Train British Fruit Pickers

[Ollygon]

So says Cruella.

"Now, here's a row of strawberry plants, here's a shade chart, and I want you to pick the strawberries when they're at least 6 on the chart. Simples"

"And how much will you pay me"

"I can afford to pay you £5 an hour"

"Sod that, I can get twice as much stacking shelves"

 

[Wizzerboy]

So says Cruella.

"Now, here's a row of strawberry plants, here's a shade chart, and I want you to pick the strawberries when they're at least 6 on the chart. Simples"

"And how much will you pay me"

"I can afford to pay you £5 an hour"

"Sod that, I can get twice as much stacking shelves"

And even more, sat on my arse claiming benefits

 

[1966_and_all_that]

And even more, sat on my arse claiming benefits

Not good. Fruit picking is bloody hard work. It needs young, fit people. What the Nazi should have said was 'we're going to create worthwhile long lasting, career jobs for our citizens.' But she didn't.

 

[traffordtang]

Maybe she should train to do it. Might actually turn out to be something she’s good at.

 

[TangerineBayern]

BFCx3 would have all the lazy pensioners off theirs arses from watching TV all day long, traveling around here there and everywhere with their free bus passes, tutting at queues in supermarkets and demanding they’re allowed to the front and preventing them from going on expensive mediterranean cruises all so they can go and pick fruit!

 

[Seasider1887]

She is a side show telling people what they want to hear. She bangs on about the boat people yet they are just a convenient distraction. The first thing this Government did post Brexit was offer Citizenship to existing residents, invite more students and dependents and invited Hong Kong citizens in. We simply cannot accommodate all these extra citizens. All it’s going to do is continue to force young people out of the housing market.

Interesting recent development is how they now greet the boats and bring ashore so not technically illegal migrants anymore. As for the Rwanda scheme that is also a trick, we are expected to receive their dependent migrants in exchange if yo read the small print.

They don’t care as they are the globalist elite, without any true attachments to this country, they live in gated mansions, I have no grasp of reality.

With 10 million people unemployed in this Country I don’t see how flooding it with cheap more will help the average person.

 

[Junior_BentsPlatformShoes]

It used to be a student job for summer when I was at college, the problem is you can earn double that in Maccy D's or doing a less labour intensive temporary job.

 

[Wizaard]

Not good. Fruit picking is bloody hard work. It needs young, fit people. What the Nazi should have said was 'we're going to create worthwhile long lasting, career jobs for our citizens.' But she didn't.

In the same paragraph she mentioned that Brexit was about creating highly skilled, well paid jobs for our own people.

How does fruitpicking, seasonal and often on piecework rates, meet that description?

 

[Costero Poderoso]

So says Cruella.

"Now, here's a row of strawberry plants, here's a shade chart, and I want you to pick the strawberries when they're at least 6 on the chart. Simples"

"And how much will you pay me"

"I can afford to pay you £5 an hour"

"Sod that, I can get twice as much stacking shelves"

let her do it cos she doesnt have the intelligence to do the job shes supposed to be doing.

 

[Roy Kent]

No political agenda here - but who should be picking fruit? It presumably doesn’t pick or pack itself?

Genuine question.

 

[Ollygon]

No political agenda here - but who should be picking fruit? It presumably doesn’t pick or pack itself?

Genuine question.

Well.

There wasn't such a problem when there was free movement of labour!!!@

 

[ElBurroSinNombre]

Well.

There wasn't such a problem when there was free movement of labour!!!@

It is interesting watching the penny drop for these Brexiteers as they start to realise what a mess they have made.
On the radio yesterday, John Redwood was calling for growth and tax cuts but at the same time calling for immigration to be restricted - you really cannot have both of these things at the same time in our economy.
You cannot grow a business if you cannot employ the people you need.
Pensioners do not want to work in our fields
There is currently almost full employment, so why would a domestic worker choose to do low pay, low skilled work picking crops with no prospect of promotion when there is better paid ,work with prospects to be had.
You cannot force people to work in a job that the do not want to do.

The guilty parties have moved on to the 'it's the wrong type of Brexit', as if there is a Brexit that would work better than what we had previously. Farage on Newsnight last night admitting that Brexit hasn't worked. It is really unravelling quite quickly now. Shapps saying that Brexit 'wasn't his idea'.
What a mess they have made of our economy. All completely predictable but dismissed as project fear at the time.

