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From The Times

August 31, 2007

An apple picker’s pay? That’ll keep Brits away

Melanie McDonagh

Those of us who are in touch with the rhythm of the seasons, courtesy of our weekly foray to the farmers’ market, will know that the English apple season is under way. Alas, the harvest is great but the labourers are few. The National Farmers’ Union on behalf of the fruit farmers is complaining that there aren’t enough Eastern Europeans to pick them. The problem is Home Office restrictions on the number of East Europeans, chiefly Romanians and Bulgarians, who are allowed into Britain under the seasonal agricultural workers’ scheme: the NFU wants it increased from 16,000 to 24,000. Meanwhile, there aren’t enough Poles to go round.

Which brings me to David Cameron’s new take on immigration. Under a Tory government there would be a yearly quota on the numbers of people allowed into Britain from outside the European Union, based on employers’ estimates of skills shortages. Mr Cameron also wants a “transitional period” before people from future EU entrant nations are allowed here. Actually, there is already one –– seven years –– but the Government simply chose not to invoke it when Poland joined the EU.

But when we talk about a “skills shortage” we are deluding ourselves. There are any number of highly trained specialists among the 700,000 Eastern Europeans who have come here since the EU expansion, but the number includes rather more fruit pickers, factory workers, meat canners, hotel cleaners and street cleaners (one poor Pole in Kensington High Street has to hoover up all those bits of gum discarded on the pavement).

In short, we’re not talking about skills so much as a willingness to engage in hard, low-paid, seasonal and unglamorous work. The real question is: why are British people, out of the eight million classed as economically inactive, not lining up as apple pickers? There have always been foreign agricultural labourers (like Irish potato pickers) but why do farmers need Bulgars for jobs that are accessible to anyone who can ascend a ladder?

I asked the apple seller at the Notting Hill farmers’ market where his pickers came from, He had Ukrainians, Romanians, you name ’em, he said, and very good they were. And what about Brits? His face darkened. “They just don’t want the work,” he said.

Similarly, when I was staying with a friend who farms in Suffolk, she too said that the only labour she could get round about was retired people. An NFU spokesman confirmed that farmers would love to have locals but they don’t seem keen.

In short, when ministers tell us that we are in a new era of highly skilled, high-tech employment to see off the Chinese, they’re not telling the whole truth. We still need people to do manual labour. Trouble is, the Brits can’t and won’t do it.

I googled Polish apple pickers as inspiration for my coursework and came up with this. I read through all the comments and it appears that people feel very angry about this, there are a number of factors why the situation is what it is I feel that
Tony G, Harrogate,
When the next recession comes, and two million are unemployed, there will be no shortage of people willing to do manual labour.
comment is the most reasonable one, countries have fazes and ups and downs, all things will pass, things will change no point stirring up a lot of anger and discomfort in the time being.

Kate Holland, BOA,

Do the Brit's you refer to include the millions of migrants allowed in over the last 40 years or are you aiming your scorn at the indigenous white, soon to be minority, majority. Todays willing unskilled worker is tomorrows unemployed unskilled worker because employers are using agency provided cheap and less regulated labour. Nothing to do with a willingness to work, all to do with corrupt employment practices and the lucrative housing scams of managers tasked with recruiting from abroad. I've seen it in action and 6 to 8 Polish taxi drivers in a terrace house can be a poweful incentive to a manager of an agency or taxi firm.

Terry Nicholas, Radstock, England

The big thing is if I am on the dole and two weeks work turns up I have to sign off, then when the work finishes, reapply for benefit before I can start signing on again. Any money I have earnt is deducted from any benefits, and must be used to suport me whilst waiting for my application to be considered and in that process my reasons for stopping work are questioned and honesty doubted. On top of that, if the money I have accepted is less than the amount I said I need this becomes my new minimum. Since we can both add up, I'll ask you what would you do? You'd hold out for something suitable, especially if the job on offer looks a bit unpleasant to start with or the employer looks dubious i.e. a Del-boy style entrepreneur on the make. Anyway the suitable work never turns up and employers decide you are simply workshy or overeducated for the job. Don't stop the benefits - claim them back off with my taxes at the end of the year/through PAYE and maybe I will try things out

K Williams, Milton Keynes,

I'm not sure that attendance of farmers' markets qualifies one as 'in touch with the rhythm of the seasons'.

