‘Pick For Britain’ Farm Recruiter Lists ‘Romanian or Bulgarian’ Fluency as Job Requirement
An agri-business advertising for jobs under the
government’s ‘Pick For Britain’ farm job scheme for furloughed workers
required applicants to speak a foreign language to pick vegetables and
fruit.
A job opening for an Irrigation Assistant, advertised on the government’s website by the Kent-based food producer S&A, said that some applicants will need to speak Romanian and or Bulgarian to be hired, despite the fact that the job scheme is supposedly geared towards out of work Britons.
“To apply for a skilled position, you will need to speak Romanian and/or Bulgarian fluently. English language is essential for some positions,” the advert said, according to a report in The Sun.
Bosses keen on foreign labour and mass migration advocates in the political and media class have often claimed that Britons are “too lazy” to do farm work, and justified flying in migrant workers from overseas on crowded planes despite the coronavirus pandemic and mass lay-offs at home because locals will not take the jobs.
However, the fact that British workers are not even being considered for at least some farm roles unless they speak obscure foreign languages would seem to lend credence to the claims of commentators such as Gawain Towler, a long-time colleague of Nigel Farage, that domestic recruitment schemes like ‘Pick for Britain’ have been “designed to fail”.
Has Pick for Britain been deliberately designed to fail? Worth a read. By @GawainTowler https://t.co/E0VjvQ3YSw— James Crisp (@JamesCrisp6) May 21, 2020
It is estimated that some 7.5 million people are having their pay subsidised by the government during the national lockdown and, in April, it was revealed that of the 50,000 Britons that applied to pick fruit and vegetables.
Just 112 were given positions.
UK Economy Falls At Fastest Rate Since 2008 Crash, Massive Tax Rises Loom https://t.co/0jqGWrsz9O— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 13, 2020
The job openings, it seems, very often came with onerous requirements
attached to them, seriously disadvantaging the typical Briton in the
hiring process.
For example, the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs
(DEFRA) has listed requirements that workers must live on-site, whether
or not they live nearby the farm — even though it was perfectly normal
for British farmworkers to be picked up on minibuses or the like near
their homes and returned at the end of their shift in the decades before
they were displaced by EU migrant workers from poor countries.
Workers that are hired by the farming firm Concordia, meanwhile, are
required to spend two weeks in self-isolation, followed by another two
weeks of training before being able to start work — requirements which
seem almost deliberately designed to favour the lone, temporary migrant
worker over the Briton with local connections and familial obligations.
“Anyone who can’t work as part of a small team, or for the full length of the placement, increases the risk of infection to all those on the farm,” the company claimed.
Agri-businesses are alleged by some to prefer hiring foreign workers required to live on-site in temporary accommodation in part because they can be made to pay rent for that accommodation, substantially reducing bosses’ effect wage costs.
“Anyone who can’t work as part of a small team, or for the full length of the placement, increases the risk of infection to all those on the farm,” the company claimed.
Agri-businesses are alleged by some to prefer hiring foreign workers required to live on-site in temporary accommodation in part because they can be made to pay rent for that accommodation, substantially reducing bosses’ effect wage costs.
Coronavirus: Wages of over Half of UK Adults Now Paid by the British State https://t.co/4fAyMfZShN— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 5, 2020
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