Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart

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Jdsk
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Re: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart

Post by Jdsk »

Psamathe wrote: 18 Dec 2021, 9:31pm
Jdsk wrote: 18 Dec 2021, 9:26pm Screenshot 2021-12-18 at 21.22.59.png
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... Boris.html

I'd put this squarely in the Opportunities quadrant for supply chains.
With no evidence, I do wonder if the real reason is he's come to realise he really did negotiate and agree and support the Brexit departure deal...
It was two other people with the same names.

Shirley
francovendee
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Re: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart

Post by francovendee »

pwa wrote: 18 Dec 2021, 7:41pm
francovendee wrote: 16 Dec 2021, 5:15pm I heard a farming program on radio 4 this morning.
The pig farmers have slaughtered 30000 pigs on farms due to processors not able to take them.
Under the governments visa scheme the industry is allowed to bring 800 butchers to the UK on a temporary basis.
So far 50 have arrived, some from Russia and Brazil.
One hurdle applicants have to clear is ability to speak English.
The rules insist on this.
When EU workers were allowed to come there wasn't this requirement so why is now necessary for temporary labour?
I understand George Eustice is very unpopular with the farming community and hurriedly fled a press meeting leaving his glasses and notes behind.
Surely there are sound reasons for wanting workers to be able to speak the language of the place where they are working. Reasons to do with safety and the ability to understand the rules that apply. It is a very basic requirement.

I have worked alongside a few foreign colleagues and they have all had a reasonable grasp of English, certainly good enough for the workplace. And looking at it from another angle, I have always thought it pretty poor when Brits work abroad without having the language of the place where they work. I'd be ashamed if that were me.
There is some truth in what you say but we have not seen a problem with safety from non English speaking workers causing accidents before leaving the EU.
The system used to be they came in groups, with a gang master in charge who could communicate in both their language and English.
As less eastern Europeen workers are interested in the offer the whole system of a gang master doesn't work.

Working or indeed living in a country where you can't speak the local lingo is something us Brits are very guilty of.
My French is poor and I mangle tenses, accent etc. I try and can always make myself understood. I try to get better and our French friends look forward to making them laugh with my latest gaffs. At 78 my head is a bit like a sieve, in one ear and out the other. :lol:
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al_yrpal
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Re: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart

Post by al_yrpal »

My German isnt great. I used to get shouted at by my wife for delivering my limited German just like Herr Flick. But, when we were staying with some folk on a farm in Bavaria I was told my vocabulary was poor but my accent was perfect! :lol:

Al
Reuse, recycle, thus do your bit to save the planet.... Get stuff at auctions, Dump, Charity Shops, Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, Car Boots. Choose an Old House, and a Banger ..... And cycle as often as you can......
Jdsk
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Re: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart

Post by Jdsk »

francovendee wrote: 19 Dec 2021, 8:24am
pwa wrote: 18 Dec 2021, 7:41pm
francovendee wrote: 16 Dec 2021, 5:15pm Under the governments visa scheme the industry is allowed to bring 800 butchers to the UK on a temporary basis.
So far 50 have arrived, some from Russia and Brazil.
One hurdle applicants have to clear is ability to speak English.
The rules insist on this.
When EU workers were allowed to come there wasn't this requirement so why is now necessary for temporary labour?
Surely there are sound reasons for wanting workers to be able to speak the language of the place where they are working. Reasons to do with safety and the ability to understand the rules that apply. It is a very basic requirement.
There is some truth in what you say but we have not seen a problem with safety from non English speaking workers causing accidents before leaving the EU.
The system used to be they came in groups, with a gang master in charge who could communicate in both their language and English.
Before the UK introduced the new barriers language ability could be a requirement for employment if it were needed and proportionate.

Jonathan
Jdsk
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Re: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart

Post by Jdsk »

rjb wrote: 18 Dec 2021, 9:02pm This was also mentioned in that programme. 10 years ago there was no problem recruiting local people to take on these jobs in abattoir's. When the UK opened up to EU workers they filled all these roles and undercut the locals. The abattoir's didn't need to keep their training programmes so stopped training and apprentice ships. The chickens have come home to roost now and the reason abattoir's can't fill these vacancies is because they need to restart training, apprenticeships, recruit locally and pay them all a living wage. You can't fix that overnight so we have to have a temporary solution until market forces catch up.
I'd be surprised if that was true as recently as 10 y ago.

