Let jobless pick fruit

[capfits]

Let the jobless (those receiving benefits) pick fruit says Perthshire berry producer.
Yip the European fruit pickers that came and boosted the rural economy are not coming.
So what to do?

 

[M-J-G]

I like the theory and have suggested that the able bodied jobless should be forced to work at below a minimum wage rate.

But how do you get these lazy junky b@$t@rd$ to work if they won't get out of their beds before the day is almost over.

 

[Henarar]

good luck with that

 

[Ncap]

I, Daniel Blake.
And while we're at it, let's send kids up chimneys again.

 

[Exfarmer]

I used to employ workers from Sheffield on a hedging growing business.
They would never turn up on Wednesday since that was dole day.
But that was OK we could plan around it.
The job was lifting small quicks which the undercutter lay on top of the ground. They were supposed to bundle them in 10’s which were put into 100’s
The men while slow would after a few chivvies get it right.
The women were far faster, but if I was not watching like a hawk would soon drop the count often by half or more. If you picked them up for it they would very quickly tell you a lot about your parentage! That is when they were not offering you their bodies!

 

[Henarar]

I, Daniel Blake.
And while we're at it, let's send kids up chimneys again.

I wouldn't think there was much call for that these days as most folk have central heating and those that do have open fires mainly have lined flues that would be to small for them to get up so you will have to think of something else to install some work ethic in them, any ideas ?

 

[CharcoalWally]

Let the jobless (those receiving benefits) pick fruit says Perthshire berry producer.
Yip the European fruit pickers that came and boosted the rural economy are not coming.
So what to do?

I'd wager that after 48 hours of their company , the Perthshire berry producer would be mulling over alternative projects for his fruit farm.

 

[Werzle]

I like the theory and have suggested that the able bodied jobless should be forced to work at below a minimum wage rate.

But how do you get these lazy junky b@$t@rd$ to work if they won't get out of their beds before the day is almost over.

If you could police the food banks so the lazy didnt get fed perhaps we could starve them into work

 

[Still Farming]

Plenty "bored" in Prisions ?

 

[Devil's advocate]

Paid 25p for punnets of Class 1 raspberries. This week at wholesalers.

Its too cheap, get picking rates of pay up a bit, I think people will do it.

Biggest problem is snobbery. We need a culture of pride in working & try to get a way from this "I'm above that type of work".

I have 7 O levels & I'm reasonably well off but I'm happy to harvest crops by hand, why the stigma?

 

[Hindsight]

Paid 25p for punnets of Class 1 raspberries. This week at wholesalers.

Its too cheap, get picking rates of pay up a bit, I think people will do it.

Biggest problem is snobbery. We need a culture of pride in working & try to get a way from this "I'm above that type of work".

I have 7 O levels & I'm reasonably well off but I'm happy to harvest crops by hand, why the stigma?

where were the rasps grown? spain / morocco?

 

[melted welly]

I, Daniel Blake.
And while we're at it, let's send kids up chimneys again.

What the grower said was she wanted politicians to look at making it possible for those on benefits to be able to take on casual work without the threat of having their payments immediately cancelled.

 

[Ncap]

What the grower said was she wanted politicians to look at making it possible for those on benefits to be able to take on casual work without the threat of having their payments immediately cancelled.

Now THAT is a great idea. (And I was not aware of that, jumping wrongly to the conclusion that it was a 'get those scroungers off benefits' suggestion.) Thanks for the correction

 

[Exfarmer]

That has been the problem for many years. The inability of benefit claimants to discount X days of work without often losing so many extra days that taking one day costs them a lot of money.
Worst still of course it drives them into dishonesty by not admitting they have been paid for odd days work.
Politicians have promised for years to sort this issue with little or no result

 

[borderterribles]

Before criticizing the work ethic of young British employees as opposed to their Eastern European counterparts, people should consider that (in the main), the wages earned by immigrants are going to be spent in a much lower cost economy than this one and therefore have a much higher value to them.
When I was involved in fruit growing , we had girls in the packhouse earning , on piecework, the equivalent of a months wages back home, PER DAY!