 

[Wizzerboy]

Why should we rely on foreigners to pick our fruit?
Just like going back to good ol' queen Vics empire beneath the British so get Johnny foreigner to do the shit jobs
Why not get prisoners to do the jobs in a chain gang stylee
That wouldn't cost in wages and the savings could be passed onto the consumer, win win

 

[ElBurroSinNombre]

Why not get prisoners to do the jobs in a chain gang stylee
That wouldn't cost in wages and the savings could be passed onto the consumer, win win

I wouldn't be surprised if Bravaman comes up with that as a policy, I'm actually not joking.

 

[Ollygon]

Why should we rely on foreigners to pick our fruit?
Just like going back to good ol' queen Vics empire beneath the British so get Johnny foreigner to do the shit jobs
Why not get prisoners to do the jobs in a chain gang stylee
That wouldn't cost in wages and the savings could be passed onto the consumer, win win

Oh dear me.

Send kids down the mines as well, and bring back rickets.

Let's get back to the Good Old Days.

 

[Seasider1887]

Why should we rely on foreigners to pick our fruit?
Just like going back to good ol' queen Vics empire beneath the British so get Johnny foreigner to do the shit jobs
Why not get prisoners to do the jobs in a chain gang stylee
That wouldn't cost in wages and the savings could be passed onto the consumer, win win

That’s far too simple

 

[Roy Kent]

Well.

There wasn't such a problem when there was free movement of labour!!!@

Indeed! And having voted remain i recognise that fully.

Though I don’t think it is a job that could be regarded as being beneath anyone particular nationality and therefore purely for non-British.

Living in Cornwall I have seen how hard people work to pick crops - I wouldn’t want to do it.

So, the reality for the uk in our current post-Brexit situation:

Does this actually indicate our national living wage is not high enough? It does seem that the majority of jobs nobody wants to do are minimum / living wage (carers, cleaners, fruit pickers etc) - yet society relies on them to do the unpleasant things in life.

Do fruit and veg prices need to be higher to account for higher paid workers to do the back-breaking work?
If left to pure market forces that may be an unpalatable answer. I actually think healthy foods should be incentivised through better payments to farmers and / or central subsidy to encourage healthier eating to tackle the obesity problems we are building up for our society.

None of these have easy answers

 

[1966_and_all_that]

You cannot force people to work in a job that the do not want to do.

But that is precisely what the far-right rump of this ever diminishing Tory Party intend to do. Either pick fruit or lose your benefits. Hang on, what benefits? I thought theTories were selling the future for young people as continuing education and training or apprenticeships. So, where are these thousands of lounging scroungers? If they exist then that is a mark of failure in the Tory education and development policies. On the other hand this could just be another example of their dog whistle politics.

 

[1966_and_all_that]

In the same paragraph she mentioned that Brexit was about creating highly skilled, well paid jobs for our own people.

How does fruitpicking, seasonal and often on piecework rates, meet that description?

Don't examine these speeches too closely. They are created to give the Daily Heil, Excess and Torygraph dog-whistle headlines to appeal to their ever diminishing band of far-right fellow travellers.

 

[Costero Poderoso]

I wouldn't be surprised if Bravaman comes up with that as a policy, I'm actually not joking.

shes already tried it - apparently

 

[Wizaard]

You cannot force people to work in a job that the do not want to do.

But that is precisely what the far-right rump of this ever diminishing Tory Party intend to do. Either pick fruit or lose your benefits. Hang on, what benefits? I thought theTories were selling the future for young people as continuing education and training or apprenticeships. So, where are these thousands of lounging scroungers? If they exist then that is a mark of failure in the Tory education and development policies. On the other hand this could just be another example of their dog whistle politics.

There's no logic to any of their statements

Inflation at 11% and rising. Rishi 'It's not our fault, its global economic conditions'.

'My key target this year is to halve inflation'.

In the light of your first statement Rishi, how are you having any influence on the inflation rate? It's global economic conditions. If they happen to change and inflation falls, its nothing to do with you.

Funnily enough, in the global banking crisis of 2008, it was all Labour's fault, not global economic conditions...

