Exploitation of EU workers

Fretwired

This is just wrong on so many counts. And people say the EU's free movement has no impact on wages. It obviously does.

From the BBC

Lorry drivers moving goods in Western Europe for Ikea and other retailers are living out of their cabs for months at a time, a BBC investigation has found.

Some drivers - brought over from poorer countries by lorry firms based in Eastern Europe - say their salary is less than three pounds an hour.

They say they cannot afford to live in the countries where they work. One said he felt "like a prisoner" in his cab.

Ikea said it was "saddened by the testimonies" of the drivers.

The drivers the BBC spoke to were employed by haulage companies based in Eastern Europe, which are paid to transport Ikea goods.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39196056

crunchman

This is one of the problems with the EU.  There is too much difference between the rich Northern nations and the poorer Southern and Eastern nations.  You can't have a single trading bloc with that much disparity.  It doesn't help anyone.

When there a million (mostly young and active) Poles here, what does that do for the demographics of Polish society?  It's also driven down wages here, and given us falsely low inflation that has masked all kinds of structural issues.

Leaving won't be a walk in the park but it will be a good thing.

CabbageCat

Fretwired said:

This is just wrong on so many counts. And people say the EU's free movement has no impact on wages. It obviously does.

I'm sure it does impact wages just like a lot of other factors. But £3 an hour isn't bad for most Eastern European countries.

Fretwired

CabbageCat said:

Fretwired said:

This is just wrong on so many counts. And people say the EU's free movement has no impact on wages. It obviously does.

I'm sure it does impact wages just like a lot of other factors. But £3 an hour isn't bad for most Eastern European countries.

But it's below the UK's minimum wage - its slave wages for Polish drivers working in the UK.

skunkwerx

It would take em a day to save up enough to eat over here while on the job!

ESBlonde

I heard this on R4 this morning, they interviewed a driver on €245 a month, but he got €45 a day expenses so up tp €1000 a month extra. living in the cab did him a great service while putting other drivers out of business.
If they insist the eastern Europeans get the same salary rate as the westerners, then the jobs will go back to the Westerners and the poor drivers will be unemployed again.
BTW one of the drivers (Croatian iirc) got something like €160 a month salary and about €10 a day expenses, that is taking the piss. Standard Dutch or Danish drivers were getting €2200 a month salary and got to be home at weekends. The eastern European drivers did seem to have a mini bus option to go home so it's difficult to know if they too are exploiting thier system.  as @Crunchman says there is too much disparity accross the whole EU.

Evilmags

If you put a Western minimum wage in a country where productivity was much lower than the minimum wage it drive unemployment up until only those capable of producing at around the minimum wage level could work. Eastern countries can´t have minimum wages as high as ours because they don´t have the same depth of productivity enhancing capital goods. However all of the people capable of higher levels of production tend to see that they can earn more money elsewhere and move. 

One of the big negatives of the EU in its current format is that it clearly drains the brightest and most productive people from their countries of origin. Most of the Spanish you see waitress or working in Pret in London are graduates, its the village kids with no education that get left behind. So strong countries with employment opportunities like the UK, Germany ect benefit from the movement, but countries in Eastern Europe lose their best people and that slows down their development. 

Roland

That's the most cogent argument I've read against the current form of the EU.

ESBlonde

Roland said:

That's the most cogent argument I've read against the current form of the EU.

Conversely all the North Western countries are funding development in the poorer easert and southern nations, this is one reason why the EU are going to miss the UK as we were a large net contributor and that burdon now falls on the other richer nations. depending on the source of data and interpratation we are in the top 5 payers, so the are 22 behind us many of who get a net receipt.

Heartfeltdawn

Evilmags said:

If you put a Western minimum wage in a country where productivity was much lower than the minimum wage it drive unemployment up until only those capable of producing at around the minimum wage level could work. Eastern countries can´t have minimum wages as high as ours because they don´t have the same depth of productivity enhancing capital goods. However all of the people capable of higher levels of production tend to see that they can earn more money elsewhere and move. 

