Leave voter faces ruin without EU workers

Yehbutnobut I looked up a number of sites advertising seasonal fruit picking jobs. You're right. All of them claim that the employers pay at least national minimum wage, with bonuses for longer hours and increased productivity. Another site I found claims that fruit picking is better paid than courier and supermarket work.

I don't understand all these cheap labour and slave labour claims.
Wages have to be lawful and accommodation is usually dprovided at a cheap rate.

This is not Spain, where African migrant workers are treated appallingly. The workers would not return willingly to the UK if conditions were so terrible.

The Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme was abolished in 2013, but needs to be introduced, according to a number in the industry.

This is an article from "The Grocer", which knows a thing or two about fruit picking:

www.thegrocer.co.uk/leader/seasonal-labour-crisis-is-a-serious-threat-to-british-farming/598896.article

So much for the theory of wages being forced upwards, as British people flock to pick fruit! Fruit will be picked by foreigners, from inside and outside the EU - or left to rot.

Callistemon I think it's an outdated stereotype.

Call I think it’s quite variable what happens. The payment of the minimum wage is one thing - the accommodation - its state and what they are charged for it is quite another. Maybe once the workers get here, they stay for the season as they need the money.

Is there any hope the Brexit politicians will change their mind(s) ?

Outdated stereotype^ not sure what is??

Regarding cheap labour for agriculture and for social care, isn't the solution to the problem to pay and train the local people sufficiently so they want to do the work and do it well?

Yes, I know suziewoozie

Most farmers do want to look after the workers because they want them to return but I realise there are must be some who do not.

Call this might be helpful. It’s Farmer's Weekly so hardly some ‘leftie’ propaganda sheet

www.fwi.co.uk/news/shocking-extent-of-modern-slavery-in-agriculture-revealed

And, of course, some workers do not look after the accommodation so the farmer has the expense of repairing, renovating and replacing furnishings every season.

A lot of farmers voted leave with their hearts without regard for the downside.

From what I recall of interviews/articles about Leaver farmers at the time, it was EU regulations that they objected to. And they were absolutely promised that the EU subsidy would be replaced by the UK government. There is video of Johnson making that promise while campaigning. When are people going to realise what a casually compulsive effing liar he is and stop hero worshipping him?

Most farmers depend on that money for their livelihood and will go bust without it. It is in the interests of the UK to keep these farmers active, we need the food they produce, and they maintain the countryside. Agri-business has no interest in the latter.

The few farmers I know voted Remain and were in despair at the idiocy of their fellows...

I've read interviews of people coming back year after year for a decade or more. The seriously wouldn't do that, if conditions were so bad.

More importantly, it's pie in the sky to think that British people are going to step in to do the work.

We no longer have armies of housewives, willing to spend their summer fruit picking. Most women with children already have jobs. Students' holidays don't last long enough for the whole season. Unemployed steel workers from the North East aren't going to move to Kent to pick fruit, especially as there is better paid work available on wind farm installations, etc.

One way or another, foreigners will still be picking the UK's fruit. The immigration proposals are already beginning to fall apart. There will need to be exemptions for the NHS, some teachers, care and domestic staff, au pairs, seasonal hotel staff, entry level scientists and researchers, ete etc etc.

Call when you’ve read the article, it will be interesting to see where you stand on this issue. As for the state of the caravans - well I’d like the evidence.

Callistemon I meant the idea that fruit picking is slave labour is an outdated stereotype.

I was agreeing with you.

grow because some farms are fine, doesn’t mean there isn’t a serious problem. Do you believe the article or is all made up to fit an out of date stereotype?

Call and grow I’m amazed you can do confidently state that.

MaizieD good post

And growstuff.
slave labour but people keep talking about it as if it is the norm.

I've read your link, suzie. This is the cost of our cheap food.

growstuff ''So much for the theory of wages being forced upwards, as British people flock to pick fruit! Fruit will be picked by foreigners, from inside and outside the EU - or left to rot.''

and perhaps this is what is intended - because what the Tories want is big business for their friends- no staff- fruit and veg rot- shortages-public is angry- solution at the ready ...

automation - BIG MONEY - huge social consequences, but they don't care.

Same method- same for the NHS and privatisation.

suzie That's why I asked about agencies. Currently, it's the workers who work for agencies (gangmasters) who are the most exploited. They recruit in places in Eastern Europe and only pay their workers "local" (ie Bulgarian, Rumanian) wages. They are the employers, so can enforce their own conditions. I read somewhere that these agencies will be allowed to continue. If that's true, low wages will continue and there will be no decrease in immigration - it could even get worse.

Chomsky ''“That’s the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.”''

it is so wickedly and brilliantly simple.

Get rid of those pesky labourer and peasants - and their unions. Automate factories and agriculture- very profitable indeed for the few and s*d the many.

It started a long time ago, with th Enclosure Acts. Get rid of the peasant serfs and their smelly tied villages- make them starving and homeless- so they have to go to the new towns to work for a pittance ... and when the time comes- we will get rid of them altogether- and automate.

The social consequences will be massive and beyond anything we can imagine.

They recruit in places in Eastern Europe and only pay their workers "local" (ie Bulgarian, Rumanian) wages.

It's the 'posted workers' thing, isn't it. Haven't the EU altered the rules on posted workers now?

Of course, now that we've left the EU this practice can continue unchecked as the posted workers regulations no longer apply to us.