Immigration

[LadyDeliah]

Blah Blah Wrote:

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> And you already posted that nonsense on another

> thread. If workers want to protect rates of pay,

> they need to unionise and take on employers. It's

> not the Pole or the Turk (and there are lots of

> Turkish people already living and working here

> btw) who set rates of pay, but the employer in a

> buyers market. Lots of people have been laid off

> only to see their old jobs readvertise at lower

> rates of pay, often employing younger people, who

> are cheaper to employ as well.

>

> So they EU are shafting working people are they?

> Workers have the following protections because of

> the EU;

>

> Health and safety at work: general rights and

> obligations, workplaces, work equipment, specific

> risks and vulnerable workers.

>

> Equal opportunities for women and men: equal

> treatment at work, pregnancy, maternity leave,

> parental leave protection against discrimination

> based on sex, race, religion, age, disability and

> sexual orientation.

>

> Labour law: part-time work, fixed-term contracts,

> working hours, employment of young people,

> informing and consulting employees.

>

> Individual EU countries must make sure that their

> national laws protect these rights laid down by EU

> employment laws (Directives).

>

> And then of course there's the people kept in jobs

> by the ?200bn of exports to the EU annual.

>

> Yeah right, whatever has the EU ever done for

> working people.

I'm hardly ever on here any more, couldn't take the growing reactionary, right-wing leanings but nipped in for a quick perv and felt a happy glow when I read this (and other posts by Blah Blah).

I hope you have the energy to continue calmly rebuffing the aforementioned for many years to come :-)

[Loz]

LondonMix Wrote:

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> Expat has connotations of impermanence.

Not that I've ever heard of. An expat is merely someone who is not currently living in their home country. That would cover those that are away on a longish-term basis as well as those, like me, who are permanent. I am an expat, an immigrant and an emigrant.

[uncleglen]

All those workers' rights and industrial relations would have happened here anyway - England has been at the forefront of that sort of progress since Victorian times- e.g. Equal Pay Act 1970 which is before the EU....

It's a pity really that there is such a plethora of cheap building labour because some of the eyesores around East Dulwich and elsewhere would never have been built if there hadn't have been.

[LondonMix]

I agree that they are all fundamentally the same. My point is that people choose to use these terms (that mean the same thing) selectively on certain groups which gives them additional shades of meaning. Polish immigrants are almost never called expats. Americans living in London are almost always called expats. There is a reason for this.

Loz Wrote:

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> LondonMix Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Expat has connotations of impermanence.

>

> Not that I've ever heard of. An expat is merely

> someone who is not currently living in their home

> country. That would cover those that are away on

> a longish-term basis as well as those, like me,

> who are permanent. I am an expat, an immigrant

> and an emigrant.

[miga]

Loz Wrote:

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> LondonMix Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Expat has connotations of impermanence.

>

> Not that I've ever heard of. An expat is merely

> someone who is not currently living in their home

> country. That would cover those that are away on

> a longish-term basis as well as those, like me,

> who are permanent. I am an expat, an immigrant

> and an emigrant.

Clearly it means whatever people want it to mean. To me it conjures up images of yuppies in Singapore for two years on tidy, tax efficient packages. Which is why I'd never use it to describe myself - I'm dumb enough to pay all my tax in London. It seems a bit try hard, unless you're actually on a secondment somewhere exotic, tar me with that immigrant brush please.

[Jeremy]

Pretty much agree with miga/LM, the dictionary definitions may be almost interchangable, but the connotations are different. The word "expat" is never used to describe someone trying to escape from poverty or war. The word "immigrant" is never used when Sony send a senior manager to Weybridge. Clearly there is a large intersection... e.g. Aussies in London (cultural refugees?)

But it's based on circumstances, not skin colour.

[JoeLeg]

uncleglen Wrote:

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> It's a pity really that there is such a plethora

> of cheap building labour because some of the

> eyesores around East Dulwich and elsewhere would

> never have been built if there hadn't have been.

You might well be right about that - construction is something I know nothing about - but I'm intrigued;

Do you believe that cheap foreign labour (which let's be honest has been around for a long time - think about the Irish labourers who were common here in the mid 20th century for example) undermined existing British employees who then lost work, or did it fill a skills gap that came to exist because successive governments (and Blair was the worst for this I agree) undermined the vocational and apprenticeship schemes upon which solid training was built?

