My 18 year old is moving to Kazakhstan to attend the university of life.

[awkward customer]

He got a gang of Kazakh pickers 2 extra weeks of work today.  He said to the foreman "what is the point of keeping the other people when they are picking half of the grapes that the Kazakhs are" and the foreman took his advice and kept the Kazakh workers........ 



....... All the other English have fallen by the wayside.  Mind you I don't blame them at £10 per hour.

This is bugging me.  I didn't properly take this in before.

Your son persuaded the farmer to sack the English workers and give their work to Kazakhs instead.  And as a result, the English workers lost work.  The Kazakhs now love him and he's off to Kazakhstan to teach English and try his luck

But your son played a role in depriving workers of work.  Is this ethical behaviour?

[OCLittleFlower]

Kazakhstan is a great country. I've spent more time in Kyrgyzstan, but did cross the border for a bit to go to the consulate and found everyone to be very open hearted and polite. Sometimes I really miss Central Asia.

Kyrgyzstan is more old school, a bit less developed. And, with less of a German presence, there's no real Catholic presence to speak of. Kazakhstan is a haven for the Latin Mass and is very modern in the main cities in terms of amenities, etc.

[Greg]

What does handling across the country mean?

Handling is the generic term for accepting an aircraft. Have a marshaller there, parking is booked, customs is ready to receive pax etc etc. We only work with non-scheduled flights, so all this stuff is taken for granted when it comes to scheduled flights.

Company works across central and Eastern EU. I'm good friends with our KZ manager - if your kid gets sick of teaching English/picking grapes and wants to work at the airport, I'll see if I can hook him up. If he's native level in English and Russian he'll be worth his weight in gold.

Plus he'll get to hob-knob with all the billionaires walking off their private jets.

Perfect, that is exactly the sort of thing he is after.  One he has his LinkedIn account set up I will ping you.  He next needs to get his driving licence and ESL qualification.  He has spoken Russian since birth and been to Russian school every Saturday and hangs around with Russians and Ukrainians here.  He also graduated with an A* (highest grade) at Russian A level last year.

The plan currently is for him to to be there for Easter 2024. But I cannot book flights on Skyscanner that far out.

He is planning to teach rich kids English and Maths, and their parents spoken English, but having a proper FT job would make his working visa easier for him, especially at 18.  Those two jobs would suit him, I am sure.  I think the working visa is much easier with his Russian citizenship than his UK, since there is some sort of commonwealth between the former Soviet states.

He is socialable and strong as an ox, goes to the gym daily.  So good for shifting baggage and not damaging their Louis Vuitton cases.  I am sure he would enjoy the hustle and bustle of an airport.  Especially private jets.

[Greg]

He got a gang of Kazakh pickers 2 extra weeks of work today.  He said to the foreman "what is the point of keeping the other people when they are picking half of the grapes that the Kazakhs are" and the foreman took his advice and kept the Kazakh workers........ 



....... All the other English have fallen by the wayside.  Mind you I don't blame them at £10 per hour.

This is bugging me.  I didn't properly take this in before.

Your son persuaded the farmer to sack the English workers and give their work to Kazakhs instead.  And as a result, the English workers lost work.  The Kazakhs now love him and he's off to Kazakhstan to teach English and try his luck

But your son played a role in depriving workers of work.  Is this ethical behaviour?

You mean should people who pick twice as many grapes as other people get to keep their job on merit when they have paid 1000 quid to travel to Britain and apply for a work visa, precisely because Britain cannot get enough fruit pickers?

Should such people who work that much harder have the opportunity to go back with money in their pockets?

Yes, I would think that was perfectly ethical.  What would be unethical is depriving the hardest working people of work based on nationalism.  They are not illegal workers.  They are paying taxes like the rest of the pickers.

Otherwise a bottle of wine would cost 30 quid at Waitrose not 15.

[Greg]

She's gotta point.

Yet my son kept his job.  Clearly despite being a Brit he can graft with the best of them.

Farmers just want the grapes picked at the lowest prices.  Picking contractors want to make a margin.  They charge a fixed amount per ton in competitive bidding.  Hard workers for them equals more profit.

Capitalism baby.

Remember it was the owner of the vineyard who decided to pay everyone a penny.  That is His right as it is his money.  The workers did not form a union in the parable..

[clau clau]

He got a gang of Kazakh pickers 2 extra weeks of work today.  He said to the foreman "what is the point of keeping the other people when they are picking half of the grapes that the Kazakhs are" and the foreman took his advice and kept the Kazakh workers........ 



....... All the other English have fallen by the wayside.  Mind you I don't blame them at £10 per hour.

This is bugging me.  I didn't properly take this in before.

Your son persuaded the farmer to sack the English workers and give their work to Kazakhs instead.  And as a result, the English workers lost work.  The Kazakhs now love him and he's off to Kazakhstan to teach English and try his luck

But your son played a role in depriving workers of work.  Is this ethical behaviour?

