Interesting the difference in attitudes

..https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/busin...rus-career-pivots-i-now-work-in-a-supermarket

These people contrast with those who consider doing menial, low paid work somehow beneath them, and the argument that people should not be forced to work on farms to keep the food supply chain going.

In WW2 (and before that WW1) We had the 'Land army' These were primarily, but not exclusively women as the men were conscripted into the army . Board, lodgings and a minimum wage were provided by the farmer albeit women were paid less than men in those days (unacceptable now).

We are in a time of national crisis and effectively at War having been 'invaded' by an enemy that is attacking debilitating and killing the civilian population and decimating our economy.

And yet we have 'apologists' complaining that it is against their human rights and somehow a failing of the authorities and Governments to expect unemployed healthy young people to have to take these, 'menial' jobs and are in denial that there are a number of healthy young people who could easily fill these vital jobs. Many university students have already been recruited given their courses are suspended.

Lots of nonsense is also spouted regarding menial low skilled jobs albeit vital work should be highly rewarded comparing them to nurses and doctors etc forgetting these involve years of study after leaving school and in many situations lost income for those years compounded by debts incurred.
Given the short seasons and overall numbers involved which peak mid- late summer, the incomes would probably be within the tax allowance so easily make it tax free. Gove could pass legislation to also pay the NI contribution for all workers on the scheme.

 

I'm 64, I've worked most of my life as a software developer (mainly for Jaguar) for very good pay (I was on about £50,000 when I finished at Jag in 2013). I now work for British Car Auctions taking vehicle pictures for on-line auctions etc. I get the minimum wage for being outside in all weathers with only short breaks and under pressure to keep up with the flow of vehicles coming out of the valet bay, mostly on my own.

Picking fruit and veg on a farm in summer sounds like a holiday to me.

 

Just as an aside to this...I've been reading quite a bit lately about WW1, apparently the Govt paid German POW's to work on the farms....at higher rates than British farm labourers were on.

 

i'm 63, got 3 fractured verts in my lower back ( spondolylothesis errr spelling) a knackered right knee and had a heart attack and cant sit or stand for to long but i'm sure i could sit/stand at a desk and count stuff and as i get decent mil disability pensions i would'nt need paying............. i'll go, like brush says seems like a holiday, fresh air, company and the craic, just like pea pulling as a kid. and it would be helping the country out instead of people just chipping and sniping away all the time if you aint part of the solution then you're part of the problem

 

Surely that would have been after the war?

 

Just on the farm work bit, in the mid 80’s during school hols I would go with my next door neighbour and used to earn more money than my father a day who was an undertaker.
In the early 90’s I did it for a couple of years after being made redundant,back then I used to play pool to quite a serious level and would go into pubs and be greeted with people taking the mick saying ‘still picking flowers’ in a derogatory fashion.
My reply would be ask them what they did and what it paid and very rare did they earn more than me(we could earn between £80 & £150 a day).
It was all piece work and you had to really graft to get that but it could be achieved.

 

While your reference to the Land Army girls is true, it’s best not to look back at that time as a everyone pulling together to defeat the enemy in a national crisis. It’s a myth.

Tom Neil was a 20-year-old fighter pilot in 1940. At the height of the air battle (later called The Battle of Britain) he and his fellow pilots discussed was happening around them. They weren’t impressed. Strikes and industrial action were widespread and despite what Neil called “patriotic tub thumping” when people were actually asked to do anything they refused. Many were just to make a few bob for themselves. What pissed the pilots off most was labourers building brick shelters around the airfield dispersal huts. They refused to take on the job until they were paid more than the pilot officers risking their lives several times a day. ‘Such is the way the British organise their affairs in war time… despite Mr Churchill’s rhetoric not many were keen to fight.”

Gun Button to Fire. Tom Neil. Worth a read


In 1940 Mass Observation sent people into pubs and onto the street to gauge the public mood. Some thought “if Hitler did come, he wouldn’t bother with the likes of us.” After Dunkirk when we’d lost everything, they recorded one old woman saying she wasn’t worried as “our boys are better than them and if they did come, we would hit them with big sticks.” The Wehrmacht must have been trembling.

Some people do their bit. Some don’t. Nowt changes.

 

I've always had a good job in managerial roles of varying degrees in different industries and run my own business (unsuccessfully I might add) which has led me to start out again at the age of 61.
I have applied for jobs in the same sort of roles to which I am accustomed and for driving jobs and supermarket jobs which are supposedly abundant at this time.
I have had 1 interview 5 weeks ago for which I have had no contact from the company since and 1 reply from a store saying my details have been forwarded to HR . The rest don't even have the decency to tell you you haven't even been considered.
I'm desperate to get back into work and the minimum wage seems a lot to me at the minute. I'd willingly go fruit picking so would the OP do us a favour and not tar all unemployed people with the same brush!

 

POW's (many of them Italians) in this country were sent to work on local farms during the war - not sure if they were paid. At the end of WW2 they were repatriated.

 

I know they were sent to work on the farms but didnt know they were paid during the WW1

 

The view from my desk:
Everyone who works for us is an essential worker
Many people who generally work in non frontline roles are being redeployed to the front line, all the senior managers are pushing the importance of doing whatever we can (and leading by example), it’s the lower levels of management and frontline staff who are upset with changing roles (being messed about?), and some of the staff on the frontline are genuinely conflicted about putting their own needs before the greater needs of the customers we need to be there for.
My job is (middle management?) badged ‘critical’ (some analysis is still required) but I’m exploring ways I can rearrange my work to help out my frontline colleagues and customers on a part time basis.

 

Every post he makes it’s to slag somebody off in our country ,

 

You are quite right, which I why I said conscripted! It is also a myth that Londoners remained defiant and strong during teh Blitz and when teh V1 and and V2s started to come over. Obviously teh true state of morale was a closely guarded secret during teh war and for some years after. It is now know that quite a proprtion of the population in targeted locations like London, Birmingham, Sheffield, Hulll Liverpool were close to 'broken' and many suffered what we would now call PTSD.

People now complaining of hardship due to lock down can have no idea what it must have been like to come out of the shelters every night after all clear sounded wondering if your house or even street was still standing. For many, of course, teh house they left only hours before was a smouldering pile of rubble or just a large crater. I was born in 1954 near the East End and within sight of Hornchurch RAF station and remeber when I was 4 and 5 playing out near sold air raid shelters and going in to LOndon where many areas where still bombsites.

ALl we are being asked to do is stay home unless leaving it is essential. Some seem incapable of even managing that.

 

Anybody who tars all unemployed people with the same brush is an idiot but I will say that the reason you aren't getting responses at all is probably because of the numbers of people who are trying to cheat the system making it so hard to reply to everyone including the genuine people. Sad but true.

 

No it was during the war...it provoked a bit of a storm in 1917.

 

Good clip that. When I was in ASDA in Barnsley last week, (visiting my parents in their garden & grabbing them some shopping before lockdown), the lass who served me was getting trained. She works in the wedding industry as a make up artist normally, but had been taken on on one of the temporary contracts.

 

So everyone in the UK is perfect in your dreamworld and nobody tries to cheat the system and they are all blameless victims!!.

 

Your making your own arguments there nothing In my posts says or even hints that .

 

?? Where did I tar all unemployed with the same brush. The OP was the exact opposite since it highlights the can do attitude of many younger (and older) people in the UK.

 

?? "Every post he makes it’s to slag somebody off in our country ",