One of the big negatives of the EU in its current format is that it clearly drains the brightest and most productive people from their countries of origin. Most of the Spanish you see waitress or working in Pret in London are graduates, its the village kids with no education that get left behind. So strong countries with employment opportunities like the UK, Germany ect benefit from the movement, but countries in Eastern Europe lose their best people and that slows down their development. 

A question/ponderings: These people in the EU who see they can earn better money elsewhere move -why is this criticised as brain drain and not held up as an example of the freedom within the EU to have the value of your labour better rewarded than if you stayed at home? 

-If one were to ban workers from Spain moving abroad, this retaining the best workers, is that not rather protectionist and 'anti-freedom'? 

Cirrus

This must be why the man on the street in Sunderland voted for Leave - a concern for the working conditions of eastern European truck drivers. Why didn't they just say? 

CabbageCat

I'm not really sure how wage legislation works for people whose business traverses country boundaries. If someone who lived outside of the the EU (say Switzerland) was employed by a company also outside the EU to transport goods from France to the UK, whose salary laws would he be subject to? And what if he and his employer were both from the EU (say Bulgaria)?

Emp_Fab

"I don't give a fyück about lorry drivers or chinese sweatshops.... 

 LOOK ! - They've got 'WANKA' Wardrobes made from compressed

dust for 99p !! - outta my fyücking way !"

Fretwired

Spot on @Emp_Fab ..... don't you just love globalisation ...

Fretwired

Cirrus said:

This must be why the man on the street in Sunderland voted for Leave - a concern for the working conditions of eastern European truck drivers. Why didn't they just say? 

  Because we can't understand a word they say ... :-)

hotpot

Things haven't changed much in decades, I remember European drivers asking for spare change at truck stops/motorway services to buy food in the 1980's when I was driving trucks.

Evilmags

Heartfeltdawn said:

Evilmags said:

If you put a Western minimum wage in a country where productivity was much lower than the minimum wage it drive unemployment up until only those capable of producing at around the minimum wage level could work. Eastern countries can´t have minimum wages as high as ours because they don´t have the same depth of productivity enhancing capital goods. However all of the people capable of higher levels of production tend to see that they can earn more money elsewhere and move. 

One of the big negatives of the EU in its current format is that it clearly drains the brightest and most productive people from their countries of origin. Most of the Spanish you see waitress or working in Pret in London are graduates, its the village kids with no education that get left behind. So strong countries with employment opportunities like the UK, Germany ect benefit from the movement, but countries in Eastern Europe lose their best people and that slows down their development. 

A question/ponderings: These people in the EU who see they can earn better money elsewhere move -why is this criticised as brain drain and not held up as an example of the freedom within the EU to have the value of your labour better rewarded than if you stayed at home? 

-If one were to ban workers from Spain moving abroad, this retaining the best workers, is that not rather protectionist and 'anti-freedom'? 

I think from an individual´s point of view you are absolutely right and were I from those countries I would move. It is down to the states concerned to create the conditions for development, opportunity and employment that encourages people to stay. Id a nation is losing its population then it is failing. It is not the fault of relatively well run countries that other countries are badly run and create an outpouring of human misery. People are always going to act in their self interest and being unable to feed yourself in Spain makes being a Pret Barrista more attractive than living off Granny's chick peas at home, even if you have a decent degree and 10 years ago expected to be a professional. 

To the countries concerned, however, the flip side is that they will evolve more slowly. And it costs their states a lot of money. Every doctor and nurse from eastern Europe working in the UK was not trained by the UK taxpayer. Massive advantage to the UK treasury. A bit of a pisser for all the taxpayers abroad who are getting less of a quality medical service because the best doctors left. Now while you and I probably both understand that net net immigration is good for the UK economy, it is fairly clear that large parts of the working and lower middle classes are anything but. Spain is no different. Migrants get no problems in cosmopolitan cities but if your a North African picking fruit or olives don´t expect the village boys to treat you well.

