But what is wrong with encouraging companies based in Britain to employ British citizens? Playing devils advocate here.
This isn’t encouragement. It’s fear. The Telegraph has done an opinion piece today, saying how it is merely a naming and shaming exercise.
Presumably there will be some kind of vetting, to ensure that people with “non-British” sounding names were actually born in Britain. Inevitably, you’ll have some companies that can’t be arsed with the bother, and will end up swerving people based on surname.
My constant problem with Tory thinking is that it is never thought through. This is just another example.
52% of the population did not vote to leave. 52% of those eligible to vote that bothered to cast a vote did.
Encouraging companies to employ British is a wonderful idea(shame it took Corbyn to embarrass them into it) but the less than subtle demonisation of foreign workers, is the act of a fascist. I’m liking this political tagging by the way, it’s easy and no one seems to care if it’s correct.
Sorry, am I missing something here? What’s so horrendous about making companies be transparent about the number of foreigners they employ?
Foreigners aren’t being made to wear caps and armbands
They aren’t being tarred and feathered
They aren’t being demonised
These are all straw man arguments to distort what’s actually being suggested here.
Besides which, tonnes of companies & firms employ tonnes of foreign workers - particularly in the City of London. A firm with 20, 30 or even 40% foreign workers isn’t going to be particularly shocking.
The only companies that will be shamed are the agencies and short-termers who hire people on zero-hours contracts with a majority from Eastern Europe etc. purely for the cheap labour and are running a clearly exploitative gig. If people are daft enough to blame the exploited immigrants themselves rather than the exploitative business, then that’s their problem. In fact, this policy could well do something to counter that.
Sorry Mr T but demonisation is exactly what has been and is happening. Same as it happened to the unemployed and disabled. people are blaming them because the present government and it’s press backers have told them every problem they face is because of foreigners. Read some back copies of the Mail if you need proof.
Sorry, I don’t quite get your point. You’re saying that under the proposed policy, foreigners _are _in fact going to be made to wear caps and armbands and I’m incorrect in my assertions?
If the bolded is the case, then I sincerely believe the policy will actually help with that by exposing companies whose business model is blatantly and obviously based on cheap, foreign labour - preventing anger being misdirected at innocent migrants when it should be directed at unscrupulous business practices.
You’re talking semantics which is irrelavnt to any debate that’s taking place.
At the moment Corbyn’s policy are on the very left, and the Tories are on the right - with the current reduced political spectrum. However, if you plot the current parties on a historical political spectrum, then the Tories are just right of centre, and Labour are centre left.
So, which way do you want it? You can’t have it both ways (althoguh I know most of you lefties do).
Look, guys, I honestly just don’t understand why this is such a controversial move.
The policy is for companies to reveal their number of foreign employees, and that is all. Its completely logically fallacious to argue that this is some kind of a slippery slope or ‘sign-of-things-to-come’ as that prevents the policy being judged on its own merit.
People are rightly suspicious of this aspect of globalisation; that is to say, international corporations able to buy their labour from the poorest and sell to the richest with no loyalty or social contract with people or nation - potentially at highly exploitative levels. Hell, even Corbyn almost certainly understands those concerns completely - so what’s his plan?
This is exactly the kind of soft pressure that we need. For heavens sake; companies are already obliged to publish their diversity quotas in order to make sure that they’re employing enough women and minorities, so why not have a similar transparency when it comes to British and foreign workers?
And finally, like I say, I don’t think a major corporate bank will have much to be ‘named-and-shamed’ for if 50% of their staff in London come from overseas. The only firms that will rightly be raising eyebrows will be those in a 95% white British area of Lincolnshire employing 90+% foreign workers.
Agree completely about the exploitation. One problem though, it’s this government leading the demonisation. I hope you’re right Mr T, i would really like to be wrong about this.
