Polish cleaners

[steveo]

My mate's Polish cleaner has resigned because she is better off on income support (single mum, dad pushed off). How does that work then? Does UK PLC pay for that or does it get divvied up by Europe?

I can't imagine there are many unemployed British cleaners in Warsaw drawing income support. Does Poland even have it?

[El Pibe]

I imagine that'd be the case because no unemployed british cleaners have the wherewithal and vim to learn another language and get off their arses and go tto the bits of the EU where there is work to be had.

She clearly did all this and now, as a single mum, is entitled to a bit of support. I'd rather she was spending time bringing up her children right rather than working all the hours god sends to pay for the childcare and desperately make ends meet.

I'm sure she'd love to go back home and have the support of her family, but maybe dad is English and is leaning on her to stay in the country, difficult to judge without any knowledge of the situation.

[Huguenot]

As a Polish national she would need to have worked full time for 12 months and be actively looking for work to claim income support.

If she has resigned in order to claim income support then legally she's a benefit fraudster.

However, I think this overlooks the central tenet of the OP, which is insinuating that foreginers are coming to UK to be parasites on our welfare state and steal money from British people.

People should be reassured to discover that around 20% of Brits claim income support fo some kind - whereas only 6% of foreigners do.

So the Brits are more likely to be benefit parasites than Polish housemaids.

[steveo]

So does that mean that if I got a job in a bar in Calais for a year and then decided to go and live in St. Tropez and 'look for work,' I could claim income support/some sort of benefit?

[El Pibe]

Indeed, that's the beauty of the EU. If you want to live somewhere warmer with a better quality of life you can do so. Obviously you need to learn a foreign language and stuff and actually do it in the first place though.

Good luck enjoying life in St Tropez on income support though ;)

[Chippy Minton]

A friend of mine who lives in Spain reckons that if you have worked there for a year and then lose your job, the amount you then get for unemployment benefit is calculated based on the salary that you were on.

I can't remember the exact figure he told me, but is was something really high - 75% may be??

No idea if this is true or not BTW!

[nashoi]

12 months working in a bar in Calais and then signing on, that really is living the dream. Steveo have you ever considered a career in motivational speaking? I think the american talk show circuit beckons.

[El Pibe]

That was more or less the case in the Netherlands when I lived there.

It was also very difficult to make someone redundant as redundancy applications have to go past the local authority who are also the same people who have to pay the generous benefits.

Forced redundancies are thus practically unheard of, so packages tend to be ludicrously generous to make them voluntary.

ABN went through two tranches of reducing headcount whilst I was in Amsterdam (sadly I was deemed to be part of a critical function despite my pleading for said generous package), conservatively costing a billion euros each. They needed to do it twice because after the first one they couldn't function and needed to hire lots of people....who cost too much, and they decided the best way to reduce costs was more sweeping redundancies....

Both times I tried to communicate the shortsighted stupidity of the strategy up the chain, but the likes of Huguenot the board weren't interested in the opinions of negative nancy minkies like myself and think that pointing out risks is just being a party pooper, because it'll all work out in the end.

ooops!!

[Huguenot]

Ha ha - I'm sure people like me aren't so stupid as to fail to realise the apparent foolishness of this exercise.

So that makes it much more likely that they knew something you didn't. That's not as satisfying of a vague feeling of superiority, so people choose to ignore it ;-)

People like El Pibe Drones often think they know better, only to discover that there's usually more to it than meets the eye, and that the job is a bit more difficult than they imagined.

*giggles*

Hating the boss and thinking the management are stupid is a pretty tired and usually inappropriate cliche.

[El Pibe]

Except of course they didn't have some special knowledge, they were either too optimistic, misguided or stupid. I was right.

Admittedly they slightly learnt from their mistakes. At the third attempt they didn't make people redundant, they outsourced them all to EDF. A better strategy but one that hadn't invloived reading private eye.

EDF were the worst employer of all time and all the capable people left for Barclays and RBS, leaving them with the detritus as the experienced developers and all the good ones replaced by the EDF detritus who weren't even good enough to make it to Peterborough County Council.

ABN were tied in to the contract for 5 years and unable to take on permanent staff independently. They hired in expensive contractors to plug the gap, then gave EDF a huge pay off to change the contract and left them looking after the hardware whilst they had to spend a fortune building up their expensive IT skillsets again.

Thinking the management know what they're doing because they're management is just plain foolish if you ask me.

You only have to look at what happened to ABN to see this, it went virtually bankrupt and dragged down RBS when they didn't do due diligence. THey probably assumed the management knew what they were doing too.

Oops again.

