150 Rumanians arrive for fruit and veg picking.
- Thread starter FrenchieBoy
- Start date
Well in my previous life I used to book a room in an hotel and factor in to interview 8 people a day. If I was lucky 4 would turn up and 3 just wanted me to sign the form to say they had attended for their benefits to carry on!
The job on offer was a vehicle, uniform and full training. Yes there was a certain amount of being on call, but the rewards were good. Glad I’m retired and don’t have to worry about providing a service to customers. Let alone feed them!
So I can see the farmers dilemma when people would have to bend there backs and do a days graft. It’s no surprise to me the brits don’t want to know. The sofas are made to soft and comfortable.
The farmers are paying for the flights. Hopefully the cost won’t be to horrific at the till, when it’s time to pay.
Rgds
RS
The job on offer was a vehicle, uniform and full training. Yes there was a certain amount of being on call, but the rewards were good. Glad I’m retired and don’t have to worry about providing a service to customers. Let alone feed them!
So I can see the farmers dilemma when people would have to bend there backs and do a days graft. It’s no surprise to me the brits don’t want to know. The sofas are made to soft and comfortable.
The farmers are paying for the flights. Hopefully the cost won’t be to horrific at the till, when it’s time to pay.
Rgds
RS
levigsp
Well-Known Member
BBC, ITV etc for two or three days they were banging on about it. If you have been laid of work with the 80% wage pay,you can work on a farm and be paid for it without deductions!
While I agree there are plenty that could do this work, there are a few other issues, location and transport for one. Most farms are not on public transport routes and so if you don't have your own transport you can't get too and from work (migrant workers usually live on site), my other gripe is the agencies lots profit more from migrants than locals
AN DU RU FOX
Well-Known Member
Never heard a thing here till yesterday! ,to days public dont give a monkeys about farmers or their crops, they just see them as people driving around in R/R and other 4x4s or in 100s of thousand pound tractors ,they have grown up with the outdated view that everyone that lives or works on a farm is thicker than school blancmange and couldn,t care less, they wont put their phones down long enough to pick a lettuce ,and believe that they come from makcrap ds.
FrenchieBoy
Well-Known Member
Further to my post #26 here is a photo of the orchard that the wife and I planted (All by hand) during February some years back. We were on "piece work rates" and planted some 1200 apple trees in about a fortnight. The work included driving the stakes in, digging the holes for the young trees, back filling the holes, tying the trees to the stakes and putting rabbit protection in place. The only mechanisation we used was the Manitou (Which the wife often drove) for fetching the pallets of stakes and the bunches of young trees. It was hard back breaking work where we really did earn our money but very satisfying when the job was completed and we could see the end result.
The first photo shows the orchard a little while after we had finished.
The bonus from doing a good job and working hard was that the farmer (Who has been a very good friend since) used to give me a box or two of cartridges every now and then to "control the rabbits" in the blackcurrant fields and apple orchards (as per the second photo) - And I am still welcome to go there if I wanted to in order to shoot as many rabbits as I would like to!
It was not unusual in those days for us to go out to work in the morning after preparing a rabbit stew in the slow cooker and setting it on low so we had a good hot hearty meal to come home from work to!
Hey, looking at the second photo (Which is not a very good one) I knew how to camo up back in the days when I still had hair on my head rather than just growing out of my nose and ears
!
The first photo shows the orchard a little while after we had finished.
The bonus from doing a good job and working hard was that the farmer (Who has been a very good friend since) used to give me a box or two of cartridges every now and then to "control the rabbits" in the blackcurrant fields and apple orchards (as per the second photo) - And I am still welcome to go there if I wanted to in order to shoot as many rabbits as I would like to!
It was not unusual in those days for us to go out to work in the morning after preparing a rabbit stew in the slow cooker and setting it on low so we had a good hot hearty meal to come home from work to!
Hey, looking at the second photo (Which is not a very good one) I knew how to camo up back in the days when I still had hair on my head rather than just growing out of my nose and ears
!Much like the views of the one size fits all xenophobes that post on here that all Romanians are day labourers, ffs
JAYB
Administrator
When I was a kid "field work" was a recognised employment. It was mainly done by women and kids and in some places highly sought after. As a kid you had to prove your worth or you did not get to go, or get paid so the incentive was there, I'm pretty sure it instilled a good work ethic in those concerned. I have fond memories of picking all sorts, peas, tatties, apples pears, plums, strawberries, beans, hops and a good few more that I have forgot. It made the school holidays lucrative. Living in the Garden of England was good.
John
John
paul o'
Well-Known Member
like you jayb, I was up at dawn feed the pigs then collect the eggs then feed the buggers ,soon as it was light if warm hunt for adders in the run's , then bring in the next batch of nags for the Knacker man , bit of toast and a cup of tea ,school Jam banjo and a small mike , then home start again ,when it came around pea picking by hand and spud lifting, veg picking aged 10 -15 it was off to Tiptree our ( holiday) picking fruits. working full time by the age of 16 on my brothers P45
countrryboy
Well-Known Member
I think I heard the radio on about this report, the agency reckoned they offered 600 folk work but only 100 odd had accepted.
But was also lots of callers saying never been contacted and were keen to work, god knows if acctually suitable.
The OP does make a very valid point about shopping thou, regardless of the nationality.
Usually where the farms will be will be rural and small super markets so any workers will have to stay and live/camp can imagine increasing population massively.
So supermarkets will be crowded, and food in higher demand, more so than usual not fair on the locals.
Really they would need to organise some sort of delivery service so don't need to leave the farm.
Not sure wot the rates are nowadays, but I mind as kids I still calling Oct school holidays ' tattie picking week' and get some right strange looks.
Can't mind the rates now but ucould make 30 odd quid a day, which was good money back then for a kid.
