The “Eastern European” carwash

I always get mine washed by what I privately call "the illegals" £15 sounds rather cheap if you were having the inside cleaned as well. I normally have to pay £25. A normal wash and polish is £10. Our local ones seem to be mainly Bulgarian, with a few Poles and Hungarians. The ones I chat to seem to have been here for quite a while and appear to be happy with their lives here so I'm presuming that they don't feel exploited.

So in an hour those same 10 men could wash and valet four cars and get £60, or £6 each. If they work 8 hours a day, that's £48, assuming cars are coming in thick and fast to be washed and valeted. If they work 6 days a week they would get £288 before tax. And that's without breaks, and before they've taken out the costs of buckets, leathers, car shampoo, electricity for vacuuming etc. etc. And, of course, still assuming the cars are coming in thick and fast and there are no 'dead' periods. On wet days they wouldn't be making much at all.
So even if there's not a gang master taking all their hard earned cash, they're not exactly raking it in, are they?

I've only ever used one once, in Waitrose car park where a charming young man washed my car while I shopped. The minute I returned an older man strode across and just about snatched the money out of my hand. He was obviously the boss.

I wanted to tip the car washer but he was immediately sent off to another car. The whole atmosphere was rather menacing so I didn't push it.

I don't think I'll use them again.

We use the one near our house and pay £15 for the standard clean which includes a quick inside vacuum. I'm not particularly PC, but I never refer or think of the people who work there as anything other than "people" ...

And certainly not ‘illegals’

I feel intimidated in Sainsbury's/Tesco when asked if I want my car washed. When I say "no" I feel guilty and that isn't right. Why do the Supermarkets allow these operators in their car parks?

They operate in a few local supermarkets and I use them from time to time. I've never seen any of them touting for business or being in the least intimidating lilypollen. It's always a case of if you want your car washed, you drive up to them, if you don't then you don't.

Our 'foreign 'car washers charge £5 for a wash and was and £10 if it includes a vacuum and polish inside. That's on my Ford Focus.
The very pretty girls do the final polish.
All are very pleasant.

I’m sure they’re being exploited, perhaps even enslaved. I want no part of it.

Similar to the cheap nail bars which are usually a cover for some kind of use and abuse of people with no power and no choices. I don’t understand why anyone would support such operations, however cheerful they might seem.

Some of these “cash only” businesses are definitely a front for money laundering if not people trafficking. A car wash near me was recently raided and discovered to be offering “extras” via some young ladies in a caravan behind the car wash. It was closed down for a while, but had since reopened with the same people working there. There aren’t enough police available to investigate these dodgy businesses which is why they can operate openly. I am sure some of them are legit but it’s hard to know which ones. I do go to a local nail bar, which is clean and well maintained, the staff have been there for ages,speak good English, and are qualified nail technicians, but I do have my suspicions about some of these outfits.

Surely the car wash operations have to comply with local licensing laws? (and whatever checks go along with that). I doubt anyone can just set up shop and install the equipment and start trading...

But this link shows the reality. If they’re that cheap they’re cheap for a reason. The workers in the link were described as being always very cheerful too, but they didn’t have their passports and one lost his life. Are we simply closing our eyes because it suits us, whilst asking for statues and names of those who benefited from the slave trade in previous times to be removed? Are we hypocrites?

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/slaves-on-our-streets-hand-car-wash-exploitation-london-undocumented-workers-a7994151.html?amp

We have a back street car wash run by Eastern Europeans, other than the boss, the cleaners change regularly.
A group of African men set up in one of our underground carparks. There were usually two cleaners and one man who watched, then collected the £15 for a full valet. The cleaners were always friendly, with little if any English. The first couple of times I used it, I'd chat and ask which part of Africa they were from but that led to them looking at the boss person over their shoulders. I realised that despite seeming to be an officially approved business in an NCP car park, they were in all likelihood illegal immigrants, or in fact enslaved to whoever had helped them get into the country.
I stopped using the scheme, which disappeared about a month ago. I wonder if the police had anything to do with it shutting down.
It's a real B isn't it, that exploitation like this continues. In reality though, given the war torn countries these men were trying to escape from, hardly surprising.

