Further to Nick Griffin's blog yesterday on the employment of foreign workers in South West Lancashire and their effect on local employment I will give my take on the matter.
Although having worked in medicine I have also been a farmer for 50 years.
I know the area well and know the area round Ormskirk and Southport to be as fertile and more productive per acre than the Fens although being smaller and further from London this fact is not recognised.
Most sorts of vegetable crops are grown there includinc carrots, sprouts, leeks and lettuces and many more.
Thirty years ago they were also grown there and harvested by locals with far less mechanisation than now is the case, so why are so many foreigners, legal and illegal employed now?
It is said the crops would not be harvested without these people, so what's the difference?
In a word supermarkets. As these businesses have become larger they have gained a stranglehold on local producers becoming the monopoly buyers and insisting on ever lower producer prices. These latter were obliged to take the cheapest labour possible in order to survive. Once one farmer had this cheap labour others had to follow or go out of business.
Wages lower than the minimum wage could be paid. Workers are housed in cheap houses, many living in one house or even caravan, thus avoiding the costs that British workers incur such as rent and council taxes, let alone bringing up a family.
I know of a case of a Polish girl who became pregnant and returned to Poland and had all maternity benefits paid in Poland even though she had only been in this country a matter of months.
In another instance, when I retired from medicine I took cattle in to the local abbatoir each week. The owner, a nice man was unable to retain his staff as he could not pay them enough while in competition with other firms who employed immigrants.
One day perhaps 12 years ago when I took my cattle in he asked me if I would give a medical to a new worker. This man and his fellow Polish worker were housed in a caravan by the midden next to the slaughterhouse and therefore avoided the usual housing costs. Their meagre wages did not prevent one of them being prosecuted for drunkenness after purchasing vodka at a local supermarket.
This I did although the worker's inability to speak English made it difficult and there was no one to translate. I asked the boss how his new worker pronounced his name and he replied tongue in cheek "I dont think, looking at the spelling he can pronounce it"
The Polish men were OK and at the time the immigration tsunami had not started in earnest.
I did not realise that this was the start of a massive invasion of cheap labour. I suppose I was complicit in this although at the time I did not realise the seriousness of what was about to hit us.
So the question. How did we manage before and what benefit has this influx been to our people?
Well supermarket profits and margins have gone up as has their share price. Prices to the consumer have not gone down.
The benefits have been gained by big business like Sainsbury's and Tesco's and the losses have been sustained by our young people who languish on the dole, being unable to survive on the meagre wages these immigrants can survive on.
They say the British people will not work. They did before when they had the chance.These jobs were done by us 30 years ago and could be now.
Thus we all pay higher taxes to support them on the dole, the supermarkets make their profits and give generous donations to the Tories and Labour which in turn give them preference in planning permissions, further driving small firms out of business.
It is globalisation in microcosm in a small rural area. A portent of the furure for all people if not halted.
We are becoming units like chess pieces to be moved about at the will of big business.
So where is our freedom when multinational companies rule governments and their profits take precedence over the well being of the people?
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