Kevin Smith, London, England

A nice corollary of your argument is that when the world gets rich enough (though it take 500 years) we will never again eat apples, because everyone will have better things to do. Apple lovers had better hope there are some poor Martians out there. Or maybe the price of apples will rise until people want to pick them again.

Daniel Lucraft, Wimbledon,

Many Brits seem to think they're too good to do manual work, preferring instead to work behind a desk in a posh office. What they forget is that they have very little in the way of skills so when there's a downturn/recession, they're the ones you read about under 'City Jobs Slashed'.

You can sit and talk about last night's telly for only so long...

John, London, UK

when was the last time you got you went a labouring?

marko, leiden, netherlands

I'm not sure what the dole is, but I guess its about Â£90 a week for singles?

If so, a 50 hour apple picking week would earn me about Â£265. I know if I had to make the choice, I'd choose to get off my fat British butt and do the work instead of settling for the pittance that is the dole.

Then again, I'm not British.

mac, london,

It's a bit rich in my opinion for some middle-class journalist safely ensconced behind the safety of her deskbound job to lecture others on their unwillingness to do hard, poorly-paid manual labour. you first.

henry smith, London,

I don't really think you've got the hang of economics. Surely if all vacancies are filled, the wealth produced will lead to corporate expansion and more vacancies. It's a perpetual cycle. Vacancies are necessary to a healthy society. A labour shortage also stops wages falling.

The problem you're talking about is demographic. Finding affordable accommodation in the countryside and a wage to pay the rent is alomst impossible for most people.

Lawrence, Liverpool, England

Warne's Top 50
Regrettably, I have concluded that any bias towards Australians in this list is caused by the fact that most of the World's top 50 cricketers are Australian. If only the bias towards the English were similarly explicable.

John Coles, Yeovil, Somerset

The unemployed should not be asked what they 'want to do 'they should be 'told what to do'. People should not be paid to sit on their rear end.

Robert Miles, southend, uk

Raising the level at which Brits start to pay income tax and reducing benefits would incentivise and motivate. In other words stick and carrot. At the moment it seems all carrots. Why work if you can get money for doing nothing? 205 of households living osolely n benfits id unsustainable.
Meanwhile pensioners who have worked all thier lives get a pittance. Go figure

carole chapman, corridonia , italy

Once again Cameron jumps in with both feet without thinking the issue thru only to try and improve his position in the polls.His attack on hard working Polish workers is unjustified.When i moved to Cornwall 16 years ago it had very high unemployment rate that is not the problem any longer.
There is a shortage of labour,without the Eastern Europeans picking daffidils,vegetables,making pasties,working in hotels,shops etc and skilled workers in Falmouth Shipyards and the building industry the Cornish economy would suffer and many small companies would go to the wall.Cameron tries to grab headlines without considering the damge that it will do long term.These Polish workers are in Cornwall due to shortage of skills and the local labour who dont want the kind of manual labour work in all weathers. Mr Cameron there is life outside of Witney and the Costwolds.Pay a visit sometime but dont fly down like you did last year!!

Bill Rees, TRURO, CORNWALL

Quite and Melanie, after you have finished cleaning my toilet and cleaning and dusting and bleaching and mopping my kitchen, you can take Algenon Cressinda to school, then do the shopping, tidy the garden, pick them up and all whilst I sit on my posterior at the Times...

Oh and I'll even pay you the minimum wage for this...

Pete Balchin, Solicitor , Bristol, UK

Why don't we give manual labourers more money (less tax) and tax the stockbrokers more. I will shut the door on my way out.

Mark, Newton-le-willows,

Some people, especially among the chattering classes, have short memories or are perhaps too young to remember. When the next recession comes, and two million are unemployed, there will be no shortage of people willing to do manual labour. Perhaps Melanie thinks recessions belong to the last century?