 

[Exfarmer]

Before criticizing the work ethic of young British employees as opposed to their Eastern European counterparts, people should consider that (in the main), the wages earned by immigrants are going to be spent in a much lower cost economy than this one and therefore have a much higher value to them.
When I was involved in fruit growing , we had girls in the packhouse earning , on piecework, the equivalent of a months wages back home, PER DAY!

That is so true, in the 90's we had Eastern Europeans working for us and they said they would be able to buy a house and a car for one Autumns potato / Veg grading.
The car, they bought here, were all the old Moskvich and Skoda models nobody would touch with a bargepole. The house they bought in their home town for the same sort of money. And they lived mainly on the waste veg they were sorting out! They thought they were rolling in money. The clever ones of course picked up an English farmer as well Not me

 

[Landrover]

On the whole people who are jobless/unemployed in my area don't want to work and are better off on the dole/benefits, this is just what I see in my part of the UK ! I am not generalizing ! I understand that in certain parts of the UK it is difficult to find work but when I was young you had no problem getting casual labor, to help cutting lambs, at shearing time, rouging wild oats, hay time, painting round the farm etc, normally these people were blokes who liked a drink and couldn't have a proper job because of that. Nowadays tho those type of folk don't want cash in hand work because they get enougg on there handout to keep them in booze and fags and sky telly , and the country is a worse place for it

 

[arcobob]

That is so true, in the 90's we had Eastern Europeans working for us and they said they would be able to buy a house and a car for one Autumns potato / Veg grading.
The car, they bought here, were all the old Moskvich and Skoda models nobody would touch with a bargepole. The house they bought in their home town for the same sort of money. And they lived mainly on the waste veg they were sorting out! They thought they were rolling in money. The clever ones of course picked up an English farmer as well Not me

This situation is gradually changing within the poorer countries of the EU. Cost of living is inevitably rising and with a fall in the value of the £/Euro their wages are worth less. They will not bother to come here on the same terms as they did whether we stop them or not, it is a natural phenomenon.

 

[7610 super q]

Paid 25p for punnets of Class 1 raspberries. This week at wholesalers.

Its too cheap, get picking rates of pay up a bit, I think people will do it.

Biggest problem is snobbery. We need a culture of pride in working & try to get a way from this "I'm above that type of work".

I have 7 O levels & I'm reasonably well off but I'm happy to harvest crops by hand, why the stigma?

This. Everything was harvested by UK workers up till the Tony Blair years, when everyone had to go to uni to gain an 'olygy. You could see it was a generational thing. Parents happy to work, kids mouched about with baseball caps and fiddled with their phones Meanwhile produce prices remain stuck in the '70's ( along with wages ).
" Slaves " will just have to be sourced from other third world countries, if this is how food production is going to continue.

 

[Exfarmer]

This. Everything was harvested by UK workers up till the Tony Blair years, when everyone had to go to uni to gain an 'olygy. You could see it was a generational thing. Parents happy to work, kids mouched about with baseball caps and fiddled with their phones Meanwhile produce prices remain stuck in the '70's ( along with wages ).
" Slaves " will just have to be sourced from other third world countries, if this is how food production is going to continue.

If there is not a good source of labour the production will be lost to the UK. as it will transfer to countries which do have this. The labour is just not here to do this sort of work.
It is not correct to blame Tony Blair the issues were cropping up far earlier. It was the fall of the Berlin Wall which suddenly saw an explosion of vegetable cropping in the UK. In the East it was widely considered that the industry was dying on its feet unless automation could be found, can you remember X ray harvesters? The consumer was demanding higher and higher standards which could not be matched without huge investment in such machines which really were not available and I doubt would have gained public acceptance today.
Certainly the machines will gradually take over the we know vast moves forwards both in harvesting and packing are happening