Hitch hikers.

skellyjohn · Post by **skellyjohn** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 4:23 pm

I picked up 2 Polish hitchers yesterday on A80 at Crowood in the golf - a red s2 had just passed me. I usually stop for hitch hikers as they usually fill an hour better than the radio.

They were uni students, over here picking berries for the summer holidays. They work 6 days a week from 7am until 8pm with half an hour at lunch and dinner. They share a bedroom with 18 in the one room with one bathroom. Their pay? £120 per week!!

I know that there will be some people who think 'f*ck em, it's their choice' but I thought this was well out of order. Having 3 cars and just bought a bigger than required 2nd house, I felt guilty enough to stop off in Perth and get them a bite to eat. Are there not laws against this exploitation?

neil · Post by **neil** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 4:29 pm

Sounds slightly below the minimum wage to me

BiggestNizzy · Post by **BiggestNizzy** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 4:33 pm

I think minimum wage only applies to Uk residents, it is exploitation but it must be worth while or they wouldn't do it.

Post by **pete** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 4:40 pm

I earned 60 quid a week as a student, including accom. Mind that was 1989...

Rich H · Post by **Rich H** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 4:42 pm

They don't have to pick berries miles from home.....

skellyjohn · Post by **skellyjohn** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 4:58 pm

One thing I forgot to put in my post was that they were both about 18 and blonde

Looked a bit like that Kornikova bird! Not that its clouding my judgement on exploitation of farm workers.

jj · Post by jj » Thu Jul 05, 2007 4:59 pm

skellyjohn wrote:One thing I forgot to put in my post was that they were both about 18 and blonde
Looked a bit like that Kornikova bird! Not that its clouding my judgement on exploitation of farm workers.

Where did you pick them up from?

I earned £80/week working 40hours at the golf club as greens staff. That was only 8 years ago !

rossybee · Post by **rossybee** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 5:03 pm

skellyjohn wrote:One thing I forgot to put in my post was that they were both about 18 and blonde
Looked a bit like that Kornikova bird! Not that its clouding my judgement on exploitation of farm workers.

How much did you offer them to play the pink oboe?

skellyjohn · Post by **skellyjohn** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 5:29 pm

I KNEW that would be the comments if I told you that they were a couple of blonde birds.

It was like the scene out of Dumb and Dumber with the coach load of girls in bikins. My fist question was 'have you had to wait long'. Ans: 2 minutes.

BiggestNizzy · Post by **BiggestNizzy** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 5:43 pm

if it had been two quasi modo impersinators would you have picked them up ?

Post by **simon** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 5:47 pm

There's loads of them up here. They can easily earn enough to pay themselves through uni for a year back home so I wouldn't feel too sorry for them

Gareth · Post by **Gareth** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 5:53 pm

Catering staff at my work are all polish...bloody parasites...excluding the few hot blondes

BiggestNizzy · Post by **BiggestNizzy** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 5:59 pm

We had a couple of poles working for us they where willing to work but not that good at the old precision stuff, and the ropey english was a problem. It was all hungarians in cypruss and they where hot

so didnt mind

rossybee · Post by **rossybee** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 6:11 pm

skellyjohn wrote:I KNEW that would be the comments if I told you that they were a couple of blonde birds.

It was like the scene out of Dumb and Dumber with the coach load of girls in bikins. My fist question was 'have you had to wait long'. Ans: 2 minutes.

Stewart · Post by **Stewart** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 7:03 pm

Highly unlikely that it would be cash in hand unless it was a really small farm - too difficult to get away with on any kind of large scale. Farmers are probably more wrapped up in red tape than any other industry in the UK.

£120 per week may be right as there is a chance that the farmer (gangmaster) takes a share of their wage as board, but I would imagine it would be much higher.

Most farmers I know look after there foreign students. I am sure that as they are EU citizens that the minimum wage applies. Labour for these kinds of jobs is very scarce and the students now seem to have the pick of the jobs (no pun intended

).

Stewart