Tony G, Harrogate,

You don't mind talking about manual labour there Melanie, but one wonders if you have ever, in your entire life lifted a finger. You and your farmer friends must find it a dreadful bore that your 'help' has such a poor grasp of English. My thoughts are with you during this trying time...

Dan, London,

How can people and commentators applaud Gordon Brown intellectual capbility when as Chancellor he imposed a tax and benefit regime that is anti-aspirational and dis-incentivises work.

That is why Brits are not willing to work in lower paid menial jobs.

By showing willingness to work and take responsibility rather than hand-outs such work can be the first step on the ladder to something more. The foreign worker realise this. The Brits just want it all on a plate, and now!

Darrin, Egham, UK

"And what about Brits? His face darkened. â€œThey just donâ€™t want the work,â€ he said. "

Why spend 40 hours a week doing hard manual labour when you spend your entire week drunk and drugged in your free house.

Those 8 million inactive people should be reporting to the local benefit office at 6am every weekday where they're given a job for the day.
Be it cleaning vomit up from the pub streets, picking apples or digging ditches.

Those who dont turn up, dont get dole.

Watch the unemployment numbers fall.
Well actualy, dont, because such a simple obvious workable scheme would no doubt breach any number of human rights....

Dominic, Manchester, UK

There has never been a shortage of people prepared to do a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. What you won't find are people willing to do a hard day's work for peanuts - unless of course they're desperate, like Ukranians, Romanians, Poles etc.. Does this really need spelling out?

Ken Leyland, Liverpool, U.K.

the phrase ivory towers springs to mind.give it a try for a week melanie.minimum wage is Â£5.35 an hour and i guess thats all the farmer wants to pay.if he wants his apples picked and cant get workers at this rate he should pay more and if he cannot afford to do this perhaps his business isnt viable.

nathan, leicester, uk

A few ideas: - reduce welfare and people will be forced to work - a common theme among columnists at the moment, but unintended consequences abound (just what we need - greater income division and child poverty). - increase pay - hard to see how this could happen without increasing prices, raising import levies and cutting immigration. Apples grow perfectly well abroad, where labour is cheaper. If consumers want a domestic food industry they have to be willing to pay for it. And as long as we have immigrants willing to work for less than locals, farmers will hire them. - increase glamour - sell a stint on the farm as a Kibbutz-style lifestyle choice. Gap students and Guardian readers might even pay for the pleasure.

Munin, Edinburgh,

Increasing the labour supply at the unskilled end of the market is all about making goods cheaper for consumers (generally that is anyone who is not working in unskilled labour). It allows large companies to increase their profit margins while lowering prices at the same time. However, IF the supply of unskilled labour were more limited, then market forces would dictate that a toilet cleaner, for instance, would earn more money. This would immediately create less disparity between rich and poor.
(Don't you think all those bankers would suddenly start sweating if we suddenly let in another half a million of them!?!?) Of course, the problem with all this is that global capital flows dictate that international companies will invest wherever they can make the most money. The unskilled classes have already felt this chill-wind. The American and other middle classes are now slowly disappearing too. Slavery of some description is alive and well in many parts of the world.

Rob, Paris, France

Could it possibly have anything to do with the farmers' desire to pay their fruit-pickers less than the minimum wage and not put them through the tax system to reduce costs? Non-EU citizens would be easier to exploit than a local since they need visas, don't know their rights, may not speak good English and can be charged for acommodation (a common trick with agricultural labourers where they are paid abysmally and then overcharged for on-farm accommodation, usually a barn).

A local, on the other hand, knows his right to the minimum wage and any overtime. There are less exploitative ways to earn 200 quid a week than backbreaking farm work - at the moment anyway. Also, few young people can afford to live and work in rural areas anymore s they're priced out by holiday-home owners.

MB, Edinburgh,

The problem is not laziness on the part of the British: it is more to do with aspirations and goals, and the inequality between cost of living in the UK and eastern Europe.

To explain: Poles come to Britain to do low grade jobs because they know it is not forever. They can earn the money, live ten to a house for three years, then go back to Poland and live a comfortable, relatively well-off existence, maybe buy their own house or afford a bigger apartment or set up a little business with their funds. They are not condemned to living a life in the UK bound by the wages of their fruit-picking work -- which means a hand-to-mouth existence if you wish to start a family or get out of social housing. However, Brits are -- unless they emigrate to Poland of course.

