Polish Workers

[Anonymous]

Hi again

Does anyone have experience of employing Polish workers. I put an ad on line for workers a number of months ago and have had a reply. It all seems very credible, and language is not a problem ( perfect English) and my experiece of meeting many Poles recently ( at work ) is very positive. The rates of pay, whilst not rock bottom, would allow me to really get ahead in a project which I have less time to give as planned.
Comments?

John

 

[Anonymous]

You get what you pay for.

Most Eastern European workers come here as they have much worse standards of living. I have airline pilots doing painting.

Some are good, most are not very skilled at the jobs they do, the ones that are are not much cheaper than English tradesmen. It is very difficult for tradesmen like myself and many painters carpenters. Morally it's wrong, few pay taxes.

Gordon Brown keeps wage price inflation down, rich people get cheaper jobs and company owners get increased profit margins. The only losers are people like myself. So, rich ok, working class penalised. Thanks "labour".

Do not blame the Poles tho. I would do the same if I was in their situation.

I meet literally hundreds of Eastern European workers every year, the good ones are all on £100 to £120 a day. Any cheaper and you take a risk. Personally I think the situation is extremely unfair. The government should have allowed migrant workers in more gradually. Support your British tradesmen! There are plenty of opportunities for migrant workers.

Toby

 

[Anonymous]

And if anyone thinks I may be rascist "some of my best friends are Eastern European". (Including my wife and half my daughter!)

Toby

 

[Anonymous]

Toby

I'm not a rich person, far from it!, and because of this I have to be careful and get the very best value from any spend. I have a few DIY skills, and they are being increased weekly thanks to this forum, but ultimately I'm going to have to bring in some tradesmen. Most tradesmen I know are considerately better off than I am. In Edinburgh it's almost cheaper to call on a solicitor than a plumber. Most tradesmen I know are also self employed, earn more than I do, but pay much less tax! How does that work.
We now live in an environment which is allowing a little choice in this sector. I previously had no choice in whether to employ a tradesman, I couldn't afford it and did the job ( or left it ) myself.
In an ideal world I would employ local people, pay over the odds, tolerate the delayed start date, make space in the drive for the 4 wheel drive etc..
But this isn't an ideal world. I've got a tight budget and don't feel like making other people even more richer than I am.
I always think of taxi drivers, and wonder why I would tip someone who earns much more than I do, but pays virtually no tax thanks to an accountant. I don't any more.

John

 

[Anonymous]

Hi

I appreciate all that, I was just making a comment! Of course it is good for the Polish people concerned so some good is coming out of the arrangement. The way it has been allowed by the government is very underhand and damaging to British tradespeople, it also fosters a "cheaper than you" approach to semi skilled work which I do not really think is such a good thing.

I happen to know many Hungarians, a few poles, czechs and Lithuanians. It's funny how people generalise! There are 40 or 50 million Poles! Some obviously will be honest trained craftspeople just as good if not better than their British counterparts, some (most unfortunately) are economic migrants whose easiest path to staying in the Uk is to take up either cleaning, catering or construction work whatever their chosen vocation back in their home country.

A similar thing happened with Irish immigrants a few decades ago, the easiest thing they could turn their hand to was construction work.

What you will find is that the less skilled are cheaper and the more skilled soon become as expensive as the British tradesman. You have to be lucky to get a migrant worker who is good quality but hasn't seen to put up his prices yet. I see an awful lot of problems with foriegn workers who whilst honest and conscientious have more enthusiasm than skill, this can prove costly.

You also have to consider that the culture in Eastern Europe is incredibly more corrupt than over here. (I have spent several months in Hungary as my wife is Hungarian and I know many business owners) This means that by way of culture many of these people do not think anything of exagerating their job skills or experience as it is normal in their country, also many are desperate beacause of the high unemployment (especially in Poland) These are the things to bear in mind!

It is possible to get very good standards of work from polite and conscientious migrant workers, the trouble is most of these quality guys are snapped up by larger construction companies. Also by way of economics you may find that many British firms are reducing their prices accordingly which inevitably brings the general standard of building work down! (Its pretty bad already)

Speaking as a quality tradesman I just think this renewed concentration on lower prices over quality is not a good one whatever the nationality of the worker.

Anyway, I hope you bear this in mind and I hope you find someone reasonable to help you.

