19 Jun Polish Your Polish
If you want entry-level work in England, you best polish your Polish. According to this news report, some British citizens allegedly are being turned away from agricultural and factory work in England because they don’t speak Polish.
“The influx of Eastern European workers means the language is now vital for jobs in agriculture, says MP Malcolm Moss. His North East Cambridgeshire constituency has seen the arrival of a huge number of migrant workers to pick fruit and vegetables, as well as fill other low-paid jobs in packing and food processing plants…. ‘A woman came to … tell me about her daughter’s experience when she was looking for work,’ he said. ‘The daughter was aged 18 or 19 and had been to the job centre, where there was little work. Instead she was told to try the local factories in person…. Mr Moss added: “This particular [employer] told the woman, ‘If you don’t speak Polish I can’t put you on the assembly line, because they all speak Polish. They won’t accept you, and you won’t be able to communicate with them anyway.’ … Figures released last month revealed a massive influx of immigrants to Britain from the former Eastern Bloc since 11 countries including Poland, Estonia and Lithuania, joined the EU in 2004. Around 640,000 Eastern Europeans, most of them Poles, have registered to work in Britain. But the figure could be as high as 800,000, experts believe, because in most cases the Government keeps no record of the self- employed, spouses or children.”
Anecdotally, my experience in London in recent years is that a noticeable number of waiters increasingly are Polish. (By contrast, I am not encountering eastern European entry-level workers during my time here in Sweden). Have others had similar experiences in different parts of Europe?
I personally think it is a wonderful development for Europe to experience this sort of free movement of eastern European workers. The United States is far stronger and better as a nation because it is a country of immigrants. But the influx of eastern Europeans certainly will require some serious adjustments for tradition-bound western Europeans.
>>I personally think it is a wonderful development for Europe to experience this sort of free movement of eastern European workers. The United States is far stronger and better as a nation because it is a country of immigrants.< <
Ah the ol’ “country of immigrants” chestnuts, used to explain away every rationale argument against unbridled illegal immigration in favor of some mystical Apple-Oranges comparison to the 1900s.
Uhh, I’m not sure what you are talking about. There is nothing in the post about illegal immigrants. As members of the European Union, the Polish workers are legal immigrants in England, perfectly entitled to lawfully take up residence and work throughout the EU.
Roger Alford
The issue of Eastern European immigrants is a lot more complex than “as members of the EU, the Polish workers are legal immigrants in England”.
Illegal or not, the biggest question in the English example is how to deal with the sudden influx and the impact on existing communities. The US might be a “country of immigrants”, but that doesn’t shield (some of) its communities from facing similar issues.
England’s becoming the new Chicago?
When I visited the Czech Republic last year, I remember a lot of the Bohemian locals talking about how they all travel to Germany to work. While Germany is next door, Czechs will still make the 3-4 hour one-way commute to work across the border because the opportunity, pay, and benefits are better.