The entire working culture of the UK has transformed since British workers last filled seasonal farm work jobs to any significant extent. Rural communities have been transformed due to the
“drift from the land” of locals, and people from cities moving to the country or buying second homes, pricing potential farm workers out of the local housing market.
As a result, physically able unemployed people are now less likely to live anywhere near the farms requiring workers. Transport systems in rural areas are limited, and basic, temporary housing is unlikely to attract people away from comfortable, permanent housing situated close to friends and family.
The current benefits system also
deters the unemployed from engaging in any kind of seasonal work due to the inflexibility of signing on and off. Add this to the inconsistency of work availability itself, and there is little wonder why no compulsion exists to pick fruit.
Fruits of hard labour
The conditions of seasonal work – low pay, physically demanding, long and unsociable hours – do not help. They are far from the expectations of the typical British worker, who is now culturally tuned to a 40-hour Monday to Friday schedule. There is also a greater desire for career progression, which is unlikely to occur in the world of fruit picking. These expectations contrast starkly with how farmers perceive the
work ethic of Eastern Europeans. It is from this gap that the
“lazy” label has grown and been perpetuated by farmers and the media towards British workers.
But even if conditions and incentives of picking fruit and veg were improved, British workers would still be unlikely to perform it because of how this kind of work is perceived. Among other things, the task has become negatively associated with migrant workers and slave labour. Farmers have repeatedly tried to employ locals, with a drastically low rate of return, telling stories of
few turning up for interviews and even fewer returning after just several days of work.
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