Oh, and I said this one would fail too. It hurts to be able to see the wood for the trees sometimes, even when you're a dull drone, devoid of the superhuman powers granted to management. ;)

[steveo]

nashoi Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> 12 months working in a bar in Calais and then

> signing on, that really is living the dream.

> Steveo have you ever considered a career in

> motivational speaking? I think the american talk

> show circuit beckons.

Do you think? I couldn't sign on over there though could I?

Semi seriously though, I wonder if there are any stats for international benefits claimants. I mean, if you have to scratch on, why not do it on the Riviera?

[david_carnell]

Aurevoir Stephaneo.

[uncleglen]

El Pibe Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Indeed, that's the beauty of the EU. If you want

> to live somewhere warmer with a better quality of

> life you can do so. Obviously you need to learn a

> foreign language and stuff and actually do it in

> the first place though.

> Good luck enjoying life in St Tropez on income

> support though ;)

Very interesting about learning the language- do people actually do that? Because a friend of ours from the EU is making a lucrative living translating all over the place in London!

[Huguenot]

Sheesh, what's the world coming to uncleglen, bloody foreigners coming over here claiming our benefits, can't speak the language... You'll be talking about stealing our women next, yeah?

[uncleglen]

Oh yes- can you arrange that?

[Saffron]

Huguenot Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> As a Polish national she would need to have worked

> full time for 12 months and be actively looking

> for work to claim income support.

>

> If she has resigned in order to claim income

> support then legally she's a benefit fraudster.

>

I don't think that's strictly true. If you resign, you can still legally claim a reduced form of job seekers allowance after an enforeced time delay. This is not considered fraudulent. (Whether or not it's a good use of funds is entirely another kettle of fish.) Also, resigning a job does not necessarily effect one's eligibity for other forms of benefit payments, as I understand it. Admittedly I haven't checked the webpages today, so this all might have changed. It seems to change at the drop of a hat these days.

[Saffron]

Btw, if the dad has pushed off, where is he? What does he do? If he's British, is he claiming benefits instead of working hard to bring up his child?

[Huguenot]

That's a slight misunderstanding I think Saffron - the fraudlent activity would be to claim to be actively looking for work, when in fact she had chosen not to.

She would have to sign a statement saying she was actively looking - and that is where the deception would be.

[Saffron]

Agreed it is unclear. OP's statement does not say that she isn't looking for work, simply that she has resigned her current job. She could in fact be looking for a better job, in which case this is not JSA fraud, as I understand it.

[Jeremy]

Surely you can't claim JSA if you've resigned without good reason? I am not speaking from experience, but it would be scandalous if it was paid out to somebody who quit their job because they thought they'd be better off on benefits.

And if somebody really would be better by not working, there's something seriously wrong with the welfare system.

[Saffron]

Yes, if you've resigned your job, you can claim a form a JSA (if, as mentioned by H, you are indeed looking for work). To the best of my knowledge, this form of JSA is a reduced amount of money from standard JSA, and it is not available immediately.

[Saffron]

Steveo, did your mate offer his cleaner more money, or did he look for another cheap Polish cleaner? If there's a market for cheap labour, then people will keep coming. (I'm not meaning to take a stab at your mate personally. I'm just referring to the scenario in general.)

I don't think the benefits system is perfect here, and I do think some individuals use it with questionable intent. Still I'd rather have an imperfect system than no system. I'd also be more inclined to debate the merits/faults of the system as a whole than to besmirch individuals for their choices, unless it is a case of fraud, which should obviously not be condoned. I would have thought it's quite tough to be a single parent in any event, even more so away from your native country.

On the up side, I do hear that Warsaw is lovely. ...lovley enough to relocate and work as a cleaner? Well it sounds tough any way you slice it. Hmmm.

[Otta]

We had a Polish girl in to do a one off clean over the weekend. It was ?13 an hour, but not sure what cut of that she would have kept, and how much the company (the company seemed to be another Polish lady).

Anyway, she was chatting to my wife, and said that having cleaned in the UK for 2 years, she'd sent enough money home to buy a lovely new house with modern everything. She said another year or 2, and she'd have enough dosh to go to uni, and start a good career.

I thought bloody good on her, she worked like a trojan, and deserves the rewards that she is making for herself. I can't imagine she'd be better off on benefits, but then, she has a plan. Perhaps if she was planning to stay here long term, and had kids, things might be different, I don't know.

[Brendan]

There is a certain poetic irony about British people complaining about foreigners coming to their country and taking what they can.

[Huguenot]

Quite true - this tiny nation built its foundations unpon the exploitation of foreign labour and the rape of their natural resources.

And now we get all petty about a few Polish maids.