(Written 25/2/2010)
Did anyone else see this interesting and entertaining documentary tonight? It was set in Wisbech, where unemployment is 40% above the national average and there are a fair few immigrants around.
It started with a few vox pops repeating the same boneheaded nonsense you hear quite a lot - "There's no jobs, because the immigrants have taken them all", "I feel like a stranger in my own country" - all the usual botty water.
So the BBC arranged for several local businesses to give one or two of their foreign staff a couple of days off, and advertised for local people to fill in for them. They managed to identify twelve potential workers, and off we went.
It didn't start well, to be blunt. Of the three people who were taken on at the local potato factory, two arrived half an hour late and the third called in sick. I should say, texted in sick. At midnight, and the thrust of his text was "Just got in. I'm feeling really sick" which rather revealed the cause of the illness. The other two, deprived of their team member, were then inducted and set to work packing bags of potatos, assisted by one of the experienced foreign workers. "His name's Yuri..." "Oh, well, that's me buggered, then... oi'll call him Bill" was the response of one of the locals, who clearly did not speak any foreign language and wasn't about to start now. Having been told that it might be more appropriate if he called Yuri by his actual name, the team started work, putting twelve bags of potatos in trays and loading them on a large trolley.
Within hours, they'd stopped a production line. A quality controller had found that, while the team may have had many hidden talents, counting up to twelve wasn't one of them. So their line was stopped while they rechecked all the trays they'd loaded. "Call him Bill" wasn't happy that he and the other local had been singled out for criticism, "'Cos there was three of us on the team. I mean, it might not be our fault, there was three of us..." he muttered, glowering darkly in the direction of Yuri.
At the Indian restaurant, things started well. The four sent to work there all arrived and were shown how to make basic curries, chop onions, take orders and so on. They all seemed pretty keen, one going so far as to say "Well, I've learned something today!" with a satisfied grin. And so, the foreign four were told to take the next couple of days off and the locals prepared to get their hands spicy on the morrow.
Tragically, sickness once again visited... only one returned. Two down with food poisoning, one with a sick girlfriend that he'd had to take to hospital, so the survivor was set to waiting duties. Which he found somewhat difficult - "How am I supposed to know how to spell dansak?" (Just a guess, but by reading the menu, perhaps?)
The hopeful waiter had to take a couple of fag breaks during his shift simply to keep his nerve. It didn't work, half way through the shift he handed in his notice.
Over at the asparagus farm, which the Angel of Death had forgotten to visit, they had a full complement of three locals, who were being told how to harvest the crop - "If the stalk is this high, cut it and put it in your basket." For each kilo harvested, they would earn 38p. Off went the foreigns, darting thither and yon, while the locals went a little slower. "Blimey", one said peering into the middle distance, "He's at the end of the row already." A darting dot, hundreds of yards away, confirmed his observation.
After an hour or two, the field supervisor (foreign) had clearly had enough, and came over to offer some tactful advice, viz, "You have to work faster". Now, there are several ways to respond to such advice, taking it being the most obvious one. The local had a slightly less effective response - "I'm taking a break!", he bellowed, walking away from his clearly baffled supervisor. Sitting against the back of a 4x4 and smoking a roll-up, he explained to the camera "I had to walk away, otherwise I'd have lamped him" - a turn of phrase that would have baffled his supervisor even more.
At the final workplace, a local carpenter was set to work erecting plasterboard in a house. At the end of the day, the boss brought one of his foreign workers round to inspect the work in progress. Several deficiencies were noted, which didn't go down well - "He criticised me to my face, while I was there!" was the outraged yelp of the local tradesman. "OK, wait until I've gone... but while I was there!" I imagine his school reports probably contained the note "Does not respond to criticism well."
Some of the encounters ended well, though. The two chaps at the potato factory did much better on their second day. Their superviser told them that they could apply for a job there anytime. The carpenter was taken on for the rest of the job, and had a few weeks employment. Oh, and the waiter, having handed in his notice, was sat down, offered a menu and told to order anything he wanted, on the house.
The Asparagus Three had picked so little that the farmer had to cough up £50 just to make their pay up to minimum wage.
Amongst all this, Evan Davis made a few telling points - like when an area experiences a large number of immigrants, local services need time to catch up, and there is some truth when people say that they can't get a doctors appointment because the surgery is full of foreigns. It's not, but when a towns population swells, each surgery has to cope with more people, and there are only so many appointments available. Same goes for other services, like housing, dentists and the like.
He also talked to the jolliest school Head I've ever seen, in an infants school where tinies who spoke not one word of English had to be accommodated, sometimes at short order - "The family lands at Heathrow on Wednesday night and we get the children on Thursday morning". Evan suggested that this might adversely affect the education of the local children, at which she bristled like a badger. "NO! Never! If anything, local children gain from it!" To illustrate her point, the cameras went into a classroom, where all the children were being taught what I remember as "describing words". "I am 'happy'" said a teacher, pointing to a smiley face. "How are you?", pointing to a child. "I am happy", replied the grinning kid. They're all learning a language...
Davis also went to the local Jobcentre, where he looked at the vacancies for unskilled labour. There were a few, although the pay was minimum wage and the jobs were not terribly nice. Not all the opportunities had been stolen by the immigrants, then.
On a superficial level, it would be very easy to sneer at the jobless boneheads of Wisbech. Indeed, I hope you've had an entertaining minute or so while I've done so. The fact is, though, that signing off from benefits to take advantage of a short-term contract to harvest a crop, or renovate a house, then signing on again is difficult, and can bring serious cashflow problems. Coin operated electricity meters don't understand "I'll get the giro next week", or "I have to work a week before I get paid." Nor do supermarkets, and if you have children to feed and keep warm, a stable income is vital, even if it's benefit based.
It's also a fact that cheap labour keeps many industries in business, and if such a pool were not available, they'd either go under or bring in more automation. The asparagus farmer made it plain - if he couldn't get people willing to work very quickly for 38p a kilo, he couldn't turn a profit. As for the potato factory manager, he could buy robots that could count to twelve, but people were cheaper. In both cases, it seems that the jobs that immigrants "stole" only exist because the immigrants are available.
In the coming election, I'm hoping to hear how politicians who rage against immigration intend to re-can these worms.
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