Am gasit un articol interesant scris de catre o romanca din Anglia. E in engleza.
I Posed as a Romanian Day Labourer to Learn About Migrant Working Conditions in Britain
I spent my days outside a car park with people who paid to live in squats and were earning £30 a day.
his spring, whilst researching a documentary for Channel 5, I spent time undercover as a Romanian migrant worker at a builders warehouse car park where day labourers attempt to find work.
My friend and I arrived at the spot around 7AM the first time – I’d heard that the earlier you show up, the more likely you are to get work. Being the only woman standing there, all eyes were on me. Immediately, people started asking questions. They were confused as to what I was doing – they thought I should be at home playing housewife, or working as a maid in some hotel where. “it’s warm, instead of out here in the cold.” I told them that me and my Romanian friend were married and I was trying to help him find a job.
At a guess, there were about 50 people looking for a job that day – men of all ages stood divided in small groups between the sidewalk and the different entrances to the parking lot. Some people told me that a normal day of work paid between £50 and £60. £60 amounts to about eight hours of minimum wage but these guys were working much longer days than that. Also, you’d only get that much if you were skilled worker. Those without any sort of formal training got a paid a lot less – some as little as £30 a day.
“Even £50 a day is nothing. A pack of smokes, a few beers, something to eat, a call-girl and, before you know it, they’re gone,” a young worker told me.
I wondered how these people dared to get into a car with complete strangers? How did they know where the construction site was located or how they’d get paid? Thumbing for work seemed almost identical to regular hitchhiking in that both parties need to just trust that the other one is decent.
I was confused as to why Romanians need to resort to this sort of thing when they are fully entitled to work in the UK as EU citizens. Couldn’t they just get legal jobs and benefit from all the various labour rights?
According to Mihai, a 40-year-old veteran of the underground job market, some of those looking for work were ex-convicts trying to keep a low profile and not everyone necessarily had their “papers in order.” Meaning they don’t have any employment record books. The kind of workers that fell into this category seemed stand much further away from the car park, in the bus station down the road.
But why were those with nothing to hide standing by the car park when they could simply apply for jobs through work agencies? After all, manual labour is highly sought after in the UK. In 2014, the construction industry contributed over £90 billion to the economy and employed just short of 3 million people.