At the time I was getting about 8 or 9 quid a week for a 6 day paper run and that was 1 off best paying runs in town, auld Billy even gave u free batteries for ur lights occasionally ( althou think after getting compliants from polis and wee were to tight to but them)
By all accounts if u put a shift in can make decent money at it, why should u raise rates so lazy folk can make a wage??
All for raising rates but it will be the supermarkets pushing rates down in the 1st place, paying producers as little as possible while increasing the end product price.
No doubt telling the farmers when and wot they want too.
In Oz quite a few Brits go fruit picking, me and a mate done it on way back from grand Prix, where living in a tent and picking tomatoes but they were right low bushes right on deck. Was too early for them so hard work getting ur baskets filled ASA lot of unripe tomatoes.
Lot of bloody spiders too, I was still parinod about them having worked bush further north, plus even down there could of got snakes.
Think we only done a week, was making a lot more on sites in Sydney.
Over there u have these back packer mags for each region and the back pages where full of fruit farm contact details.
Surely now u could have a website and just go direct to the farms, no doubt the agency will be taking its cut, parasites.
But was also lots of callers saying never been contacted and were keen to work, god knows if acctually suitable.
The OP does make a very valid point about shopping thou, regardless of the nationality.
Usually where the farms will be will be rural and small super markets so any workers will have to stay and live/camp can imagine increasing population massively.
So supermarkets will be crowded, and food in higher demand, more so than usual not fair on the locals.
Really they would need to organise some sort of delivery service so don't need to leave the farm.
Not sure wot the rates are nowadays, but I mind as kids I still calling Oct school holidays ' tattie picking week' and get some right strange looks.
Can't mind the rates now but ucould make 30 odd quid a day, which was good money back then for a kid.
At the time I was getting about 8 or 9 quid a week for a 6 day paper run and that was 1 off best paying runs in town, auld Billy even gave u free batteries for ur lights occasionally ( althou think after getting compliants from polis and wee were to tight to but them)
By all accounts if u put a shift in can make decent money at it, why should u raise rates so lazy folk can make a wage??
All for raising rates but it will be the supermarkets pushing rates down in the 1st place, paying producers as little as possible while increasing the end product price.
No doubt telling the farmers when and wot they want too.
In Oz quite a few Brits go fruit picking, me and a mate done it on way back from grand Prix, where living in a tent and picking tomatoes but they were right low bushes right on deck. Was too early for them so hard work getting ur baskets filled ASA lot of unripe tomatoes.
Lot of bloody spiders too, I was still parinod about them having worked bush further north, plus even down there could of got snakes.
Think we only done a week, was making a lot more on sites in Sydney.
Over there u have these back packer mags for each region and the back pages where full of fruit farm contact details.
Surely now u could have a website and just go direct to the farms, no doubt the agency will be taking its cut, parasites.
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Jagare
Well-Known Member
So who is going to pick the fruit and veg and salad? The british are to soft and lazy to do it. So they have to import labour, so the soft, lazy british can have cheap veg. What nasty lurgies are the Imported labour going to bring with them? If i was them I'd be more afraid of catching something nasty from the locals.
We have the same problem in Sweden and need imported labour to do the agricultural work that the lazy Swede's feel is below them. Foreign labour has been coming here for years to plant forestry, pick fruit and veg. Even in the factory that i work in Swede's are in the minority. Its far to dirty work for most swede's and the ones they do employ, many are knuckle draggers.
We have the same problem in Sweden and need imported labour to do the agricultural work that the lazy Swede's feel is below them. Foreign labour has been coming here for years to plant forestry, pick fruit and veg. Even in the factory that i work in Swede's are in the minority. Its far to dirty work for most swede's and the ones they do employ, many are knuckle draggers.
FrenchieBoy
Well-Known Member
So true John. Just like you I have many fond memories from our younger days, even going back to when my mother used to go out "spud picking". That was when the tractor turned the spuds out of the ground but the ladies and "whoever" went behind picking up the spuds by hand, and if you didn't work hard you were quite simply told not to come back tomorrow. Admittedly things were much harder in those days but you soon learned that working hard gave you a good reputation and respect! When we (The wife and I) were fruit and veg picking it was slightly more mechanised but still hard work. We always preferred to be on a "piece work rate" as it meant that the harder we worked the more we earned and the sooner we could move on to the next job.
Do I miss it? Yes, the both of us miss it like hell but unfortunately our bodies will not allow us to get out working in the fields again like we used to, I like to think that we worked hard enough to almost burn ourselves out which is why I suffer from so many aches and pains nowadays. We both knew that we would pay the price at a later date but we have no regrets! Just looking through the old photos that we have while trying to find the few that I wanted to show really reminded me how much I enjoyed my life and hard work in those days!
FrenchieBoy
Well-Known Member
Thanks for you extremely kind offer my friend. Unfortunately my shooting days are over but if they weren't I would jump at the offer and have you shooting with me. We still keep in touch with a few of the farmers who we worked for in Hereford, they are now no longer employers, they are very good friends and would welcome us any time we wanted to visit them"
In the mean time we (Both the wife and I) are both very happy with out memories!
Again, thank you for your kind offer Sir!
JAYB
Administrator
Ah Pete walking behind the tractor with your apron made from a sack tied around your waist, bent in two as you walked "picking" the spuds into your apron, but when it was full you could stand up to empty it
Was it really 60 years ago!John
Agreed. I'd do it if there was work available locally. After wrecking my car I've got no other income. If there's a labour shortage there should be saturation coverage on television and online.
If it's anything like the building trade these jobs may never get advertised on the UK. A lot of construction job vacancies go straight onto European agency sites and you don't find them on UK sites. And then UK tradesmen are told they're lazy and don't want to work..
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