It's my belief that in the UK we are reaping what we sowed; I had a boss years back who in his youth had worked at Vauxhall (I think) in the Midlands during (again, I think) the seventies. He told stories of drinking and smoking weed at work which made my hair stand on end, and said that on top of it all the unions ran rings round the owners, totally without cause. He wasn't surprised when the contracts went overseas and the plants suffered.

Let me be clear - I am a full supporter of the existence of properly run unions which work for the benefit of their members, and we can agree I'm sure that a lot of what happened in the seventies was unions biting off their nose to spite their face. I think however that it started there - this culture of entitlement and expectation amongst (some, not all) young workers. Compound that with a loss of those training programmes which would've shown them how to do a good job and be employable, and you have perfect conditions for outsiders to come in and take the jobs.

It's too easy to blame immigrants; I think we have to face facts and realise that we did a lot of this to ourselves, despite some people along the way saying "this is a bad idea".

[Blah Blah]

I'm trying to post to this thread and it won't add my post! I can't see any language problems with the post. Any ideas anyone?

I'll try it in parts.

[Blah Blah]

Thank you LadyD. I will have energy as long as people need fighting for.

Uncleglen. You have no way of knowing that and every piece of evidence shows that a freer market means less regulation, including regulation that protects employees. Just look at those Tory cabinet ministers who are for Brexit. Do you really believe that people like Piri Patel and Iain Duncan Smith want to protect employees rights? There is no logic whatsoever in the idea that we don't need the EU for those protections - especially when we are talking about Tory government.

[Blah Blah]

Just take the process of state legislation the Conservatives are introducing to prejudice migrants for example. First they set about laws to make migrant mobility more difficult. Then they've sought laws (in the EU) to make it harder for migrants to make a living (by taking away the same in work benefits that all British workers get) and they are now passing a law to make it a criminal offence to house a migrant who is illegally here.

[Blah Blah]

It's the same process that totalitarian states use to prejudice groups of people - the National Socialists being the most extreme example perhaps. But they did the same thing. First they restricted the mobility of Jews. Then they made it difficult for them to make a living, and then they took away their property and made it a criminal offence for Germans to house them. See the parallels in thinking there? We should be very concerned by all of this.

[Blah Blah]

So I had to remove one sentence that asked the impact of laws on landlords and referred to the card you would see in windows in the 70s and 80s referring to dogs and unemployed and our closest neighbours. Bizarre.

[miga]

Does that post ding the Godwin bell on this thread?

[LondonMix]

yes

[civilservant]

Godwin bell? please explain?

[KidKruger]

It's the law.

[civilservant]

still not getting it kk...

[LondonMix]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

Here you go civil servant

[maxxi]

i was drifting to the cusp but the more of blahblah's horseshit i read the more i drift back to being out.

[Blah Blah]

Godwin's Law is just a bit of fun. To assume drawing an analogy with National Socialism automatically renders a debate lost is stupid.

My analogy was valid and relevant to the topic.

[Blah Blah]

Such an intelligent comment Maxxi.

[maxxi]

Blah Blah Wrote:

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> Such an intelligent comment Maxxi.

Ah, I see. Not intelligent enough to have an opinion... where exactly does that figure on your scale of the 'untermensch' you deride for not agreeing with your vision of the new world order?

[maxxi]

before you answer save your (considerable) breath - I have no desire to debate or argue with someone as close minded as you seem to be.

[Blah Blah]

Closed mind? Really. You haven't even contributed to this thread. That you join it just to have a go says more about you than it does me. Bonkers.

[miga]

Blah Blah Wrote:

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> Godwin's Law is just a bit of fun. To assume

> drawing an analogy with National Socialism

> automatically renders a debate lost is stupid.

>

> My analogy was valid and relevant to the topic.

No it wasn't - we haven't had a World War 15 years ago that we lost, followed by such a deep economic crisis we use money for wallpaper, and crippling reparation payments pushing us further under water. Anti-semitism is a minority passtime, not a general feeling these days. Human rights are enshrined in law, and even though the economy is in slow decline, if you work, you eat. Even if you don't work, you eat.

But more than that, every time you compare a bigot to a Nazi, they will switch off, and label you a communist in their head, thereby totally missing the opportunity to make them consider an alternative view.

Further, I think concerns around migration have a basis in reality, but they're not best addressed by comparing people's views to the dawn of Nazism.

That's the humour of Godwin's law. People on the internet get apoplectic with rage, and then they thump down the big word. And then the discussion can go no further, because no one really wants to argue whether their views are analogous to Nazism, not even Nazis.