Good Luck

Toby Newell

 

[Anonymous]

Have you forgotten that there is a massive shortage of our own young people coming forward to learn skills and trades?-- No wonder we sometimes resort to Polish and Others who are not only available and willing but who also do a jolly good days work for the money.

Jocelyn

 

[Anonymous]

Good points Toby, well worth bearing in mind.References will be sought and checked.
The price quoted is not cheap, the hours they are prepared to work is grafting real style.
It's quality and value work that I'm interested in, and the reason that I posted was to get a measure of any experiences.
Whilst I am iterested in politics, and always will be, this issue is bigger than than English ( or British ) insecurities. We live in a Global Community which is changing. Once-upon-a time tradesmen were working class in terms of income. Now they are upper/middle class in terms of income. Mcdonalds do very well each day on the back of this.

John

 

[Anonymous]

John

I am sure you did not mean to imply that it is only tradesmen who buy McDonalds!!!!!!!!!

I would hate to be the one on this site to accidently say things like that.

With regards to Eastern Europe workers, and I have one in my office today and he is very good but I think it is that same gamble as getting anyone from a labour agency you just cant be sure until they start. Using these agencies do have advantages as you can get shot of them very quickly if you want with no hassle from the workers law people etc. You do pay but I find it easier than trying to put ads out in papers or the job centre.

 

[Anonymous]

In our last house when we had a new bathroom put in the bathroom supplier used croatian staff. Quality was terrible, poor workmanship (they brought the ceiling down failing to connect things properly).

I would probably be happier employing them direct rather than having as subbies - where I think some companies do employ on nmw if not less just to keep costs down. But make sure you see examples of previous work and supervise what they do. also make sure you know the building regs which apply to what you are doing - they might not and you dont want problems later.

 

[Anonymous]

Enjoy the cheap labour while you can, obviously get some sort of reference i.e. people near you who have had work done.

As for the much-championed New Labour/Bush Global economy spin, America, Europe, India, Asia, China, and all the emerging nations are rapidly growing and gobbling up oil and gas like crazy. Just one flight to America uses gallons of fuel (untaxed!) and puts out as much carbon into the atmosphere as an average size village in a week yet expansion of air travel is planned and encouraged by the cheap ticket ploy, at the same time as we are told to
go green to reduce our individual carbon footprint to stop global warming.

A global economy relies totally on huge amounts of oil to fuel the massive ever expanding fleets of Giant Tractors, Combine harvesters etc for farming and the Airfreight, Shipping, Trains and Lorries that move produce products and labour around the globe so that we can for instance have strawberries in january or a cheap microwave from asia!

The oil and the gas are running out ‘fact’ so gradually the transport cost and energy costs to run the myriad of factories will slowly creep up, aviation fuel will out of necessity eventually be taxed, we may now be enjoying a Global economy but it will within our lifetime become economically and environmentally unsustainable and inevitably return full circle to a local economy.

 

[Anonymous]

Sure energy prices are likely to creep up. But I cant see them ever getting high enough to force a return to a local economy.
The rise in energy costs will slowly make renewables more and more attractive and as technologies rapidly improve with the motivation of big profits on the horizon, the renewables will quickly reach a par with and eventually be much cheaper than energy from most fossil fuels and nuclear. Eventually economies of scale will begin to bring energy prices back down.

 

[Anonymous]

I wish I could share your optomism, However the worlds governments do appear to be too blinkered by greed to plan ahead.

There is nothing yet invented or on the horizon to sustainably replace oil and gas in all the thouands of ways we use it we are as Bush stated addicted to fossil fuels, Take the food chain, we now use huge amounts of fertilizer to get maximum crop yield, you need oil to make fertilizers. As the world population grows you need more land to feed more people, clobal warming will mean more crop failure. To save oil we could make biofuel but you need to rob back land from food crops to make fuel crops. its a catch 22, virtually every last thing we use is derived from fossil fuel and adding to global warming and globally we are consuming at a friegtening pace, it is a real problem.

But perhaps your right, maybe it will just sort its self out through economical pressure..Smell the coffee (and the environmental impact of getting the coffee grown fertilized processed packed and flown half way around the world and lorried to the supermarket)

 

[Anonymous]

CG

I like to think of people on this site as Craftsmen/Craftspeople/Craftswomen or Artisans who wouldn't go near a McDonalds without a funny wig and mustache on.

John.

 

[Anonymous]

I wondered what Brunhilde was up to when she dressed like that?

Grimmers

 

[Anonymous]

where i work we have polish,lithuanians,slovakian and hungarians and its amazing they are skilled as electrical engineers and mechanics,airline pilots , computer experts,carpenters,plumbers,painters.you name it ,but all they have done is taken all the jobs and killed off my town where i live.one of the polish chaps said him and his mate are putting adverts out for plastering jobs ,and when i said i thought you was a car mechanic he shrugged his shoulders grinned and said we are polish not english.all i say is be careful you might end up with a bio chemist doing your building work...

 

[Anonymous]

There is nothing yet to replace oil and gas except nuclear power, wind generation, solar thermal, TDP, insulation and ever improving appliance and process efficiency, etc

'You need oil to make fertilizers' is another myth. The fertilisers popular today are produced with oil power, but there is no true need for them. We pipe huge amounts of fertiliser out to sea every day, its called sewage. Theres also the ready avilability of food and paper garbage, which we can move to collecting in a separate vehicle compartment any time its needed.

> As the world population grows you need more land to feed more people,

Another semi-myth. The earth has much more land than currently needed for crop production, and even at todays productivity rates will keep us going for centuries. Productivity (ie tons per acre of crop) has steadily risen in a big way over the last century, and will continue to as technology improves.

In the very long term (centuries), there are 3 more means to even more production:
1. farming in high rise buildings
2. eating less low yield foods and more high yielders
3. Farming the sea

And of course theres plenty of scope for various basic output improvers such as planting gardens with food crops, growing foods on house roofs and walls, home producing bean sprouts, making all new public tree plantings food producers, planting trees over roads, feeding waste food scraps to farm animals again, and the various other ways to improve our food output.

> clobal warming will mean more crop failure.

rather it means changing the crops each location grows. Failures are caused when underinformed 3rd world farmers keep growing old and now marginal crop types. Desertification is also an issue, this has been reversable since the 60s at low cost using nothing but household garbage, but the political will is not there. When land gets shorter due to rising population, all this will be financially worth doing. Irrigation schemes are also in use, but there is a basic issue with these that needs solving before they can be of widespread use.

> To save oil we could make biofuel but you need to rob back land from food crops to make fuel crops.

food crops are generally of more value than fuel crops. The logical next steps for fuel are TDP of garbage, more nuclear, wind farms, solar thermal, hydroelectric, insulation, sea algae farming, etc. More sensibly sized car engines and aviation tax would also help some.

> its a catch 22, virtually every last thing we use is derived from fossil fuel and adding to global warming and globally we are consuming at a friegtening pace, it is a real problem.

But it doesnt need to be, there are viable options that will get used more as oil prices go up. Wind gen and solarthermal keep dropping in cost, and are competitive now in some cases. And as material and energy technologies improve, ever less materials and energy are needed for a given standard of living.

There is nothing major to fear. Changes yes, but threats to survival, no.

NT

 

[Anonymous]

I deal with foreign people and would sooner work with them than british any day, no contest. The British are frequently lazy and uncompetitive, with no visible knowledge of basic business concepts such as competition.

The downsides are that you really know nothing of a non-British persons background. The only way to really assess skillset is to try them and see what they do. The other issue is often total lack of awareness of Britsh regulations and laws. There are some comic examples of this online. So someone with appropriate knowledge is always needed as a supervisor.

Unfortunately our British education system is so lost it doesnt teach people that we live in a capitalist society and need to compete to win. People that dont see any reason to do it the 10x faster way is too often the case with the Brits I've had to work with.

If you're hoping for basement prices though, no. You might in Easter Europe, but not with Europeans in Britain, its an open capitalist market here.

Unfortunately I think Britain's hopeless inability to compete will take us ever further down the international wealth pecking order. We may be wealthy now but it wont last. While other countries push hard to ever greater economic achievement, British workers go slow and stay unclued, the government passes ever more senseless and anti-competitive laws and regulations, kids are normally bullshitted about work and business in school, dole pays people to not work, and the popular culture gets ever further removed from the simple economic realities of life.

NT

 

[Anonymous]

I have both Poles and Portuguese in my employ.

Very good.

You still have to check their work regulary as indeed you should with an British tradesman.

 

[Anonymous]

Isn't it time we grew up and dropped all this petty nationalism. Look where it got the 20th century?

 

[Anonymous]

Absolutely...

Who should you employ?

They guy who is available, can do the job properly and at the agreed rate.