This is the problem. Not laziness.

Alex, Leeds,

The schoolchildren wandering round with guns in Liverpool could pick apples during their summer holidays. It would give them a little money for teenage luxuries as well as teaching them the value of it. Probably they would enjoy the break from the sink estate.
Of course legislation designed to protect children makes this impossible, whilst simulataneously failing to provide real protection.

Malcolm McLean, Bradford, UK

There are some Brits who prepared to do this sort of work. Trouble is, they're all doing it in Shepparton in Victoria and the Hunter Valley in N.S.W. I bet Bulgaria is full of grape growers whinging about lazy locals. If you're prepared to do this sort of work, you probably think " I might as well do it somewhere more interesting than where I grew up ". And in the case of Victoria and NSW - warmer.
So there's [y]our problem.

James , Canberra, Australia.

Another reason is the perception that the pay is dreadful for backbreaking work on farms.
Factor in also the notion that what wages are obtained are then depleted by the cut to the gang organiser.
Go figure.

Francesco, London.,

If you have a successful education system you can't have manual workers.If everyone has 5 A Grades at A Level then the only jobs they will accept are the ones with six figure salaries and a Porsche. Look at any third world country where education has been successful.The cities are full of people whose qualifications have lifted them out of the villages into permanent unemployment (and often crime). It will become worse here - the government is committed to 'education,education,education'. For what? As a country we now do nothing but eat posh meals, drive posh cars and wear posh clothes. But we are all too educated to make the cars or the clothes - and as for serving meals, well that's just too demeaning darling.

eric campbell, harrogate, uk

The same situation exists here in NZ. You don't see fields full of pea pickers or potato pickers any more so the fruit growers should either find a way to mechanize or grow something else, like wheat. Alternatively they could offer pay rates that people would not turn their noses up at.

R. Sykes, Christchurch, New Zealand

After university I spent a year cycling in New Zealand and Australia in 1995 and did a season of apple picking in New Zealand to fund my travels for a bit longer. There were quite a locals who worked picking or packing apples albeit a bit reluctantly. They told me that they had no choice as they would not receive state benefits during the apple season as there was work for all who wanted it. Perhaps we could implement this policy in areas where there is abundant seasonalswork available.
Incidently, I found apple picking quite a pleaseant job and as we were paid by how much we picked it was easy enough to earn approximately Â£50-Â£80 per day for 8 hours hard work once you got the knack of it.

Iain Martin, Dundee, Angus

It is not economically viable, the wages received for seasonal agricultural work will not cover the mortgage, council tax, running a vehicle (essential for this sort of work ,rural bus services do not run at 4.30a.m.), etc. The bureaucratic nonsense,(tax, national insurance, benefit adjustment nightmares) that accompanies this sort of piece work no where near justifies the pitiful amount of money we get for doing it. Same for spuds, peas, tomatoes etc. No pension scheme, no perks, no health & safety,outdoors in all weathers, long hours,crap management attitudes, no shelter in bad weather for the tea break.
Get the idea now?
Put some of you paper pushers out there & you wouldn't last a day due to the physical nature of this sort of work.

sarah, wellington, England

One reason why British people on the dole don't want to do something like apple-picking is that they would be insane to try. Imagine the hassle. They would have to make repeated visits and fill out endless forms at the benefit office, and whatever money they made would promptly be taken by the state. The hassle factor alone is enough to explain why people sit at home. It's not wicked, bad or irrational -- it is the natural human instinct not to do something that is pointless and troublesome.

Roger Pearse, Ipswich, Suffolk

The reason is our generous welfare system. Too many of what used to be the 'working class' find it more beneficial to moonlight while receiving state handouts. We will never solve the problem of welfare abuse until the political parties get together and devise a benefit system which incentivises work

George Willis, Maryport, Cumbria, England

Trouble is, we Brits in current employment who would like to earn some extra cash have to pay income tax. And those not in work lose their benefits. Simple really...

AB, Hampshire, UK