Now, the last thing anybody, anywhere needs is a Marianne Le Penn gaining significant influence. UKIP appear to be disappearing up their own bottoms in the UK and May, for all her faults is the right side of sanity. UKIPs size and respectability killed the BNP and the Tories acceptance of Brexit will probably do the same for UKIP. May knows that the ideal is to get immigration to a level that feeds the economy but does not stir up the slow of thinking.

Likewise people like Victor Orban and Pablo Iglesias are hardly conductive to the general well being of Europe. Yet the departure of hundreds of thousands of people to other countries (who would not be likely to vote for them were they at home) increases the political and economic risk in those countries. 

Evilmags

CabbageCat said:

I'm not really sure how wage legislation works for people whose business traverses country boundaries. If someone who lived outside of the the EU (say Switzerland) was employed by a company also outside the EU to transport goods from France to the UK, whose salary laws would he be subject to? And what if he and his employer were both from the EU (say Bulgaria)?

If Ikea (Bulgaria ltd) Employ a Bulgarian resident he is governed by Bulgarian employment laws. Each country has a specific period after which residency laws become applicable. So if he was more than 90 days a year in the UK he could in theory apply for UK residence and pay his tax here, at which point he´d have UK employment laws. And get sacked.

Heartfeltdawn

Evilmags said:

I think from an individual´s point of view you are absolutely right and were I from those countries I would move. It is down to the states concerned to create the conditions for development, opportunity and employment that encourages people to stay. Id a nation is losing its population then it is failing. It is not the fault of relatively well run countries that other countries are badly run and create an outpouring of human misery. People are always going to act in their self interest and being unable to feed yourself in Spain makes being a Pret Barrista more attractive than living off Granny's chick peas at home, even if you have a decent degree and 10 years ago expected to be a professional. 

To the countries concerned, however, the flip side is that they will evolve more slowly. And it costs their states a lot of money. Every doctor and nurse from eastern Europe working in the UK was not trained by the UK taxpayer. Massive advantage to the UK treasury. A bit of a pisser for all the taxpayers abroad who are getting less of a quality medical service because the best doctors left. Now while you and I probably both understand that net net immigration is good for the UK economy, it is fairly clear that large parts of the working and lower middle classes are anything but. Spain is no different. Migrants get no problems in cosmopolitan cities but if your a North African picking fruit or olives don´t expect the village boys to treat you well.

Now, the last thing anybody, anywhere needs is a Marianne Le Penn gaining significant influence. UKIP appear to be disappearing up their own bottoms in the UK and May, for all her faults is the right side of sanity. UKIPs size and respectability killed the BNP and the Tories acceptance of Brexit will probably do the same for UKIP. May knows that the ideal is to get immigration to a level that feeds the economy but does not stir up the slow of thinking.

Likewise people like Victor Orban and Pablo Iglesias are hardly conductive to the general well being of Europe. Yet the departure of hundreds of thousands of people to other countries (who would not be likely to vote for them were they at home) increases the political and economic risk in those countries. 

Getting the balance right between allowing individuals the right to seek rewards elsewhere and developing their native land is difficult. Within the EU, it's been too much tilted toward individual reward elsewhere at the expense of development at home, the sort of conditions which lead to the rise of more extreme right and left wing factions.

I'm not sure if Le Pen gaining influence will be the end of days. It might actually provide a rallying point, something for people of all political strands to come together against. Political unity has been in very short supply over the years around the globe. The brief NIC policy change stood out as the first time there was real opposition party unity. Many feared the BNP would rise once given greater media coverage and they blew up. Now Trump was thought to be the same, expose him and he will blow, but he's governed by someone who knows the media in Bannon: it's unlikely Le Pen will have someone with his abilities watching over her and the party. 
 
Freedom versus development... it's a thoughtful one. Perhaps some countries would be best served with a very protectionist regime for a few years.