Wisbech’s migrant workers
Posted by Ellee on Feb 24, 2010 in updates | 10 commentsI come from Wisbech where agriculture plays a key role in the local economy.
It is famed for its black fertile soil – and its thousands of migrant workers who have been accused of taking jobs once held by locals.
I really like the idea of this programme on BBC 1 this evening with Evan Davis.
Since 2004 this once prosperous market town has received up to 9,000 immigrants seeking work – the majority from Eastern Europe. But with nearly 2,000 locals unemployed and claiming benefits, many of them blame the foreign workers for their predicament.
To test if the town needs so many foreign workers, immigrant employees are temporarily removed from their jobs, and the work given to the local unemployed. Now the town’s British workers have a chance to prove they can do it.
Eleven British unemployed workers are recruited to go into a range of different Wisbech workplaces including a potato company, an asparagus farm, an Indian restaurant and a building site run by a local landlord.
I doubt the Fennies will be a match for the migrant workers. But then it wouldn’t make good TV if they succeeded. I wonder if any of the locals ended up with a job offer….
*Evan writes in today’s Times “Foreigners – they didn’t steal our jobs: they created them”. He’s got a point.
Does it seem like the British unemployed let thesev people do the jobs and preferred to claim benefits?
disaffected, you say “we had huge personal self respect and motivation”. That is so lacking with these men and the major cause of their inertia. Where were their role models to inspire them?
Frugal Dougal, I’ve done my stint in a food processing factory in Wisbech as a 16-year-old student, standing alongside a conveyor belt of peas wearing the standard white cap and overall while I picked out the duds. Lots of students did these jobs then – and we were good grafters! How times have changed.
I don’t know what’s happened to us. In the mid-1990s I was part of a team of unskilled manual labourers working in a factory receiving harvested veg in Lincolnshire, every one of us was British. As I recall, the same was true of the fruit-pickers.
The solution Ellee is to get away from the state dependense culure where all these basically useless bast—-s are accomodated by the state who panders to their belief that they are owed a living from the rest of society inspite of their utter lack of personal effort , brains, ability or effort.
I came from a Northern working class background we had huge personal self respect and motivation ,
We would never have accepted charity or state intervention .
It was up to the men of the family to get out there , find work , and stick with it .
The people on tonight programme were simply the dross of society who couldnt in the main even turn up for the work on offer .
They are a disgrace and the rest of us shouldnt be expected to take up the costs such people have on the rest of society.
Bring on the Poles , real people with proper values.Plus they are Catholics with religious codes as a bonus.
disaffected, what’s the solution? What kind of future can the unemployed in Wisbech look forward to? Let’s see what Kirsty has to say about it on Newsnight.
Well having watched the programme Ellee my worse fears have been proven .Suggest you look for other area to move to if you dont wish to be considered one of the locals.
They were intruth utterly pathetic.
Theres no excuse for the attitudes and actions they showed tonight .
They were simply moronic in comparison to the Poles , Lithuanias etc who were there with their education ,and work ethic , but determined to do a job correctly as opposed to the local brigade who were only intent on putting forward excuses for their less than able attempts to do easy and simply tasks.
These eastern europeans have always been their weight in gold since such times as the pogrammes .
They are more in tune with the old fashioned British Culture than many Brits , certinly the Wisbeach fen boys
Hard work ,personal respect , pride in a job well done didnt even register with the local brood yet it clearly was part of the immigrants culture .
Why dont we simply change places with these people, ship the locals to Eastern Europe and give all these ” foreigners ” British passports asap.
They will weithout doubt help this country to get back its pride.
Am I alone in being worried about Evan’s pale pallor and thinness? I want to bring him home and give him a good feed. And why the Mohican style haircut?
The programme was just as I thought. It almost makes one embarrassed to be British.
I’m now looking forward to seeing the programme debated on Newsnight. When promoting it as a sound bite, Kirsty Wark called it, “The Wisbech Experiment,” which I found amusing.
Issues such as this are seldom black and white, seldom have an easy “sound bite” answer. This will indeed be interesting to watch. I hope you will blog about the outcome as this is an international problem with much of the same rhetoric being bandied about without any real statistics or ground zero research into the problem.
One to watch Ellee.
I suspect the locals might not come off too well !
By the way new blog to watch ” Futore Fair For All ?
Short and to the point and very anti Labour !!