What year is it? We saw these comments pre-2016. We’re seeing them again. Wonder which party has had control of government during this time.
She isn’t wrong to say it’s not racist to want to control borders. The problem is, she and her government have done fuck all to help sectors that have historically relied on an immigrant workforce.
13 years of cuts to education and training budgets. Perhaps you shouldn’t put the cart before the horse.
Edit: Missed a word, changed for clarity.
Is fruit picking going to be along the lines of international baccalaureate or a full degree level course? Will there be grants for getting a masters?
if the money was there, the market would already be providing it. There is some lorry training, I cant say if its enough however
Train people to want to move across the country to the arse end of nowhere and do back breaking work?
Bonus points to anyone who can find a clip to that interview on LBC where the caller (I think a UKIP member?) said Brits will come to do these jobs.
Suella Braverman has two children.
Do you think she’s raising them to think that they should be fruit pickers? Or is that only for other people’s children?
I did fruit picking during covid whilst furloughed. The issue isn’t training, or motivation. On a nice day it was pretty fun to just swich off and listen to a podcast/music.
The issue is the wages to effort ratio are awful, unless you are an absolute physical machine, it was a pain to get to, and bad weather absolutely kills it.
As it stands, you cant make a real living from it, so thats why people don’t bother.
Fruit picking doesnt need specialist training, the problem has always been the farmers, not the workers.
Often the conditions/treatment are horrific on site.
Often you share bunks and 4-8 a room with shared bathrooms/showers.
Often you are charged to live on site and they will not allow you to work for them if you do not (IE locals in the area wont get jobs because they would commute in, the farmers claim “efficiency” of starting early, ignoring they can get a work bus). Even if you had your own caravan, you will have to pay to live there.
Often the actual treatment of the staff is subpar to put it politely.
Often the pay is nothing/next to nothing.
So much to do with farming still relies on systems banned in other industries going on 100 years plus.
Then theres the problem of having to relocate while still in a lease/needing somewhere for the off season to live making it impossible/high risk to take the job (IE due to low pay, how do you get a new rent in this climate easily for reasonable cost?).
It isnt training thats the issue.
​
For truck drivers, have a dedicated national training centre where you train for free, IDK why thats such a big ask for it.
They’ve made migration worse every year they’ve been in power (apart from covid).
We know have record migration or all kinds and record slow processing times.
They used to talk a great game on immigration and crime and the economy but now they don’t even talk a good game. It’s all gaslighting and maybe 20-25% of the population believes them, maybe. It’s probably nearer 15% actually believes them on anything anymore.
What an absolute shower of clowns
Brits aren’t refusing to pick fruit because they’re not trained, they’re refusing to pick fruit because spending months living in a caravan with strangers and breaking your back picking fruit for a pittance is a shit proposition.
How about paying those jobs a bit more?
That won’t go down well with the Tory faithful
I can’t wrap my head round why someone with immigrant parents hates immigrants so much.
It’s a silly argument. Anyone who wants to do those jobs, has been trained and can do it.
The problem is (and i speak as someone who had those jobs as a student), it’s hard work and it’s crap work. Oh and it’s often seasonal too with only a few kept on. Would you want to do it?
If I tell someone in Sunderland they have a fruit picking job in Kent starting next week until August for just above minimum wage, why would they consider that a viable option? They have nowhere to live and will probably be worse off when they can’t get a cabbage picking job in Lincolnshire or a pumpkin picking job in Norfolk when that gig is up.
These jobs are in areas of very high employment and often without the infrastructure to support. Having a few Portuguese or Polish workers spending a summer in the UK getting some cash for themselves was the norm and not a bad thing.
Tell you what Sue, how about you go pick fruit for a single work week. Just one.
We should train people to work very low paid jobs as their professions?
How about we just make those roles pay better and then people will naturally want to do them.
Brits don’t do fruit picking mainly as the pay is terrible Farmers have an absolute terrible reputation for how they treat the people they employ and who really wants to share a living space with people you don’t know and pay for the privilege of doing so never mind paying for the rent of the place you actually live.
Fruit picking is a seasonal job. You need to be able to cross borders and go where the work is. It doesn’t work as a year-round career.
Suella is thick as pig muck.
Trouble is those jobs require people to be away from families, are very labour intensive so usually takes a huge toll on the body but the pay doesn’t effectively combat that level of effort and low quality of life.
I don’t know what the conditions are like abroad for this to appeal more to immigrants but if someone offered me unemployment or strawberry picking/long haul I would pick unemployment (this is despite having been employed continuously since I was 16.
Hats off to those who do it, but in my mind those jobs are not worth the wage (both below national average although truck driving can go above with the right qualifications).
>”There is no good reason why we can’t train up enough HGV drivers, butchers or fruit pickers.”
<cough> Pay?
Don’t think a brit wants a seasonal job for less than 4 months where you pick fruit, live in a shitty caravan, and get paid pittance when you do awful hours in the sun
Anyone know why brexiters are not lining up to fill these positions?
They would be doing their patriotic duty in helping out the country in it’s time of need, it would keep the need for foreign workers down, it’s a win win.
