Why Are The Lazy English Not Picking Our Fruits And Vegetables?

HPC_Ghuol_Hunter

I thought Brexit was all about jobs for the English? If so why after so many EU workers have left are there masses of vacancies for fruit and vegetable pickers going unfulfilled? Who will pick the vegetables post-Brexit? :j:beer::money::T:rotfl:

PasturesNew

They'll have to change, or explain, benefits rules to get Brits to do it.

The work is not guaranteed - and it's short-lived. That gives Brits problems with benefits and signing back on again ...

Furreners are mostly bussed from farm to farm and given caravans to live in for the summer season ... so it's "easier" for them as they don't start from a point of having an AST and rent to pay and commitments to meet.

Workers used to come from the local population - students, school kids and housewives... they'll have to do it in the future.

For many, they don't get the work as the work is controlled by gang masters, who bring their teams in. Farmers don't want to spend time interviewing/selecting/managing people when they can just phone up a gang master and say "send me 8 on Monday, 16 on Tuesday and on Wednesday I'll let you know".

Theophile

HPC_Ghuol_Hunter wrote: »

I thought Brexit was all about jobs for the English? If so why after so many EU workers have left are there masses of vacancies for fruit and vegetable pickers going unfulfilled? Who will pick the vegetables post-Brexit? :j:beer::money::T:rotfl:

Nobody.



It will be left to rot..... : https://news.sky.com/story/brexit-farmers-fear-more-crops-will-rot-in-fields-as-eu-workers-move-abroad-11453766


....and farmers will up sticks and move to the EU. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/uk-farmers-poland-farms-business-brexit-leave-eu-eastern-europe-union-migrant-workers-a7860456.html


Oh well. It's the will of the peeple.

Enterprise_1701C

It always used to be an after school, weekend or holiday job for teenagers. I know I used to do it along with my brothers, to us it was good money as we didn't have to pay rent etc, which is also the case with eatern europeans, who tend to live in caravans and be bussed around by gangmasters.

Consequently there is far less work around now for teenagers, so when they finally get a job they have no idea how to deal with the money they have, this causes problems because they end up spending it in a flash and having no money to pay rent etc.

Fruit really did get picked before the eu you know.

One of the ideas is to allow workers in to pick the fruit on a temporary basis, which would mean that anyone would be able to come here and pick it, not just eu citizens. It would make a good break for anyone on a gap year, they could travel around the UK picking fruit on various farms and actually learn English, which is more than a lot of the eu citizens seem to these days.

Of course, if Khorbyn gets in and actually keeps one of his promises, that is making the £10 minimum wage he promised apply to under 18s as well, no teenager will ever work again.

kabayiri

There are several billion people on this planet who live on world poverty level incomes. The vast majority have workable hands and feet too.

The idea that you can not source transient labour for the most basic of activity is frankly nonsense.

Anyway, it's a temporary problem. Machines will be able to do most of the work within a decade.

Thrugelmir

Investigate Italian tomato picking a little and you'll understand better the real world.

stator

If there is a demand for the food, the farmers will have to pay properly.

If the farmers wanted English workers, they would find them. I've never seen an advert in the UK for harvest labour. They place all the adverts in eastern europe because that's the labour they want.
Perhaps if they advertised in the UK they would get some.

And it's a myth that EU citizens are leaving the UK. There are still more arriving than leaving.

Mojisola

stator wrote: »

If the farmers wanted English workers, they would find them. I've never seen an advert in the UK for harvest labour. They place all the adverts in eastern europe because that's the labour they want.

It's the other way round - farmers started advertising in Europe because they couldn't get enough workers from the home population.

Thrugelmir

Mojisola wrote: »

It's the other way round - farmers started advertising in Europe because they couldn't get enough workers from the home population.

Easier to subcontract employment to someone else entirely.

PasturesNew

Mojisola wrote: »

It's the other way round - farmers started advertising in Europe because they couldn't get enough workers from the home population.

Maybe it's that they could get European ones more easily as the gangmasters offered labour without any hassles.... they turn up, pick, leave... the gangmaster probably has a client list up to 20-30 miles radius and goes farm to farm to farm, with a minibus to transport them all and caravans for them to sleep in.

The gangmasters offered an easier solution ... so they could profit themselves on the backs of the workers.

British workers would have to think about transport. How do you get from your little flat to a field 4 miles away for 3 days, followed by a field 8 miles away for the following 4 days? And how do you even find these two jobs back-to-back when you're already busy in a field 10 miles in the other direction.

Before, people came from the "local area", so 1-2 miles - and all the farmers and people lived locally and knew the farms - and all their friends/family did it every year since 1750 .... and so it was easy to know the "rounds" and it was all just organised/sorted locally, by locals, who did the work. People knew all their neighbours and walked about the area locally - passing in the street "You coming to pick at George's on Thursday?" "Yeah, I'll be there" and just turn up....

The way people live/work/travel these days doesn't make it so easy. Neither do benefits/hours/rules/limits/caps etc ... on top of finding out who has picking work available as everybody's "a stranger round these parts" these days.

StevieJ

Enterprise_1701C wrote: »

Of course, if Khorbyn gets in and actually keeps one of his promises, that is making the £10 minimum wage he promised apply to under 18s as well, no teenager will ever work again.

More project fear :-)