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    Re: Tory candidate for Ashfield finds solution for Brexit agricultural labour shortage. Archived Message

    Posted by dereklane on November 20, 2019, 8:39 am, in reply to "Tory candidate for Ashfield finds solution for Brexit agricultural labour shortage."

    Re brexit agricultural labour shortage- is this a labour shortage of people from other places willing to work for below national minimum wages? There are plenty of people round here who want to (and many do) work on farms, but the pay doesn't match what it costs to live, and because of artificially deflated prices for produce, the labour cost stays low as a result. Is this eu related then, or should we more appropriately pin it on the overriding system of capitalist gain and acknowledge the fact that if farm workers can't be imported to meet demand they may have to hike wages, and therefore prices farmers are paid? Compared to cost in supermarkets, the supermarkets could easily take the hit without it feeding to customers, but either way, it shows the flaws in the current system anyway.

    The farm workers I know are mostly young and getting well under £5 ph. The older ones can sometimes collect up to £9-£10 an hour (in theory- the hours are longer than claims on all counts). I get £15 for skilled labour(mostly joinery but on farms) in various fields(ha) but never get even close to full weeks. For the work, skill and danger the minimum should be mine, but that's far from the truth.

    Never mind Tory fantasies; it's probably closer to that in reality up and down the country already.

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