Where are they?
Farmers will never hire local pickers because they can’t get away with charging them most of their pay for staying in a dilapidated caravan
Tories make it mandatory to stay in further education until you’re 18. Also Tories; we need to train more fruit pickers. I can see that AS Level in Fruit Picking being mighty popular…
‘On a per-pupil basis the total funding allocated to schools for 5-16 year old pupils, in cash terms, in 2023-24 was £7,460’
£7,460 x 11 = £82k… and the return on investment is a fruit picker who still needs to be trained.
Surely anyone who is both physically capable of picking fruit efficiently, and has been through that level of education spend should be more economically valuable in another role.
Train national and local Conservatives to become fruit pickers!
Last I checked throughout 2020 plenty of people wanted to work on the farms to help out, about 50,000 and about 49,000 got told no chance or realised the slave like conditions of the job and decided not to bother so we had to fly in Romanians.
The problem isn’t people not wanting to do the jobs, its the conditions and farms in general stopping people.
Lorry drivers fine, fruit pickers ain’t going to happen. Its seasonal and awful work.
Excellent, so when do we see this training program then Suella? It costs a fair bit to train to your full C+E driving licence and then you’ll need a DQC card (another 35 hours of Driver CPC training every 5 years) to be a professional driver. At this point, you haven’t earned a penny.
Whilst some people can and do take this upon themsleves. A lot of people who Seulla has in mind to do this won’t have the funds or time to do it.
Unless there is some scheme or other, that I’m unaware of, this is just pie-in-the-sky thinking from the Home Sec.
Not intelligent enough for high office.
If you vote for these people, you’re a vandal.
Ok..how about? Pay them a decent wage, find a way to keep them working outside of season and lorry drivers have a rather shit job if you need to be social. Long hours by yourself, hated by most drivers, punished for things that you can’t control and expected to work to very strict deadlines, most of the job requires you to sleep in the cab because you can’t make it home etc…
Nah, let’s underpay people as it’s cheaper.
I think the UK would definitely benefit if she was to be first to retrain…
Or modernise farms otherwise it will be another sector the UK is way behind in.
It’s not a training issue, surely? It’s more that the pay and conditions are shit.
Pay them better, look after them better – same with nurses and carers really…
Change the education system then to reflect that these jobs are needed and not everyone is going to be academically successful.
Stop blowing sunshine up children’s asses making them think they can achieve whatever they want when they blatantly cannot.
I wonder what she would think about her children training as fruit pickers?
If she considers this job to be beneath her station then why would she think anyone else would aspire to be a fruit picker?
37 comments
What year is it? We saw these comments pre-2016. We’re seeing them again. Wonder which party has had control of government during this time.
She isn’t wrong to say it’s not racist to want to control borders. The problem is, she and her government have done fuck all to help sectors that have historically relied on an immigrant workforce.
13 years of cuts to education and training budgets. Perhaps you shouldn’t put the cart before the horse.
Edit: Missed a word, changed for clarity.
Is fruit picking going to be along the lines of international baccalaureate or a full degree level course? Will there be grants for getting a masters?
if the money was there, the market would already be providing it. There is some lorry training, I cant say if its enough however
Train people to want to move across the country to the arse end of nowhere and do back breaking work?
Bonus points to anyone who can find a clip to that interview on LBC where the caller (I think a UKIP member?) said Brits will come to do these jobs.
Suella Braverman has two children.
Do you think she’s raising them to think that they should be fruit pickers? Or is that only for other people’s children?
I did fruit picking during covid whilst furloughed. The issue isn’t training, or motivation. On a nice day it was pretty fun to just swich off and listen to a podcast/music.
The issue is the wages to effort ratio are awful, unless you are an absolute physical machine, it was a pain to get to, and bad weather absolutely kills it.
As it stands, you cant make a real living from it, so thats why people don’t bother.
Fruit picking doesnt need specialist training, the problem has always been the farmers, not the workers.
Often the conditions/treatment are horrific on site.
Often you share bunks and 4-8 a room with shared bathrooms/showers.
Often you are charged to live on site and they will not allow you to work for them if you do not (IE locals in the area wont get jobs because they would commute in, the farmers claim “efficiency” of starting early, ignoring they can get a work bus). Even if you had your own caravan, you will have to pay to live there.
Often the actual treatment of the staff is subpar to put it politely.
Often the pay is nothing/next to nothing.
So much to do with farming still relies on systems banned in other industries going on 100 years plus.
Then theres the problem of having to relocate while still in a lease/needing somewhere for the off season to live making it impossible/high risk to take the job (IE due to low pay, how do you get a new rent in this climate easily for reasonable cost?).
It isnt training thats the issue.
​
For truck drivers, have a dedicated national training centre where you train for free, IDK why thats such a big ask for it.
They’ve made migration worse every year they’ve been in power (apart from covid).
We know have record migration or all kinds and record slow processing times.
They used to talk a great game on immigration and crime and the economy but now they don’t even talk a good game. It’s all gaslighting and maybe 20-25% of the population believes them, maybe. It’s probably nearer 15% actually believes them on anything anymore.
