Bulgarian workers/Keelings - read OP (threadbans listed)

Easy fix for this. Allow anyone on the Covid-19 payment to earn up to say 400 per week in an agri job without losing their Covid payment. Why isnt this done?

Yakult wrote: »

Well, we have grass, some cobbled stones, leaves are very nutritious, just harvest is a bit down this time of year.


Ok, forgive my comments about essential/non-essential. They were idiotic. I'm wrong and ye are right in that regards. If strawberries are deemed essential then so be it.


But are you ok with what Keelings have done? Given the current situation?

I don't think what they have done is ideal, nor do I think it's as destructive as made out to be - in terms of Covid19, these are mostly self contained workers who will really only be mixing with each other.

The bigger issues around food production, and the treatment/patyment of those working in it - have been highlighted, but people aren't seeing it - they're just jumping at one company out of many more that do the exact same thing year in year out - all to satisfy the ever growing appetite for cheap food, cheap goods and cheap crap generally.

Won't even get into the nitty gritty about domestic pricing vs import pricing and the need for both in order to keep each other in check (on the race to the bottom that is)

Graham wrote: »

+1

I'd rather not secure the nations food supply by way of a Facebook popularity contest.

This is a bullsh-t argument, if the nation's food supply is dependent on migrant labour at a time of Pandemic it's not secure!
If Irish strawberries were vital to food security then we should be taking action to secure it, Romania and Bulgaria could easily have made a choice that they didn't want workers travelling to a western European country where there is cases.

If food security is the argument then you understand that there is a massive hole in your logic right?

arctictree wrote: »

Easy fix for this. Allow anyone on the Covid-19 payment to earn up to say 400 per week in an agri job without losing their Covid payment. Why isnt this done?

If globalization is wrong, then yes. If you're not pro-European then yes.

But we exist in a political Union that allows for free movement of workers. At a time of a pandemic, these workers come to work in a field(literally) that is deemed an essential service. These people can make some money and go back to Bulgaria with a lot of money relatively. Irish people gain from consuming efficiently picked strawberries at a lower price than they otherwise would.

There's a bigger question in all of this.

Yakult wrote: »

But are you ok with what Keelings have done? Given the current situation?

As somebody asked earlier in the thread, if Keelings had recruited a couple of hundred fruit pickers from within Ireland (with its higher levels of COVID-19) and had transferred them to north Dublin to work and live in the same conditions...would people still be complaining, and about what?



Would people still be wanting to boycott Keelings?

amdublin wrote: »

At its simplest we need fruit and veg etc. It's part of the food supply chain essential.

And we need workers to pick this fruit for us to to then purchase and buy.

No Irish applied for these jobs. Ahem, being realistic, why would we when get $350 for doing nothing at the moment. Fruit picking is very hard.

Some comments here and elsewhere have a bang of "fordners taking are jobs" which is absolute rot.

I do hope the correct rules are applied 're social distancing are adhered to these workers and I hope they all stay well.

I wish them the best in health and their work.

Stop making sense please. This isn't the time or place for it!

blinding wrote: »

Why are some Irish people so Proud of having Minimum Wages Jobs ? ?:eek::eek:

Strut out your Chests. Bring up yer’e Chins, Yer’e mighty with yer’e minimum wage Jobs:eek::eek: Glorio Glorio :eek::eek:

Jaysus your posts are atrocious.

Tacitus Kilgore wrote: »

I don't think what they have done is ideal, nor do I think it's as destructive as made out to be - in terms of Covid19, these are mostly self contained workers who will really only be mixing with each other.

The bigger issues around food production, and the treatment/patyment of those working in it - have been highlighted, but people aren't seeing it - they're just jumping at one company out of many more that do the exact same thing year in year out - all to satisfy the ever growing appetite for cheap food, cheap goods and cheap crap generally.

Won't even get into the nitty gritty about domestic pricing vs import pricing and the need for both in order to keep each other in check (on the race to the bottom that is)

I would hazard a guess that once the Bulgarians leave and if the CV19 crisis has abated then all those waving there fists in anger at their smartphones produced in countries under labour conditions no one here would work under and made with metals probably mined using child labour while destroying the environment in the process, won't give a flying fork about the Bulgarians as they sip their Nesspresso coffee produced by underage workers doing backbreaking work for a couple of euro a day.