You mean should people who pick twice as many grapes as other people get to keep their job on merit when they have paid 1000 quid to travel to Britain and apply for a work visa, precisely because Britain cannot get enough fruit pickers?

Should such people who work that much harder have the opportunity to go back with money in their pockets?

Yes, I would think that was perfectly ethical.  What would be unethical is depriving the hardest working people of work based on nationalism.  They are not illegal workers.  They are paying taxes like the rest of the pickers.

Otherwise a bottle of wine would cost 30 quid at Waitrose not 15.

First they came for the fruit pickers ...

edit:
First they outsourced off the call centre workers and I did not speak up because I was not a call centre worker.
Then they outsourced the testers and I did not speak up because I was not a tester.
... and then they outsourced me.
http://blog.joeware.net/2007/05/09/871/

[Greg]

These grapes are for wine.  So it should be,

First they came for the juice....

[awkward customer]

He got a gang of Kazakh pickers 2 extra weeks of work today.  He said to the foreman "what is the point of keeping the other people when they are picking half of the grapes that the Kazakhs are" and the foreman took his advice and kept the Kazakh workers........ 



....... All the other English have fallen by the wayside.  Mind you I don't blame them at £10 per hour.

This is bugging me.  I didn't properly take this in before.

Your son persuaded the farmer to sack the English workers and give their work to Kazakhs instead.  And as a result, the English workers lost work.  The Kazakhs now love him and he's off to Kazakhstan to teach English and try his luck

But your son played a role in depriving workers of work.  Is this ethical behaviour?

You mean should people who pick twice as many grapes as other people get to keep their job on merit when they have paid 1000 quid to travel to Britain and apply for a work visa, precisely because Britain cannot get enough fruit pickers?

Should such people who work that much harder have the opportunity to go back with money in their pockets?

Yes, I would think that was perfectly ethical.  What would be unethical is depriving the hardest working people of work based on nationalism.  They are not illegal workers.  They are paying taxes like the rest of the pickers.

Otherwise a bottle of wine would cost 30 quid at Waitrose not 15.

Cheap foreign workers drive down wages. Obviously you approve of this.

But nevertheless, the farmer your son was working for still employed some English workers.  Good for him.

And then your son persuaded the farmer to sack those English workers and employ cheap foreign labour in their place with the result that the Kazakhs love him.  They would, wouldn't they?

That's the behaviour of your son that I think is questionable, ethically.

We can argue all day about the ethics of an economic system which relies on imported cheap foreign labour.  But actually persuading a farmer to sack local workers and employ cheap foreign labour in their place is the point here.

I think your son behaved unethically. 

And that's me being polite.

[awkward customer]

She's gotta point.

Yet my son kept his job.  Clearly despite being a Brit he can graft with the best of them.

Farmers just want the grapes picked at the lowest prices.  Picking contractors want to make a margin.  They charge a fixed amount per ton in competitive bidding.  Hard workers for them equals more profit.

Capitalism baby.

Remember it was the owner of the vineyard who decided to pay everyone a penny.  That is His right as it is his money.  The workers did not form a union in the parable..

Your son persuaded the farmer to sack the English workers and employ cheap foreign workers.  As a result, the English people lost work.

And all to curry favour with a bunch of Kazakhs.

You can joke about capitalism all you like but it was a shitty thing to do.

Why don't you go and ask some 'Men of Kent' what they think?  If you can find any.

[Greg]

Same reason farmers hire Hispanics in the US: most whites simply refuse to do the work

They refuse to work for the low wages that the migrants are willing to accept?

If as a native British or American person you are competing with Mexicans and Kazakhs for unskilled manual labour jobs, the only skill being how hard you work and the gross weight you pick, then you have failed at life.  You speak natively the most used business language in the world.  You had a free education till 18, your libraries are stuffed with free books and the internet is full of information and free learning in your native tongue.

You already had a huge advantage over Mexicans and Kazakhs.

The gang started out in late September with mostly British school leavers, 3 German hippies and older people in their late 20s and early 30s, told by the welfare office to do some work of lose their unemployment benefits.  They did enough to remain on benefits and left. 40% of the school leavers lasted 1 or 2 days.  2 Brits are remaining, 34 Kazaks, 4 Turkmens, 8 Romanians.

The foreign workers do 1.5 to 2 times as much work for the same pay.

It pays about 85 pounds after taxes (just over 100 dollars) per day for a 9 hour work day, not including the travel.  If you stay late and clean the collection buckets you get another 20 dollars.

My son could earn more money labouring on a building site.  But he is enjoying it.  It's not about the money, he likes being out in the fresh air.  I would pay him 160 dollars a day to work a 7 hour day for me sitting on his ass at laptop computer.

