EU REFERENDUM – INDEPENDENT FACTS
Jobs
First Published 15th June 2016
EU Fact – Jobs
[1. Adequate nutritional food and water, 3. Non-hazardous work environment, 6. Security in childhood]
I attached the list above to jobs, because they are all affected by our ability to find work, even security in childhood, as in the UK, the poorest children do less well at school than their wealthier classmates and low literacy is also linked to low pay and unemployment.
[Save the Children – Education]
The Government pamphlet only refers to jobs that are related to the EU and the presumption is that they will be at risk, but the sectors chosen are only the international business sectors. These businesses also operate and trade with the rest of the world, so they are very capable of surviving any adjustments (see Economy). Furthermore, the pamphlet does not give the HM Revenue and Customs figures that show that only 6.4% of VAT–registered UK firms exported goods and services to the EU in 2014 (110,372 out of over 1,700,000). However, the burden of EU regulations applies to all UK business (where the majority of the population work) and according to Treasury estimates the cost is over £23K for every company in the country, so small and medium sized businesses that are not trading in the EU are subsidising the international companies.
Obtaining statistics on the impact of immigration on wages is difficult, because the government is not maintaining these figures. However, Treasury figures and other bodies indicate that the main downward pressure on wages affects the lowest paid workers and as stated earlier, over 600,000 EU migrants applied for National Insurance numbers to allow them to work. Of those, most are from just four countries:
- Poland: 115,606
- Romania: 152,363
- Italy: 57,635
- Spain: 54,203
It is of interest to note that the UK economy is growing, but there has been little impact on unemployment figures, so migrants either displaced British workers or they are claiming unemployment benefits. We are assured by the Remain faction that migrants come here to work, so they must be displacing UK workers.
The low paid sector of the job market also suffers from the EU wide introduction of ‘Zero Hours’ contracts that were estimated at 1.4 million in 2014. Young people, women and elderly are the most frequent targets of zero-hour contracts and workers refusing to take on such contracts are also at risk of losing their right to social benefits. The Remain faction always site the benefit of the EU protecting worker’s rights, but the European Commission has not taken any action to ban them.
[Euractiv UK-reprimanded-over-zero-hour-contracts ]
also TUC doc. P.3
[TUC Employment rights and EU ]
This is because the European Court of Justice has move to the ‘Right’ and no longer reflects the Socialist agenda of the original founders.
This displacement will impact our younger generation entering the workplace for the first time, because traditionally young people enter the low-pay section of the job market. It may even be worse for them than the government admits, because the Office for National Statistics has revealed under pressure from Migration Watch UK that from 2004 to 2010, it undercounted migration from EU8 countries (i.e. Latvia, Lithuania and Poland). The most logical conclusion that we can draw from this is that uncontrolled migration is moving the problem of high unemployment in young people from Europe to the UK.
Another false claim by the Government and Unions is that EU regulations ensure safety in the workplace would be lost if we left the EU, but workplace safety would be unaffected by the result of the referendum, because the foundation of the current health and safety system was established by the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The legislation has at its heart a simple but enduring principle – those who create risks are best placed to control them. The system has stood the test of time and Great Britain has one of the best combined health and safety records in the world.