Not punctuation skills, evidently.

Hope in a couple of years you’ll be hectoring your new-found pals on how, while you’re happy to use them as a stick to beat foreigners with, you don’t actually give a fuck whether they live or die.

To their faces.

I am for immigration ,…at the already high 97 levels not five times the rate so you have your context wrong . Insurance is the largest employer in the SE its job like any other. How DB you managed ot stay out of work for two years in the 90s defeats me .What are you a radio ventriloquist ? A leaf polisher ? Even now I can always work because I have skills . If I sat on my arse when the business was dispapearing I could easily be unemployed but then it never occurred to me to sit with a gaping beak waiting for other people to bring me worms

Take your sob story elsewhere. There is no excuse for taking two years off

Oh, and Wee Willie Hague says he supports immigration, so you’re in the wrong party if you want nationalism.

That is utter bollocks , I have never met anyone involved in” International Finance in the Conservative Party although I know many who are . They are usually not interested in politics at all. Sunny likes to talk about markets when it comes to his beloved EU but had he ever had a job or any responsibilities to go with it he would realise that the “Market” about which he ahs read in books does not exist for Labour . There is no such thing as free movement of |Labour as virtually no-one who really needs a job can leave it and go fruit picking in France when they are a qualified Mechanic working in Rotherham . It is a figment of his imagination
The staggering arrogance of Mandy who think just because can freeload off the tax payer in Europe everyone can somehow unearth free money takes the breath away. This has nothing to do with markets its to do with immigration and the assault on the UK the EU represents . There has never been any confusion for anyone else between mass immigration and free trade
Good and services exploit Comparative advantage which actually depends on building up skills and particular long term human investment in one place , not destroying then like a plague of locusts every time passing flottilla of cheapy caravans pulls up with a deal.

Incidentally fishing and Construction are not the only occupations where UK employment has been given the foreigners .My own business has been decimated by open EU competition this lasst ten years . No-one cares about at and no -one cares that the wealth created and wasted by Brown was done so by people working hard under ferociously competitive conditions

Its nice to see Conservative sand Unions starting to see their true enemies and the Libertarians and Marxists finding their true friends

Wouldn’t dare guess why not, but ‘market failure’ wouldn’t be one of the options. Why’s it a failure? The fact is a company exists that provides this service (market success). It’s not a British company though. Maybe there’s more demand for this sort of thing in and near Italy. Maybe British workers in this industry are heavily unionised making such a company operating in the UK too expensive to be viable. Who knows?

Market failure is when the least efficient company, with the worst product with the highest prices succeeds when the most efficient company, with the best products at the lowest prices fail. *Thats* a market failure. THat would prove the free market people wrong, but that *only* happens when the State interferes, giving advantages to the former type of company.

Good question – but wouldn’t answering that suggest a form of market failure among British businesses?

I agree absolutely and completely, however the claims by the firm that won the contract is that the Italian workers will be receiving the same contract rate that the British would. The idea that this is driven by “cheap” labour on an individual level is one that is not proven.

Charlieman: Really good points.

1. The UK is a member of an economic club. An Italian company beat three UK companies for the construction work in Lincolnshire. The UK companies are free to bid on other contracts across the EU, and a responsible government would say that it will help those companies to compete better on other contracts. That is not about meddling or subsidising, simply providing advice. It is why we have consulates all over the world to support UK plc.

2. Accept, for the sake of argument, that the initial dispute is non-xenophobic. The challenge for politicians and trade unionists is to create a debate about the competitiveness of UK companies. Given the number of job losses in the last month, failure to win a particular contract needs to be put into perspective.

3. There will be further examples of “British jobs going to foreigners”. We need a considered, moderate response now.

4. The only winners from crass, xenophobic statements by mainstream politicians are the BNP.

Our skills need to greatly improve to ensure we are competitive on price, quality and speed of completion. Labour has had 11.5 years to address the skills shortage.