Hypocritical set of twats to a man/woman

 

[Tangerinemoss]

Does this actually indicate our national living wage is not high enough? It does seem that the majority of jobs nobody wants to do are minimum / living wage (carers, cleaners, fruit pickers etc) - yet society relies on them to do the unpleasant things in life.

This, this and this. It's flipping hard work, out in all weathers and badly paid.

 

[Lost Seasider]

It used to be a student job for summer when I was at college, the problem is you can earn double that in Maccy D's or doing a less labour intensive temporary job.

Obvious answer: raise the pay rate until people are willing to do the job.

That's what this all boils down to, "boohoo, we're wealthy landowners, and we don't want to pay the market rate for the job, so please let us exploit cheap migrant labour instead".

In fact, it's far from clear that the EU migrants want the jobs any more, the 2003 accession states are now all richer than Greece, quite a few are likely now richer than Portugal, some may even have passed Spain in terms of GDP per capita, not surprisingly those sub minimum wage jobs don't look quite so attractive to them after all.

 

[Chunkylad]

Obvious answer: raise the pay rate until people are willing to do the job.

That's what this all boils down to, "boohoo, we're wealthy landowners, and we don't want to pay the market rate for the job, so please let us exploit cheap migrant labour instead".

In fact, it's far from clear that the EU migrants want the jobs any more, the 2003 accession states are now all richer than Greece, quite a few are likely now richer than Portugal, some may even have passed Spain in terms of GDP per capita, not surprisingly those sub minimum wage jobs don't look quite so attractive to them after all.

We’ve got a shed load of ‘boat’ people sat around kicking their heels at the tax payers cost and a cost to their mental well-being.

Give them all an NI number and a start in life in the uk by fulfilling these jobs.
At least then they can start to fund themselves and apply for jobs more suited to their skill sets whilst doing a service to the country in the meantime.

Do the job for 12 months and here’s your citizenship.

 

[Lost Seasider]

We’ve got a shed load of ‘boat’ people sat around kicking their heels at the tax payers cost and a cost to their mental well-being.

Give them all an NI number and a start in life in the uk by fulfilling these jobs.
At least then they can start to fund themselves and apply for jobs more suited to their skill sets whilst doing a service to the country in the meantime.

Do the job for 12 months and here’s your citizenship.

Do the job for 12 months, and you get to eat, not that there's much fruit picking going on in January.

 

[Chunkylad]

Do the job for 12 months, and you get to eat, not that there's much fruit picking going on in January.

I’m sure there’s other useful community roles we can find them to do in the winter months. Just having them sat in an abyss helps neither them nor the country.

They’re here now and unless they’re judged to be criminals (so extradite) then let them work

 

[Lost Seasider]

I’m sure there’s other useful community roles we can find them to do in the winter months. Just having them sat in an abyss helps neither them nor the country.

They’re here now and unless they’re judged to be criminals (so extradite) then let them work

Fine, but my issue is the give them citizenship after 12 months, or at all.

Or to put it another way, if the US were to institute such a policy, I suspect that the entire population of Central and South America would be approximately zero after about six months.

 

[Chunkylad]

They’re already here though and we are already paying for that every single day. That’s money that could have gone into schools, roads, health.

Instead we create some sort of grotesque Dante’s holiday camp and keep the poor fuckers in limbo for years. Give them a job and get them contributing not detracting.

£3 billion was the cost in one of the commons reports on housing refugees, yet people post on this site that they can’t get an nhs dentist or a doctors appointment as funds are tight

 

[Wizaard]

Do the job for 12 months, and you get to eat, not that there's much fruit picking going on in January.

Plenty of winter veg, spuds, sprouts, brassicas etc

 

[Wizzerboy]

Oh dear me.

Send kids down the mines as well, and bring back rickets.

Let's get back to the Good Old Days.

Oh dear you?

The good old days when we all thought the blacks could be bus drivers, road sweepers and all the other menial jobs the whites thought were beneath them.
Yet now the call is out to employ cheap foreign labour to pick fruit

Forgive the irony but kettle, pot springs to mind

 

[Lytham_fy8]

It is interesting watching the penny drop for these Brexiteers as they start to realise what a mess they have made.
On the radio yesterday, John Redwood was calling for growth and tax cuts but at the same time calling for immigration to be restricted - you really cannot have both of these things at the same time in our economy.
You cannot grow a business if you cannot employ the people you need.
Pensioners do not want to work in our fields
There is currently almost full employment, so why would a domestic worker choose to do low pay, low skilled work picking crops with no prospect of promotion when there is better paid ,work with prospects to be had.
You cannot force people to work in a job that the do not want to do.

