[windowwashers]

dont get me worng dave, that is the skill

BUT

the Eastern europeans wont need that much of a skill, if they earn 60 quid a day they will be happy, 10 X (10 quid) houses at 6 quid each, they will think its great

im a little concearned about it to be honest, i would hope that 75% of my customers will stay with me ( honest, realable, do a good job )

i do think that it will drive prices down for the future though

I have asked customers about this and they said they would not trust them (their words not mine) so I am not to worried about it, please try and undercut me all the time yet I still grow every week. some round my areas charge £3 a house where i charge £10 so that really speaks for it's self. Have to give it to the poles I have met they are a hard working bunch

[xxmattyxx]

I thought a couple of years ago they were doing all the electricians out of work in the UK, then it was the chippies, I see them down at the local councils recycling centre

i guess you dont know any1 in the building game then, speak to them about it, they have taken work, they have driven down prices ( which to be fair be at a very silly high ) and they have made the building game a less inviting place for the youngsters ( who will be the future )

I live 2 doors away from a self-employed chippy and 3 doors away from a  self-employed sparky, theyve never once mentioned about being done out of work either by these guys, also did 11 years myself on building sites prior to becoming a self-employed window-cleaner.


That enough? 

[gmcs]

Don't worry we have over 400 working for a major holiday park in Minehead .........Yes the local lads have lost work to them on the camp but we are slowly getting it back..... have you ever seen a pole at the bottom of pole who are getting paid hourly ?? thay don't work very fast (good for them if they can get away with it) ....The firm spent loads of money on both truck mount carpet cleaner and a very good reach & wash most of the time they are off the road broken .....I wonder why maybe that the gear is not their own! or they don't want to do the work ...getting the signs out - Hi Viz - those of you who do commercial work when a place is open with 5000+ guests you know what I mean

[matt]

I thought a couple of years ago they were doing all the electricians out of work in the UK, then it was the chippies, I see them down at the local councils recycling centre

i guess you dont know any1 in the building game then, speak to them about it, they have taken work, they have driven down prices ( which to be fair be at a very silly high ) and they have made the building game a less inviting place for the youngsters ( who will be the future )

I live 2 doors away from a self-employed chippy and 3 doors away from a  self-employed sparky, theyve never once mentioned about being done out of work either by these guys, also did 11 years myself on building sites prior to becoming a self-employed window-cleaner.


That enough? 

i still have loads of mates in various trades, they all say that the money they can earn has dropped a fair bit and groundworkers are struggling to get enough work

i guess its all about area's

my best mate is a stone mason from cardiff, he is really up against it, about 2 years ago, he emplyed a few lads and would charge them out at 250 a day, he has had to lay a few off and only gets 150 a day now, the only reason for this is the easten europeans who are happy to earn 70 a day ( he has spoken to them on sites and in site huts etc etc )

[shammy davis jnr]

i read in the paper that eight thousand come to britain every week  where do they all go ?
and that is some amount every week  fifty two weeks a year and that is just the eastern euros 
never mind any one else

[Davo]

Well im not against anyone trying to earn themselves an honest living, but the problem that I see is that because the polish ( or indeed any other migrant workers) are happy to work on lower hourly rates then employers can fill their vacancies at minimum wage. Many " native english" cant afford to feed a family and pay their bills on basic rate money, if employers couldnt get staff to fill these lower paid vacancies they would have to increase the hourly rate to attract employees. So I think that the migrant workers are keeping wages rates down in this country ( I dont blame the migrant workers for that, I would do the same in their position)

If they move into window cleaning or any other relatively low money entry level business they will bring down rates.

Look at it this way, if window cleaners in germany were working for £120 an hour, would you go over there and work for £120 or would you settle for £80-£100. And to get that £120 it might take you 3/4 years to build up that customer base, whereas at £80 1/3rd cheaper than the german cleaners you;d soon get yourself a round going ( plus we're better tradesmen than the germans IMO)

Mark

[crystal.clear]

ok cleaning
i know that someone in camberley was sellinng a round the other day and i think he sold it to a polish guy. im in yateley so if you ever see me about stop and have a chat.

[Village Gleam]

Dave speaks a lot of sence.