The ‘right’ have never explained how or why “economic freedom for us, massive restrictions for foreign labour but keep sending us your cheap tele’s” makes anything approximating rational sense, nor has their ever been any discussion of what effect the inevitable protectionist (read:tarriffs) response from countries we import from would be. Namely of course because the tory dominated press has never forced them to.

Shatterface:

Lee (47): Okay, you used the words ‘xenophobic’ and ‘jingoistic’ instead of ‘racist’: perhaps you can elaborate on the difference? Its still name-calling rather than argument.

Call it name calling, it is to a degree, but it is also the truth. It is the attitude of giving the British some kind of devine right to have it better than others, and to avoid change because of *current* british culture…that is by it’s definition xenophobic and jingioistic in nature. It’s not productive.

The Cornish argument is just bollocks. Even if I could imagine that a Cornish firm would open a factory in Newcastle (say) I can’t think of a reason for them to employ only Cornish workers unless those workers would accept cheeper pay than the locals and as I said in comment 35 I would oppose this move on the basis that it would undermine local pay rates.

I’m amazed you’re finding this concept hard to grasp, you’re certainly misinterpreting what I’m saying, especially as it’s been stated that the individual workers are not going to be paid less than “local” workers.

Simplified (again) version. If you think it’s wrong for Italians to come and work in Britain, then why don’t you think it’s wrong for the Cornish to come and work in Lincolnshire (hypothetically)? Don’t try and think “why” someone would employ one of the other, just answer the question.

my objection was to jobs being given to temporary workers who can afford to take piss-poor wages in the short term as they will often be living in cheep accomodation. Those with roots in the community and mortgages to pay, etc. cannot compete in these circumstances.

Well in the Lincolnshire example there are barges being pulled up for the temporary workforce to live in, so these factors don’t exist. I called your argument bullshit because it is a jingoistic argument that fails to recognise that the British are just as bad at taking money out of the economy and, in their own separate demographics, equally exploited if on low wages. It’s not a migration problem it’s an issue with the working class situation in this country (and others).

Free migration of labour always undermines working class wages because immigration is used to drive local wages DOWN while middle-class immigrants are enticed by HIGHER WAGES: the result is greater and greater inequality.

Then the problem is a country’s minimum wage and such factors, not migration. You also kind of miss the point that the reason wages can be driven down is because there is an abundance of workforce for the jobs available. If there was only one company available to do the Lincolnshire job then they’d be able to command a higher price. It is competition that drives prices down, and there is absolutely no reason to limit free migration unless you’re willing to do it on all levels (See the Cornwall argument).

And I don’t understand your second paragraph at all, I’m afraid. You might have mistyped.

If work requires a level of employment, and that brings people IN to a community then there is no degradation of communities, only a change of culture.

Any women who worked in the factories in WW2 has more industrial experience than either the Cabinet or shadow Cabinet.

The contract has gone to a company that specialises in this type of project, that already has it’s own workforce with the relevant skills (thus reducing the costs, time, complexity of recruitment which, if you’re looking for very specific skills can be very hard). All their staff are probably familiar with the designs and construction methods, they all speak the same language and they’re all used to working with each other.

The questions we should be asking is this: Why isn’t there a British company that can build these refinery extensions and cheaply, efficiently and skilfully as this Italian company?

May I also add,
what infuriates me the most is…reading the Talibani of the free markets today pointing the finger at the EU as the root cause of the Lindsey oil refinery issue. But the same free-marketeers need to make up their mind and quick.The contradictions are shocking…

Do they want a world (including Europe) where British corporations do practically what they like wherever they like, or not?
Do they want an EU where 800,000 Brits (I’ll say it again, 800,000 Brits) buy homes in Spain putting local services under enormous strain, or not? Most of those Spain-based Brits are Daily Mail readers, and no, I’m not generalising.

You can’t have the cake and eat it. And if you want the freedom to be sick in Benidorm town centre all year round or the freedom of having a purpose-built dodgy villa outside Marbella, then you may have to put up with EU workers spending 6 months on a contract in England.

The only thing I hope is that the tabloid editors and politicians have an impetus of humanity and don’t start riding the gravy train of anti-foreign rhetoric. Like Chris Dillow correctly points out, that could be potentially explosive in moments like this.

I kind of know that you are going to blow this arguement out of the water, but here goes anyway.

It seems to me that the free migration of labour, along with capital, is a reasonable ambition for the world at large, though not, perhaps, it’s constituent nation states. Even without the other than marginal movement of labour, which is all that would happen, a tariff free world would see greater equality than we see now.

Which would be, sort of, good. Would it not?

The Cornish argument is just bollocks. Even if I could imagine that a Cornish firm would open a factory in Newcastle (say) I can’t think of a reason for them to employ only Cornish workers unless those workers would accept cheeper pay than the locals and as I said in comment 35 I would oppose this move on the basis that it would undermine local pay rates.

And I stated in my first post (the one you referred to as ‘bullshit) that I have no objection to people moving to communities where they are willing to lay down roots as they would then become local and therefore have a vested interest in maintaining higher wages: my objection was to jobs being given to temporary workers who can afford to take piss-poor wages in the short term as they will often be living in cheep accomodation. Those with roots in the community and mortgages to pay, etc. cannot compete in these circumstances.

Free migration of labour always undermines working class wages because immigration is used to drive local wages DOWN while middle-class immigrants are enticed by HIGHER WAGES: the result is greater and greater inequality.

And I don’t understand your second paragraph at all, I’m afraid. You might have mistyped.

As for your issue about communities, this is only an issue of enough xenophobia exists that the workforce required for an area aren’t integrating, when it comes to movement of labour.

To go back to Cornwall once more, there are people there that no doubt have aspirations to be things that they can’t be in Cornwall…is it realistic in the slightest (for example) to expect a group of people in Cornwall that want to make it big in the stock market to wait for big business to invest in a base in Cornwall? Sometimes work is not able to come to you, and you have to go to it, depending on the field of expertise…this is one of those areas, and to deny the italians or anyone else the opportunity simply because of their nationality is ignoring the real global issue of workforce versus work opportunity.

Hell, perhaps if we worked more globally on the issue of employment we wouldn’t get ourselves in to what is obviously a situation of there being too little work for how many people want jobs in both countries.

Your uncritical support for the free movement of labour is no different from Tebbit’s sentimentality for those who get on their bikes to look for work whatever the consequences for the communities they displace or for those they leave behind.

“Support us! If it weren’t for the damned EU [chokes, wipes tear from eye] we’d be allowed to employ you local peoples and not teh foriegns! ”

Then, just as he turns from the podium, thinking the microphone is turned off, he mumbles “but we fookin’ won’t”.

Is he still UKIP’s press officer, BTW?

You’ve really not understood my point have you? Foreign workers sending money home is no different from domestic workers spending money abroad or saving money long-term.

“Its interesting that you draw parallels with investing overseas as if the corruption, exploitation and incompetance of the global market is something is something the working class should aspire to.”

Yep, you’ve definitely missed my point.

“And parallels with Cornwall are growing a little tired”

So keeping it simple here, do you believe that if this company had awarded a contract to a Cornish/Kentish/Isle of Man firm that used it’s own workforce that we’d be sitting here having this debate? Furthermore do you think it’d be right to have the same debate?

To me this whole argument is railing against EU protocol, while at the same time trying to suggest that British workers somehow deserve jobs provided by companies simply by virtue of their postcode. Thankfully businesses are allowed to work on the basis of employing the best for the job (however they define best), and just like that means allowing someone from the north to come and work in the south, it means allowing people that can freely move within the EU to work anywhere in the EU.

It’s really about time that this xenophobic and jingoistic attitude was dropped. It’s a selfish attitude and the double standards on the opposite side of the equation involving British workers abroad aren’t ever addressed as somehow contributing to the “problem”, as if we have some divine right to have a job and other EU member state workers don’t.

The author is Martin Shankleman who has previously reported employment disputes sensibly.