POLISH MIGRANT WORKERS IN UK

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

In May 2004, eight countries (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia) joined the European Union (known as EU for short). The UK government said that people from these countries had the same rights to work and claim benefits in the UK as citizens of both the UK and other countries in the EU like France, Germany and Spain. (An important principle of the EU is that workers are free to move from one country to another to find jobs. English people can work in France, Spain or Germany etc and claim sickness and unemployment benefits there. This explains why we have so many Spanish, Portuguese and French footballers playing in the FA Premier League.)

Between May 2004 and June 2006, 447,000 workers from these eight countries registered to work in UK. The government estimates that the figure is now over 500,000. Over 60% of these workers come from Poland. One reason for the large number of Poles moving to Britain to find work is that Poland (population 38,500,000) is the largest of the eight countries to join the EU in 2004. There are other reasons:

  • Poland also has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the EU, approximately 18% in 2005 compared to 5.5% in UK.
  • Salaries and wages in Poland are amongst the lowest in Europe, (approximately 25% of the average for other EU countries). For example in UK average weekly wages are £447 or about £23,250 per year, while in Poland the average monthly salary is £380 or less than £5000 per year.
  • Although things are cheaper in Poland than in UK (for example milk is about half the price, bread about one third the price, petrol about ¾ the price and rents for flats and houses about half the price), people in Poland have a lower standard of living than people in UK do.

Almost 80% of the workers who come to England from Poland are aged under 34. Most are single, and men outnumber women. However, since 2004 the number of Poles who have brought their families with them has doubled. The government estimates that by the end of 2006 at least 5000 Polish workers had brought wives and children to Britain to live with them.

The majority of Polish workers have found jobs in low-paid occupations like factory work, packing, cleaning, catering, security and agriculture. Some of them arrived here with few skills but others are well educated, sometimes with university degrees, but are still prepared to work long hours, for low wages, because they can earn far more doing manual work in UK than they could earn doing a professional job in Poland. Some young Poles also come to UK to improve their English because this will help them to get a better job when they return to Poland.

The government has discovered that some employers are paying East European workers less than the minimum, wage because they speak little or no English and do not understand their rights.

Recently, substantial numbers of skilled workers, managers and professionals have come from Poland to work in the UK. The government estimates that there are about 12,000 Poles working in the building industry as skilled tradesmen and in some areas experienced Polish doctors, dentists and nurses have been recruited to fill vacancies which no suitably qualified English health workers have applied for. Like their unskilled colleagues, these Polish workers will often work for longer, in less pleasant conditions and for less pay than British workers.

Very few Polish migrant workers claim social security or unemployment benefit and the majority rent private houses rather than ‘jumping the queue’ for council houses. (Government figures show that only 110 East European migrant workers and their families had been given council houses). However, in the areas where they are concentrated there have been some social problems.

  • Low level crime and disorder. This partly caused by Poles and other East Europeans not understanding British culture and laws. Anther cause is prejudice towards them by local people, which can result in occasional fights etc.
  • The need to find and pay for interpreters in schools, doctors’ surgeries, police stations and other public services. As more Polish workers bring their families over to England some schools are finding that they have large numbers of Polish children who speak little or no English and they cannot find a teacher or classroom assistant who speaks Polish to help them with their lessons.

Many Polish migrant workers plan to return to Poland one day, and most send money back to support families, which means that money earned in Britain is spent in Poland. However, the loss of young, often well educated, workers is causing some economic problems for the Poles. For example, a recent BBC TV documentary featured an interview with the medical director of a hospital in Krakow. She said that to keep the operating theatres running she needed 12 anaesthetists. At the time of the interview there were only three working. In the previous year, nine anaesthetists had resigned from the hospital because they had found better paid jobs in UK, and although she was advertising the jobs, there were no applications.

Based on BBC News website, article in The Guardian 17/10/07 and various articles in St Helens Star Newspaper