[Greg]

The English workers had already left in the first week.   My son persuaded the gang boss to give the last 2 weeks of work to the Kazakhs who were the hardest working by far and the most productive compared to Turks, Romanians etc.  The Kazakhs were already there and he was bucket running for multiple teams. The other workers simply go back to their caravans until the next gang boss hirers them.  There is always produce sitting around in a field or a packing house somewhere.  They lazier ones just get more rest days, which is kind of what they want.

Naturally the gang boss wants the fields cleared as quickly as possible for the lowest price possible.

I do the same when I hire a Polish builder and pay him in cash.  I never hire English tradesmen unless I need their particular skills, like beadwork for example.  They cost more and do less and leave early.

[awkward customer]

Same reason farmers hire Hispanics in the US: most whites simply refuse to do the work

They refuse to work for the low wages that the migrants are willing to accept?

If as a native British or American person you are competing with Mexicans and Kazakhs for unskilled manual labour jobs, the only skill being how hard you work and the gross weight you pick, then you have failed at life.  You speak natively the most used business language in the world.  You had a free education till 18, your libraries are stuffed with free books and the internet is full of information and free learning in your native tongue.

You already had a huge advantage over Mexicans and Kazakhs.

The gang started out in late September with mostly British school leavers, 3 German hippies and older people in their late 20s and early 30s, told by the welfare office to do some work of lose their unemployment benefits.  They did enough to remain on benefits and left. 40% of the school leavers lasted 1 or 2 days.  2 Brits are remaining, 34 Kazaks, 4 Turkmens, 8 Romanians.

The foreign workers do 1.5 to 2 times as much work for the same pay.

It pays about 85 pounds after taxes (just over 100 dollars) per day for a 9 hour work day, not including the travel.  If you stay late and clean the collection buckets you get another 20 dollars.

My son could earn more money labouring on a building site.  But he is enjoying it.  It's not about the money, he likes being out in the fresh air.  I would pay him 160 dollars a day to work a 7 hour day for me sitting on his ass at laptop computer.

So he gets it from you, does he?

Listen to yourself, accusing people of being losers in life because they want to earn some spare cash working in the fields, as English people have always done until gangs of foreign labourers started arriving and denying them this work.

I've heard stories too.  Foreign workers bullying the local workers, grabbing everything for themselves, driving down their wages and generally being obnoxious.

You said yourself that you didn't blame the English workers for not wanting to work for £10 an hour.  And yet it is your beloved foreigners who keep wages so low.

I used to know people who regularly picked fruit in the fields of Kent every summer.  Were they "losers in life"? Well they've lost that work, thanks to people like your son.

[awkward customer]

The English workers had already left.  My son persuaded the gang boss to give the last 2 weeks of work to the Kazakhs who were the hardest working by far and the most productive.  The other workers simply go back to their caravans until the next gang boss hirers them.  There is always produce sitting around in a field or a packing house somewhere.

Naturally the gang boss wants the fields cleared as quickly as possible for the lowest price possible.

I do the same when I hire a Polish builder and pay him in cash.

Why are you changing your story?

You originally said that your son persuaded the farmer not to keep on the "other workers", that is, the English workers, and that the Kazakhs gained an extra two weeks work as a result.

And why don't you employ an English plumber?  English plumbers take cash.

Why are you and your family doing so much to deny work to English people and give it to foreigners instead?

Let me guess.  It's capitalism.

[Mister Cowboy]

It is getting quite heated here. I guess I should step in to remind everyone that we are all brother and sister Catholics here and we shouldn't hate each other even if we do have different opinions. In the sight of God we all belong to one big family so maybe it would be good to cool things down. So, what do you say?

[Greg]

The English workers had already left.  My son persuaded the gang boss to give the last 2 weeks of work to the Kazakhs who were the hardest working by far and the most productive.  The other workers simply go back to their caravans until the next gang boss hirers them.  There is always produce sitting around in a field or a packing house somewhere.

Naturally the gang boss wants the fields cleared as quickly as possible for the lowest price possible.

I do the same when I hire a Polish builder and pay him in cash.

Why are you changing your story?

You originally said that your son persuaded the farmer not to keep on the "other workers", that is, the English workers, and that the Kazakhs gained an extra two weeks work as a result.

And why don't you employ an English plumber?  English plumbers take cash.

Why are you and your family doing so much to deny work to English people and give it to foreigners instead?

Let me guess.  It's capitalism.

I'm not changing my story.  Go and read what I wrote rather than what you want to believe I wrote.

The English people did not last out the first week except for my son and one other (his school friends).  Said that in the first post.

Other gangs were brought in from Romania, Nigeria and other places.  Nobody outworked the Kazakhs.

Since the Kazakhs have paid for a working visa to Britain to pick fruit, and a flight, if they work the hardest why should anyone else get preference over them based on their nationality?

You are arguing as though they are illegal immigrants.  They're not.