill level of a pilot today..The planes fly themselves technology has evloved your just another passenger taking up space, only difference is you have more leg room ......;)

Your average pilot just has to sit there and amuse themselves for an hour or two.....Money for old rope IMO.

Tell that to the passengers on the soux city crash or the passengers on the quantas a380 who owe their lives to the crew, not a computer.

I don't remember the computer doing so well on air France 447 either.

leveller2911

PaulF81 wrote: »

leveller2911 wrote: »

Tell that to the passengers on the soux city crash or the passengers on the quantas a380 who owe their lives to the crew, not a computer.

I don't remember the computer doing so well on air France 447 either.

Your quite right Paul, I know naff all about flying a plane , just as you know diddly squat about being a self employed Electrician,Plumber,Carpenter or bricklayer........