[Pole2pole]

I've been waiting for this day to come and it has. WFP'ing away this morn and a car pulled up. Very polite young polish guy, spoke the lingo pretty well,askin me 101 questions about where? why? How much? How much can i earn?  Then his (i presume) father got out the car,smiled,shook my hand,smiled some more(probably not as fluent in English as his son) I wish this lad all the best BUT for every one that i know of there has to be another 5 at least that i don't know of. Give it a couple of years and it'll be 30 or 40 or more. 5 years down the road??? God knows. I do a fantastic job of my work and probably have not too much to worry about, but if i was a custy and someone offered to do my gaff for £4 instead of £12, i'd be tempted. Why shouldn't my punters be as tempted?
My saving grace was i told him it costs about 5K to set it all up. Ok a bit overinflated but some of ya will know where i'm comin from 
Rant over................... Beer 

[Moderator David@stives]

If it came to it near me , here is my plan.

Sell my house, my vehicles, my business and buy a cheap house in the outer hebrides and a couple more to renovate, get a part time job and spend the rest of my days just chillin, fishing, canoeing, drinking.

Heaven

[riz]

I work in Camberley too. I picked up a job last year from a Pole that "never came back" I quoted £27-00 his price was £25-00 so they ain't that cheap!!

There's even a Polish Cafe in the town centre so hopefully they'll spend most of the day in there

[Pole2pole]

Funnily enough Dave, I was thinkin of moving to Poland. I reckon the equity in my pad would buy an awfully nice pad over there. And i've noticed the gals aint to be sniffed at. Talkin of sniffing........If the wife gets a sniff of this post, then it may well be the outer hebrides for me 

[m.b.s.]

i got under cut by a polish lad it was only a £4 shop but he said he would do it to the owner for £2 what can you do if i see him i will give him a gob fulll if not a fist full its took me nearly 10 years hard graft to build my shop round up and i ain t giving them up that easely no way

[Pole2pole]

Funny thing is MBS, i don't blame them. If i could quadruple(if not more, much more) my income by going to work an easyjet flight away, to provide a much better lifestyle for my family then i would. I do however blame this gutless Government for not standing up for US cos you can rest assured if it does all go belly up, then they won't be waiting in the wings ready to support my F*cking family. It grinds at me soo much. I'm not gonna say " I aint racist", that's the most overused cliche out there but i do see some real bad times ahead for us and our families. Not just in this trade, in every trade. A friend of mine is at Uni at the minute. Can she find a bit of part time work to help her get by??? Not on your nelly. You can guess as to why............. 

[D.Salkeld_Ltd]

Hi Folks,

Over here they are too busy cleaning cars in TESCO's car park at Cleethorpes.
Mind you I did think of askin one if he wanted a job in a small market town.

David

[m.b.s.]

if i could afford to get out of this contry i would too many for my liking but then a gain why should i i belong here not them

[Pole2pole]

Fancy a beer MBS..............Thank God i aint alone on this one. I'd sick to the high teeth of being told how i should think and how i should feel. I'm bloody angry. All this talk about intergration is a good thing. It is........undoubtably, but if they we're coming over on gunboats with an AK47, it would be called an invasion and oil permitting  a peacekeeping force would be sent here to protect us. Tongue firmly in cheek CIU....firmly in cheek. Don't bite 

[m.b.s.]

Fancy a beer MBS..............Thank God i aint alone on this one. I'd sick to the high teeth of being told how i should think and how i should feel. I'm bloody angry. All this talk about intergration is a good thing. It is........undoubtably, but if they we're coming over on gunboats with an AK47, it would be called an invasion and oil permitting  a peacekeeping force would be sent here to protect us. Tongue firmly in cheek CIU....firmly in cheek. Don't bite 

yes dino strongly agree m8 but its a pitty many more dont

[macmac]

Round 'em all up & ship em back to where they came from. simple
Most of them are crap tradesmen anyway.
That australian president/prime minister had the right idea a couple of years ago when he stopped a ship full of imigrants from docking, turned it round & sent it back.

tony

[jikwan]

take a look at california for example
all the mexicans working there for $7 an hour
they have monopolized many areas
gardening,catering,farmwork etc etc
always the numbers increase
nothing will be done to change this
california state would go bankrupt
its slave labour and very good for the economy
exactly the same thing is happening in UK
take a look
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-7037664,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-7037664,00.html

cost of living always increasing and its no small thing to save
£5 or £10 on wc bill

SLAVE LABOUR IS GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY