Migrant Workers a point of View Feb 04
Martin Clarke
118 East Street
Sittingbourne
Kent
ME10 4RX
www.sittingbourne.org
Tuesday, 24 February 2004
Dear Editor
This country under Tony Blair has opened the floodgates to illegal immigrants and legal immigrants now with the discredited European Union allowing many impoverished Eastern European countries into the EU which will lead to yet another massive influx of migrant workers. The reason for this we are told that we need the workforce? Can I ask some questions and make some examples because the people of Kent and London will be in the front line of this invasion.
1) Will those migrant workers have the same qualifications as our own Professionals and Qualified Tradesman, i.e. will gas fitters be corgi recognised, will electricians have the latest edition, and will those working in the food and hotel industry have the latest food hygiene certificate?
2) Recently friend of mine who is in his fifties and has worked all his life as a builder’s labourer was told he had to take a test on safety in the building industry to carry on working. He did this willingly but was infuriated to be told that immigrants took a separate test because they could not speak English. Does this mean that all safety signs, all instructions on containers dangerous or not will have to be in a multitude of languages? Or will all migrant workers have their own interpreter?
3) This same friend was laid off from the site and replaced with immigrant labour, why because he was on £8 an hour the immigrants were on minimum wage. He applied for a forklift driver’s job only to be told he would be working for an agency and employed on a day-to-day basis at minimum wage. Some of these employment agency use their workforce in the most despicable way, never offering them guaranteed tenure of work. Groups of people would turn up at a pre arranged meeting point daily and then a few would be selected, the rest would told to go home. This is unjust no matter what country the people come from.
4) I think most of us agree there is a shortage of some qualified workers but who is to blame? For the past 10 years our young people have been told the only way forward is to go to University so much so we have nearly 50% of School leavers going to Uni. To become a tradesman was considered an educational failure at long last the pendulum has swung back where the public recognise the need for highly skilled tradesman and see the futility of some of the so called degree courses.
5) What of all those British workers at the lower end of the pay scale who used to do the more menial tasks, surely the benefit system must take some of the blame where it pays to stop on the dole rather then work. With regard to some seasonal work many women in my area would go fruit picking etc taking their young children with them to earn extra money and still take the duty of being a mother seriously rather then shipping them of to a child minder, I am told EU rules now forbid this is this true? Are we soon approaching the time when a group of British born people will never work and always be reliant on the state?
6) I can understand migrant workers coming here to earn money which they can send back to their impoverished families, they gain and of course the employers gains as they have a cheap workforce making a bigger profit. What I cannot understand how does the British people gain? Take the example of my friend who lost his job to a cheaper workforce, while he was working he paid National Insurance, Income Tax, Rent etc so he was not a burden on the state. His job has been taken by someone who is on minimum wage they will pay little or no income tax, they will I expect receive tax credits, plus housing benefit therefore a drain on our resources, my friend is now on the dole and will be receiving housing benefit again a drain on our resources. Am I missing something?
Under this government the British people are slowly losing their voice, I hope that local newspaper editor’s will take more interest in what local’s want to say.
Yours Faithfully
Martin Clarke