The guilty parties have moved on to the 'it's the wrong type of Brexit', as if there is a Brexit that would work better than what we had previously. Farage on Newsnight last night admitting that Brexit hasn't worked. It is really unravelling quite quickly now. Shapps saying that Brexit 'wasn't his idea'.
What a mess they have made of our economy. All completely predictable but dismissed as project fear at the time.

It's almost as if Brexit was designed as a quick money maker for some and voted for by the gullible of thinking.

 

[Lost Seasider]

They’re already here though and we are already paying for that every single day. That’s money that could have gone into schools, roads, health.

Instead we create some sort of grotesque Dante’s holiday camp and keep the poor fuckers in limbo for years. Give them a job and get them contributing not detracting.

£3 billion was the cost in one of the commons reports on housing refugees, yet people post on this site that they can’t get an nhs dentist or a doctors appointment as funds are tight

No problem with that, but I don't think doing a menial job for a couple of months is sufficient to grant them a permanent right to remain.

They can pick fruit, up until the point where they're deported.

 

[Trammo]

Orchards are in rural areas with low population density and with poor public transport links. Work is short term with poor prospects. Hard to attract workers wherever they come from.My solution is for robots to pick the fruit. They will not require wages and can be stored in a shed at the end of the working day or even be programmed to pick 24/7 .

 

[Wizaard]

No political agenda here - but who should be picking fruit? It presumably doesn’t pick or pack itself?

Genuine question.

Anyone wanting to work at below minimum wage while sharing a caravan in a field with 10 others.

 

[Wizaard]

It is interesting watching the penny drop for these Brexiteers as they start to realise what a mess they have made.
On the radio yesterday, John Redwood was calling for growth and tax cuts but at the same time calling for immigration to be restricted - you really cannot have both of these things at the same time in our economy.
You cannot grow a business if you cannot employ the people you need.
Pensioners do not want to work in our fields
There is currently almost full employment, so why would a domestic worker choose to do low pay, low skilled work picking crops with no prospect of promotion when there is better paid ,work with prospects to be had.
You cannot force people to work in a job that the do not want to do.

The guilty parties have moved on to the 'it's the wrong type of Brexit', as if there is a Brexit that would work better than what we had previously. Farage on Newsnight last night admitting that Brexit hasn't worked. It is really unravelling quite quickly now. Shapps saying that Brexit 'wasn't his idea'.
What a mess they have made of our economy. All completely predictable but dismissed as project fear at the time.

The thing is, the arch Brexiteers will never admit they made the wrong choice. Just read on here for that. Until there is acceptance it damaged us all we can't move on, and that's never going to happen.

Nothing is ever the fault of Brexit, or even a by product of it.

It's as if it never happened and everything is fine to hear some talk.

 

[Always tangerine]

The thing is, the arch Brexiteers will never admit they made the wrong choice. Just read on here for that. Until there is acceptance it damaged us all we can't move on, and that's never going to happen.

Nothing is ever the fault of Brexit, or even a by product of it.

It's as if it never happened and everything is fine to hear some talk.

Well seems a lot were persuaded by this type of propaganda. Vote leave video - so accurate and truthful!

 

[Always tangerine]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1658588996497203203

 

[ElBurroSinNombre]

It is starting to unravel quite quickly;

Vauxhall-maker warns Brexit may force it to close UK factory

Vauxhall-maker Stellantis is calling on the government to renegotiate some Brexit rules or risk losing electric

www.bbc.com

Which senior politician will be brave enough to suggest that we re-enter the single market?

 

[1966_and_all_that]

No problem with that, but I don't think doing a menial job for a couple of months is sufficient to grant them a permanent right to remain.

They can pick fruit, up until the point where they're deported.

Or properly processed through the correct immigration channels. But of course, the fact that processing has massively slowed is no accident. Why process the boat people when keeping them in hotels serves the Government's anti-immigration message far better. Notice how these people are now described as 'illegals' even before they are processed. What next for Frau Braverman, dressing them in identikit overalls with yellow stars stitched on to readily identify them?