"Market forces" won't necessarily cause a catch-up to the previous level of output or employment. They might result in the industry closing. As one daffodil grower put it (linked upthread):

“If only 50% is picked this spring, the following spring you’re looking at 25% of that. And that means you’re out of business,” said Hosking, who is the fourth generation of his family to grow daffodils at Fentongollan. “There’ll be no alternative but to stop growing daffodils. That’s the end of an industry the UK leads the world in.

“Daffodils are a symbol of spring – they bring people cheer and hope when the days are still gloomy. There won’t be as many in the supermarkets this spring if nothing changes. You can’t import daffodils from anywhere else – Cornwall is the only place that can grow them at this time of year. But if you can’t harvest your crop, you haven’t got a business. Full stop.”


Jonathan
pwa
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Re: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart

Post by pwa »

My feeling is that over a period of probably several years we will have an uneasy re-adjustment in which jobs that are so important that we are willing to pay more for will survive, as wages and conditions improve to attract labour. And jobs that we are not willing to pay more for will cease to exist, as indeed they should. Taking the example of daffs, if we are willing to pay enough per bunch for the grower to be able to lure workers with attractive pay and conditions, we get daffs. If we aren't willing to pay that much, we shouldn't have them. Ditto eating out and so forth. And perhaps we will all learn to value goods and services when we have to pay whatever it takes to give employees what they deserve.
PH
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Re: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart

Post by PH »

pwa wrote: 19 Dec 2021, 7:48pm Taking the example of daffs, if we are willing to pay enough per bunch for the grower to be able to lure workers with attractive pay and conditions, we get daffs. If we aren't willing to pay that much, we shouldn't have them.
Nice theory, but what actually happens is the daffs get grown where they can be grown cheapest, obviously that's not just labour, though it's a sizable proportion of the cost. If you really can't grow daffs elsewhere, there'll be an alternative you can. That already happens of course, at the height of the UK's asparagus season my local greengrocer sells stuff flown in from South America, it's cheaper.
Agricultural labour needs to be migratory, where it's needed when it's needed and somewhere else when it's not. I did a fair bit in the early eighties, it was quite well paid, well enough that I never worked more than eight months a year. Most of those working the fields were from the more traditional traveller communities, whole families working, parked up the farm, or somewhere close, while they did, cash in hand. I can't remember how much cash, roughly equivalent to a weeks dole a day, though it wasn't unheard of to be claiming that as well. I grew up in Kent, I have vague childhood memories of the cockney invasion to pick hops. Though even then, mid 60's, most brewers had started importing cheaper hops from the US and by the time I was a teenager the remaining hops being grown were mechanically harvested.
Times have changed, it's hard to see how it can be made attractive enough to tempt workers and still be economically viable for the producers.
pwa
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Re: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart

Post by pwa »

PH wrote: 19 Dec 2021, 10:09pm
pwa wrote: 19 Dec 2021, 7:48pm Taking the example of daffs, if we are willing to pay enough per bunch for the grower to be able to lure workers with attractive pay and conditions, we get daffs. If we aren't willing to pay that much, we shouldn't have them.
Nice theory, but what actually happens is the daffs get grown where they can be grown cheapest, obviously that's not just labour, though it's a sizable proportion of the cost. If you really can't grow daffs elsewhere, there'll be an alternative you can. That already happens of course, at the height of the UK's asparagus season my local greengrocer sells stuff flown in from South America, it's cheaper.
Agricultural labour needs to be migratory, where it's needed when it's needed and somewhere else when it's not. I did a fair bit in the early eighties, it was quite well paid, well enough that I never worked more than eight months a year. Most of those working the fields were from the more traditional traveller communities, whole families working, parked up the farm, or somewhere close, while they did, cash in hand. I can't remember how much cash, roughly equivalent to a weeks dole a day, though it wasn't unheard of to be claiming that as well. I grew up in Kent, I have vague childhood memories of the cockney invasion to pick hops. Though even then, mid 60's, most brewers had started importing cheaper hops from the US and by the time I was a teenager the remaining hops being grown were mechanically harvested.
Times have changed, it's hard to see how it can be made attractive enough to tempt workers and still be economically viable for the producers.
Yes, my statement was very "broad brush" and generalising, so I concede that it doesn't cover every situation. Mechanisation is certainly part of the answer where it is possible. And a targeted regular issuing of work permits. But some jobs do exist only because some employers have been able to exploit workers who need local work, even if conditions and pay are not good. A lot of jobs in the hospitality sector are like that. My son did a few to keep the wolf from the door while training to be a nurse, and he would sometimes be told, on the day of a shift, that he would not be needed after all. Too late to arrange another job for the day. I hear employers from that sector moaning about the shortage of labour they are experiencing, and when they do I know exactly why they can't get enough people. It is because they offer terrible jobs that are exploitative. And in a jobs market where vacancies abound, the bad employers get found out.