What an absolute shower of clowns
Brits aren’t refusing to pick fruit because they’re not trained, they’re refusing to pick fruit because spending months living in a caravan with strangers and breaking your back picking fruit for a pittance is a shit proposition.
How about paying those jobs a bit more?
That won’t go down well with the Tory faithful
I can’t wrap my head round why someone with immigrant parents hates immigrants so much.
It’s a silly argument. Anyone who wants to do those jobs, has been trained and can do it.
The problem is (and i speak as someone who had those jobs as a student), it’s hard work and it’s crap work. Oh and it’s often seasonal too with only a few kept on. Would you want to do it?
If I tell someone in Sunderland they have a fruit picking job in Kent starting next week until August for just above minimum wage, why would they consider that a viable option? They have nowhere to live and will probably be worse off when they can’t get a cabbage picking job in Lincolnshire or a pumpkin picking job in Norfolk when that gig is up.
These jobs are in areas of very high employment and often without the infrastructure to support. Having a few Portuguese or Polish workers spending a summer in the UK getting some cash for themselves was the norm and not a bad thing.
Tell you what Sue, how about you go pick fruit for a single work week. Just one.
We should train people to work very low paid jobs as their professions?
How about we just make those roles pay better and then people will naturally want to do them.
Brits don’t do fruit picking mainly as the pay is terrible Farmers have an absolute terrible reputation for how they treat the people they employ and who really wants to share a living space with people you don’t know and pay for the privilege of doing so never mind paying for the rent of the place you actually live.
Fruit picking is a seasonal job. You need to be able to cross borders and go where the work is. It doesn’t work as a year-round career.
Suella is thick as pig muck.
Trouble is those jobs require people to be away from families, are very labour intensive so usually takes a huge toll on the body but the pay doesn’t effectively combat that level of effort and low quality of life.
I don’t know what the conditions are like abroad for this to appeal more to immigrants but if someone offered me unemployment or strawberry picking/long haul I would pick unemployment (this is despite having been employed continuously since I was 16.
Hats off to those who do it, but in my mind those jobs are not worth the wage (both below national average although truck driving can go above with the right qualifications).
>”There is no good reason why we can’t train up enough HGV drivers, butchers or fruit pickers.”
<cough> Pay?
Don’t think a brit wants a seasonal job for less than 4 months where you pick fruit, live in a shitty caravan, and get paid pittance when you do awful hours in the sun
Anyone know why brexiters are not lining up to fill these positions?
They would be doing their patriotic duty in helping out the country in it’s time of need, it would keep the need for foreign workers down, it’s a win win.
Where are they?
Farmers will never hire local pickers because they can’t get away with charging them most of their pay for staying in a dilapidated caravan
Tories make it mandatory to stay in further education until you’re 18. Also Tories; we need to train more fruit pickers. I can see that AS Level in Fruit Picking being mighty popular…
‘On a per-pupil basis the total funding allocated to schools for 5-16 year old pupils, in cash terms, in 2023-24 was £7,460’
£7,460 x 11 = £82k… and the return on investment is a fruit picker who still needs to be trained.
Surely anyone who is both physically capable of picking fruit efficiently, and has been through that level of education spend should be more economically valuable in another role.
Train national and local Conservatives to become fruit pickers!
Last I checked throughout 2020 plenty of people wanted to work on the farms to help out, about 50,000 and about 49,000 got told no chance or realised the slave like conditions of the job and decided not to bother so we had to fly in Romanians.
The problem isn’t people not wanting to do the jobs, its the conditions and farms in general stopping people.
Lorry drivers fine, fruit pickers ain’t going to happen. Its seasonal and awful work.
Excellent, so when do we see this training program then Suella? It costs a fair bit to train to your full C+E driving licence and then you’ll need a DQC card (another 35 hours of Driver CPC training every 5 years) to be a professional driver. At this point, you haven’t earned a penny.
Whilst some people can and do take this upon themsleves. A lot of people who Seulla has in mind to do this won’t have the funds or time to do it.
Unless there is some scheme or other, that I’m unaware of, this is just pie-in-the-sky thinking from the Home Sec.
Not intelligent enough for high office.
If you vote for these people, you’re a vandal.
Ok..how about? Pay them a decent wage, find a way to keep them working outside of season and lorry drivers have a rather shit job if you need to be social. Long hours by yourself, hated by most drivers, punished for things that you can’t control and expected to work to very strict deadlines, most of the job requires you to sleep in the cab because you can’t make it home etc…
Nah, let’s underpay people as it’s cheaper.
I think the UK would definitely benefit if she was to be first to retrain…
Or modernise farms otherwise it will be another sector the UK is way behind in.
It’s not a training issue, surely? It’s more that the pay and conditions are shit.
Pay them better, look after them better – same with nurses and carers really…
Change the education system then to reflect that these jobs are needed and not everyone is going to be academically successful.
Stop blowing sunshine up children’s asses making them think they can achieve whatever they want when they blatantly cannot.
I wonder what she would think about her children training as fruit pickers?
If she considers this job to be beneath her station then why would she think anyone else would aspire to be a fruit picker?