 

[East Beach]

Its described as an unskilled job but it really isnt hence there literally are organised gangs, in the good sense, who spend their lives travelling from country to country on a seasonal basis doing this type of work ultra efficiently. Theyll move from farm to farm until all the work is done and then move onto another country whose harvest may vary differently from ours.

Weve put a stop to it and dont have an answer to it.

 

[Lost Seasider]

So, question, Brexit was at the start of 2020, I don't remember there being a problem in 2020, 2021, or 2022, what has changed this year?

 

[BigHandsOliverKahn]

It is starting to unravel quite quickly;

Vauxhall-maker warns Brexit may force it to close UK factory

Vauxhall-maker Stellantis is calling on the government to renegotiate some Brexit rules or risk losing electric

www.bbc.com

Which senior politician will be brave enough to suggest that we re-enter the single market?

I remember a few years ago pointing out that Ellesmere Port had one of the highest OUT votes in the country. Turkies certainly voted for Christmas in that part of the country.

I can sense a lot of Brexit unease is now building in momentum with the economic downturn strangling more and more people every week.

I always said, to reverse it, people would have to suffer individually before they finally realised the damage that had been done to this country. Now it's hitting people's standard of living so hard, they are realising alright.

Get back in the Single Market for a start. That will help resolve most of the problems. The sooner, the better.

 

[Always tangerine]

So, question, Brexit was at the start of 2020, I don't remember there being a problem in 2020, 2021, or 2022, what has changed this year?

Its been talked about the last couple of years. But less so in certain media. Hence Ill think youll find the govt has been issuing visas at least last year to try to deal with it, without real results. Doesnt work if you bring people from poorer countries it seems. See article attached.https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/02/hundreds-of-indonesian-fruit-pickers-in-uk-seek-diplomatic-help

 

[Lost Seasider]

Its been talked about the last couple of years. But less so in certain media. Hence Ill think youll find the govt has been issuing visas at least last year to try to deal with it, without real results. Doesnt work if you bring people from poorer countries it seems. See article attached.https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/02/hundreds-of-indonesian-fruit-pickers-in-uk-seek-diplomatic-help

So why aren't the Europeans applying for these seasonal work visas?

 

[1966_and_all_that]

So, question, Brexit was at the start of 2020, I don't remember there being a problem in 2020, 2021, or 2022, what has changed this year?

Brexit is a process, not an event.

 

[Wizaard]

It is starting to unravel quite quickly;

Vauxhall-maker warns Brexit may force it to close UK factory

Vauxhall-maker Stellantis is calling on the government to renegotiate some Brexit rules or risk losing electric

www.bbc.com

Which senior politician will be brave enough to suggest that we re-enter the single market?

To be fair, this lot will take us away from polluting petrol and diesel, but not through EVs.

Watching the coronation was the spark for the reintroduction of the horse and carriage.

 

[Wizaard]

So why aren't the Europeans applying for these seasonal work visas?

Not enough of them due to quotas and for too short a period, making it not worthwhile.

 

[Wizaard]

So, question, Brexit was at the start of 2020, I don't remember there being a problem in 2020, 2021, or 2022, what has changed this year?

What planet are you on if there was no problem caused by Brexit in 2020, 2021 or 2022?

 

[BigHandsOliverKahn]

So why aren't the Europeans applying for these seasonal work visas?

Why would they choose go to somewhere that demands applying for a time-limited work visa when they can freely live and work in 26 other European countries?

On top of that, the standard of living of previously poor countries like Poland is due to overtake the UK within 10 years based on current economic projections so they have better options nowadays.

We really shot ourselves in the foot with Brexit in a myriad of ways.

 

[Lost Seasider]

Why would they choose go to somewhere that demands applying for a time-limited work visa when they can freely live and work in 26 other European countries?

Yet, people seem willing to fly from the other side of the world with the same visa.

Also, as @East Beach mentioned earlier, these are organized gangs, so presumably the admin can be centralized and minimized so the barrier to them taking the jobs should be negligable.

On top of that, the standard of living of previously poor countries like Poland is due to overtake the UK within 10 years based on current economic projections so they have better options nowadays.

We really shot ourselves in the foot with Brexit in a myriad of ways.

A point that I raised earlier.

Isn't that a contradiction, though? They don't want the jobs because they're now wealthier than they were 10 years ago, but it's all the fault of Brexit anyway.