As for asparagus, it is a labour intensive crop and ought to be expensive because of that. I think we should be putting a prohibitively high levy on goods that arrive by air anyway, but perhaps that would take this thread off on a tangent.....
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart

Post by [XAP]Bob »

The other issue is that the crop has to be harvested, then sent to the shops (several steps), then put on sale at some price... and only then do you know whether you can sell it for that price.

So it's not as easy as saying that we should be willing to pay more for these crops - that's usually far too late to know how much you can pay potential pickers.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
Jdsk
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Re: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart

Post by Jdsk »

PH wrote: 19 Dec 2021, 10:09pmAgricultural labour needs to be migratory, where it's needed when it's needed and somewhere else when it's not. I did a fair bit in the early eighties, it was quite well paid, well enough that I never worked more than eight months a year. Most of those working the fields were from the more traditional traveller communities, whole families working, parked up the farm, or somewhere close, while they did, cash in hand. I can't remember how much cash, roughly equivalent to a weeks dole a day, though it wasn't unheard of to be claiming that as well. I grew up in Kent, I have vague childhood memories of the cockney invasion to pick hops.
Yes. There never was a Golden Age of picking entirely done by a stable local workforce. And there won't be in the future.

Jonathan

PS: I'd add the use of child labour to those examples, and apparently that's what determined the traditional dates for school holidays.
Jdsk
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Re: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart

Post by Jdsk »

PH wrote: 19 Dec 2021, 10:09pm
pwa wrote: 19 Dec 2021, 7:48pm Taking the example of daffs, if we are willing to pay enough per bunch for the grower to be able to lure workers with attractive pay and conditions, we get daffs. If we aren't willing to pay that much, we shouldn't have them.
Nice theory, but what actually happens is the daffs get grown where they can be grown cheapest, obviously that's not just labour, though it's a sizable proportion of the cost. If you really can't grow daffs elsewhere, there'll be an alternative you can. That already happens of course, at the height of the UK's asparagus season my local greengrocer sells stuff flown in from South America, it's cheaper.
[XAP]Bob wrote: 20 Dec 2021, 8:39am The other issue is that the crop has to be harvested, then sent to the shops (several steps), then put on sale at some price... and only then do you know whether you can sell it for that price.

So it's not as easy as saying that we should be willing to pay more for these crops - that's usually far too late to know how much you can pay potential pickers.
And it's a lot easier to lose markets than to gain them.

Jonathan
Mike Sales
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Re: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart

Post by Mike Sales »

Jdsk wrote: 20 Dec 2021, 11:19am
PS: I'd add the use of child labour to those examples, and apparently that's what determined the traditional dates for school holidays.
I attended a primary school on an island off Tasmania. My father was head teacher.
There was a school holiday for the mutton birding season.

https://teachforaustralia.org/why-do-mu ... classroom/
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
Jdsk
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Re: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart

Post by Jdsk »

I'm concerned about exploitation of workers. But barriers to movement and higher food prices aren't going to help the most vulnerable.

What will includes legally enforced minimum working conditions, legally enforced minimum pay, countering the pretence that gig and agency workers aren't workers, affordable accommodation, and a functional welfare system.

And the biggest threat to those is a Government that acts to reduce them. When Frost and his cabal talk about the opportunity to leave a European model and to implement "supply side reforms" we shouldn't be in any doubt what those actually mean for the poorest.

Jonathan
Jdsk
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Re: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart

Post by Jdsk »

pwa wrote: 20 Dec 2021, 4:40amI think we should be putting a prohibitively high levy on goods that arrive by air anyway, but perhaps that would take this thread off on a tangent.....
Please don't hold back. : - )

The more we talk about how we're going to create wealth and how employment will change the better. Because it is going to change...

Jonathan
Jdsk
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Re: Take These (Supply) Chains from My Heart

Post by Jdsk »

Mike Sales wrote: 20 Dec 2021, 11:26am
Jdsk wrote: 20 Dec 2021, 11:19am PS: I'd add the use of child labour to those examples, and apparently that's what determined the traditional dates for school holidays.
I attended a primary school on an island off Tasmania. My father was head teacher.
There was a school holiday for the mutton birding season.

https://teachforaustralia.org/why-do-mu ... classroom/
Fascinating. Reminds me of those mostly-gone trades of catching and storing seabirds in Scotland, Ireland and Iceland.

Jonathan
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