Russian Women Discussion
RWD Discussion Groups => Odds and Ends => Topic started by: Boethius on October 04, 2020, 03:40:10 PM
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This is an interesting interview by Jeff Rubin, a Canadian economist, based on his book. It touches on Trump, Brexit, and history.
http://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-63-the-current/clip/15798459-economist-jeff-rubin-globalization-the-expendables (http://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-63-the-current/clip/15798459-economist-jeff-rubin-globalization-the-expendables)
This post was composed without the aid of google.
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The Expendables
I saw the movie.
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This is an interesting interview by Jeffrey Rubin, a Canadian economist, based on his book. It touches on Trump, Brexit, and history.
Mr Ruben was TOTALLY inaccurate re Polish workers in the UK being exempt from minimum wage exploitation... If he could be SO inaccurate about THAT ... made me wonder as to his sensationalism.
On my travels, until recently, I thought I was ( largely ) seeing emerging middle classes.
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Not according to Polish newspapers. There are many (anecdotal) stories of Poles being paid less than UK citizens for the same work. It's a cascading effect - Ukrainian workers in Poland have the same complaint.
This post was composed without the aid of google.
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Not according to Polish newspapers. There are many (anecdotal) stories of Poles being paid less than UK citizens for the same work. It's a cascading effect - Ukrainian workers in Poland have the same complaint.
Good morning, Boethius
The FACT is that Polish workers may have worked for less, but they are still entitled to be treated as UK ( as are any EU citizens) workers and the same min.wage entitlements.
Before COVID-19, my bro was having problems getting construction tradesmen for less than £250 /day...
Hence MY claim of sensationalism
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Moby,
there may be a difference between a polish worker brought to the UK to work for a UK construction firm and UK construction jobs subcontracted to Polish firms who send their workers to the UK.
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Moby,
there may be a difference between a polish worker brought to the UK to work for a UK construction firm and UK construction jobs subcontracted to Polish firms who send their workers to the UK.
Not for their legal rights to a min. wage.
Self employed people in the UK are not covered by min.wage.
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I believe there's a few things in play here.
1) Polish workers in the Uk, working for large business get paid exactly the same as a local would, for doing the same job. Think Tesco etc.
2) Smaller employers offering non-skilled work will offer lower wages and often its only the Eastern Europeans who will work for that money. Locals generally feel that they're worth more living in a country with a good welfare state and in some cases can earn more living ooff government hand outs.
3) Poles who work for themselves often undercut local trades and work for less voluntarily. This annoys many local trades people and of course this isn't across the board but its common place throughout the UK.
Looking at the points above, simply saying Polish people in the UK get paid less, is a sensationalist headline. It's like saying men get paid more than women because they're men, which is also untrue.
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This study concludes that EU immigration depressed the wages of low skill workers in the UK by about 5%.
http://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/741926/Final_EEA_report.PDF (http://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/741926/Final_EEA_report.PDF)
The Bank of England came to the same conclusion, for both EU immigrants and non EU immigrants.
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/working-paper/2015/the-impact-of-immigration-on-occupational-wages-evidence-from-britain.pdf (http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/working-paper/2015/the-impact-of-immigration-on-occupational-wages-evidence-from-britain.pdf)
Jeff Rubin was not saying that Polish workers all get paid less than locals. What he said was the following:
JR: Why did Boris Johnson win the biggest majority, conservative majority since Margaret Thatcher? Because a whole slew of ridings in northern England that used to always vote Labour because they were working class voted Conservative in the same way that American autoworkers voted for Donald Trump.
MG: And part of that is not about saying these other people are coming and taking your jobs. I can get your jobs back by making sure those other people aren't here. J
JR: It's absolutely about the Polish plumber and all the posted workers in the EU coming to the UK who are exempt from minimum wage requirements. Who do you think supports those policies? Is it a surprise that employers unions support those policies? Is it a surprise that the Business Council on National Issues want a double migration? I mean, Andrew Carnegie, one of the robber barons in the 19th century, referred to immigrants as a stream of gold. You think that he was being motivated by his concern to help the less fortunate in the rest of the world? Or did he perhaps have less altruistic motivations for holding that view?
He is referring to political rhetoric, and how that fueled a particular narrative. But, this is the only paragraph in the entire interview about the UK. His main point is that the middle class has not seen wage growth in North America since the 1970's, account for 20% less of total spending now, and are viewed as "expendable" by the 1%. His other point is that this leads to political upheaval, as it did in the interwar period.
Google was used to obtain the above two links.
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Hi Boethius,
1/ EU workers did reduce daily rates. Not an issue for employers or consumers.
2/ They most DEFO could not be paid below the min. wage...They quickly cottoned on to that.
3/ Boris did win over the 'red wall' by making bogus promises.
4/ The UK ( according to Boris) is going to be independent of 'Globalism'.......
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A little bit off the main thrust here, but . . .
Regarding the last three houses built in my small development . . .
First framing crew consisted entirely of workers from Guatemala headed by a Guatemalan man with very good English skills.
Second framing crew consisted entirely of Chinese workers headed by a Chinese man with very good English skills.
Third framing crew consisted entirely of Nicaraguan workers headed by a Nicaraguan man with very good English skills.
These crews are all subcontractors hired by the general contractor. General contractor has no control over the wages paid to the individuals or their working hours and conditions.
But the general contractors say they much prefer to hire these subcontractors because they will do virtually anything the generals ask regarding time deadlines, a suddenly shortened timeline, etc.
I suspect many of these guys are here illegally, that they bunk 10 to an apartment, etc.
Even so, the cost of construction keeps rising due to rising costs of materials and now there are developing severe shortages of some materials during this Covid time.
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UK workers are very cheap compared to Denmark and US.
We have to report our mean and median wage details being a public company. Our Aerospace and Defense businesses in UK are 60% cheaper on base compensation compared to US and about 70% cheaper than Denmark.
Even with oil and gas its 40% cheaper in UK than US.
I am referring to company cost of labor. Its mixed with 50% direct type worker and 25% engineering types, and 25% indirect / mgt roles.
That being said we find that 2 US workers do the work of 3.2 UK workers. Number of Holidays, vacation days, hours at work, etc. Its not that US workers are much better.
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UK workers are very cheap compared to Denmark and US.
Our Aerospace and Defense businesses in UK are 60% cheaper on base compensation compared to US and about 70% cheaper than Denmark.
Are you sure you don't mean that UK workers cost 60% of USA workers ? Even that seems too low, but 60% cheaper sounds way out of line.