My local supermarket has a group of men who will wash your car whilst you shop, it only costs £5! I have never used them simply because I do wonder whether they are being exploited, but on the other hand I feel guilty as they may suffer for not bringing in enough cash for the owners.

These people have to start somewhere. Very difficult though. At least they are earning something not begging or thieving. A lot of societies think they need cheap labour for the menial stuff. Hence immigration and slavery. Is it better to have car washes or give some employment to people at the lower end of the economic spectrum?
In Victorian times you could go to the workhouse and get a scullery maid and give her work a roof over her head and a sense of belonging. Now they are dumped in high rise flats that are a fire risk.
No I don't want to go back to the workhouse era but it is food for thought.

There have always been many excuses for slavery, and there have always been ways of justifying what goes on by telling oneself it’s a better alternative than leaving the slaves to starve, or that it’s good that they have useful work.

I’m sure a lot of the plantation owners in the southern states of America said the same things. Their slaves were always cheerful too

There is no car cleaning outfit of the kind described in my area. There was one young man doing hand-washes and valets in his (or his parents'?) drive for a while in the next village. A basic wash was £5. His work was popular enough that he made enough money to buy a tent thing that he could work under in the drive. Then he moved to actual premises next door to a local coach company. Everyone is really pleased that his business seems to have taken off.

My husband uses a carwash run by Eastern Europeans to have his car cleaned both inside and out. As MawBroon has stated though it's a very labour intesive procedure and one does wonder how much these men are being paid. We were out in my car the other day, a white Fiat 500 doing a shop in our local Marks and Spencer foodhall, there, as in Sainsbury's car park, they have Africans but they don't have the equipment that the car washes have, just a bucket. My husband treated my filthy car to a wash, I'm never bothered about the fact that it looks a bit dirty. The man who washed it left it gleaming. He charged £6 as opposed to the £15 or so for the more thorough clean the Eastern Europeans provide. I do ponder as to how free these people are and whether they are being exploited. Did we always have car washes of this nature , I can't remember. I read recently that there are far more slaves now, given the trafficking and movement of people from abroad, than there ever was before slavery was abolished. If we patronise these businesses then are we fueling that. Maybe we should wash our own cars

Here in the Black Country we have any number of car washes run by Eastern European people. The one I go to promotes itself as Two Brothers and does appear to be run if not owned by two brothers, or at least two men who are the same chaps whenever you go. They don't seem to have a gangmaster around. If there is one, he/she keeps their distance.

Other car washes I've been to, likewise have friendly Eastern European men whose presence is not threatening nor is it overshadowed by an 'eminence grise' who takes the cash.

I did go to a nail bar ages ago where I did feel very uncomfortable that the (Vietnamese?) girls were clearly answerable to the bloke at the till. It soon closed down, thankfully.

Generally speaking, I'm happy to give people my custom if it helps them get a foothold in society. Though having read this thread, I'll be looking out for any suspicious signs in future.

I never thought that our local car washers/valeters could be controlled by a gang master. They have operated in the same place for years now, charging £5 for cleaning the outside and £15 for a full valet. There are many others operating fairly locally too, all perfectly openly in public view and not hidden away.

There are also other car cleaners operating in the car parks of some supermarkets, mainly Sainsbury's when I think about it; I just presumed that they were enterprising young people, some of them women.
Perhaps something to ponder.

We had a group of car washers in our Sainsburys car park but they disappeared suddenly a year or two ago, literally overnight.
DH would not allow them to clean our car as they used only a very small bucket and didn't change the water, no hoses for rinsing off dust and grime. Dust and road salt being rubbed around paintwork can be very abrasive.

There seem to be a proliferation of them here; three almost within spitting distance of each other - you wonder how they make anything given the competition. Two of them are in the car parks of supermarkets and the cleaners at one of them will accost you almost before you have time to put the handbrake on, which I don’t care for. I would have thought that if they are on supermarket premises then their operation must be legal although I accept that doesn’t mean that the workers are not exploited.

Well, they are mostly immigrants Maw and often illegal too.The local Tesco allowed them to operate until one day they were rounded up and taken away.Then Tesco set up a dedicated cleaning site for car washing at one side of the store.Presumably they are all legal immigrants now.I think a car wash is about a tenner.They do a good job.

I meant to add, they don’t roam about between cars or accost you, in fact you have to seek them out by parking next to the car washing site.