MR CORBYN, WANT TO WORK FOR £3.88 PER HOUR?
WELCOME TO YOUR EU

Latest EU figures show the EU is no protector of workers

In Bulgaria the AVERAGE wage cost is £3.88 per hour

Last week, while eyes were focused on Mrs May’s ignominious and humiliating performance at the EU Summit, the EU released its latest data on average wage costs across the bloc.

Brexit Facts4EU.org Summary

Average wages costs in the EU

A British company could pay 5 workers in the EU for the cost of paying 1 worker in the UK
There is no EU legislation to prevent this
How is the EU preventing “the race to the bottom”?

As usual, these figures show just what an uneven playing field there is in the EU. The highest average wage is over 8 times the lowest.

Note: Conversion to British pounds at £1 = €1.16. We have used the same classification of averages as the EU’s official statistics agency. The EU excludes workers in public administration and defence and we have used their figures. Source: Eurostat, 11 Apr 2019.

Do Remain MPs have the first idea about the EU?

In yet another desperate attempt to get her surrender treaty approved by Parliament, readers will know that Mrs May and her team have entered talks with Mr Corbyn and his team.

As part of these talks, Mr Corbyn and his colleagues have stressed that they will be “protecting workers’ jobs and living standards”. We have previously looked at the question of workers’ rights which come from the EU. In fact they almost all come from UK legislation.

For example, we showed that there is no EU requirement for a member state to have a minimum wage,
let alone a living wage.

In this article we look at a fundamental question which is important to all workers - that of what they earn. What is the average hourly wage cost across the 28 EU member states? Far from being a level playing field, the chart above shows just how uneven things are.

The average worker in Bulgaria is paid 1/5th of the average wage of a British worker
Even in Poland they are paid almost 1/3rd of a British worker’s wages

Note: This is the average, not the minimum.

Why is the UK the 5th largest economy in the World but only 11th in the EU for wages?

There are no exactly comparable figures for 20 years ago, but all our research indicates that the UK has slipped down the table. This is hardly surprising, given that so many EU member states have been able to export their unemployment to the UK.

Even those people who were already in employment in their own countries saw the attraction of the UK’s higher wages. The latest estimate from the ONS is that 3.8 million EU27 nationals now live in the UK. We believe that this is a significant underestimate, based on our analysis of National Insurance numbers issued by HMRC, which we reported on last year.

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Observations

Labour had a fine tradition of Euroscepticism. Indeed Jeremy Corbyn himself was right at the heart of that. Sadly the Left seems to have been taken over by those who simply don’t understand the EU, and prefer clappy-happy slogans to the hard facts.

The simple fact is that the media focuses on Conservative discontent, but equally there are millions of Labour voters who voted Leave in the Referendum and expect their vote to be acted upon.

This is the real world we are talking about, not ideology and vague ideas about what some Europhile politicians imagine the EU to be.

To give readers an example, one of the Brexit Facts4EU.Org team members transferred an essential element of their business to Bulgaria two years ago. The new costs are 1/3rd of the costs in the UK. (Average wages are 1/5th in Bulgaria but these only form part of the total costs.)

This is reality. This is how the member states of the EU have benefited. These are real pounds, shillings and pence - to use an old-fashioned expression - which are no longer paying the wages of UK employees.

When the UK leaves the EU, such moves will be far less attractive.

Our Brexit Facts4EU.Org team member would far rather be contributing to the UK economy than to Bulgaria’s. This isn’t personal, because it seems the Bulgarians have been very pleasant to deal with. It’s simply patriotic.

Now that’s something which we suspect Jeremy Corbyn will never understand.

[ Source : Official EU statistics released by Eurostat, 11 Apr 2019 ]

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, 16 Apr 2019

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Reader Comments 12

1. Tom N, Dartmouth , Tuesday, April 16, 2019, 06:39:

Little wonder that big businesses like those from the CBI are so keen on staying in the EU.

2. Deeply concerned , Tuesday, April 16, 2019, 07:22:

Well yes Tom N, but now we have knowledge of the reasons why the CBI is so rotten to the core. Thanks in large measure to this website which has been fantastic and I trust will be able to continue, despite the draconian new laws.

3. Brian, W Yorks , Tuesday, April 16, 2019, 07:28:

Tom from Dartmouth, you got it.
I'm Labour but also voted leave in the referendum. I don't understand why Labour MP's think the EU#s such a great idea? It's done nothing for me and nothing for my neighbours. My MP is Yvette Cooper and she's a traitor in my book. Hope I'm allowed to say that on here. We voted to leave in Pontefract and yet she's doing all she c an to stop it.
I won't vte for her next time and I don't know anyone who will. That's all.

4. Patrick F , Tuesday, April 16, 2019, 08:36:

Off topic, but re arch Remainer politicians like Yvette Cooper, one quote that David Lammy MP made on last Sunday's Andrew Marr show made me raise an eyebrow. Speaking about a "confirmatory vote", he said that
"You move forward and you remain."
Progress is the status quo?
I have filed a hate crime report against him with the Police for the subsequent lies, allegations, innuendos and slurs he made against Rees-Mogg, the ERG and Boris Johnson. This is officially recorded and the Police are obliged to investigate.

5. Tamara, Putney , Tuesday, April 16, 2019, 08:36:

Corbyn wants to protect WORKERS RIGHTS, don't you get it? That includes everything. All these figures show is that some countries are poorer and we should be helping them.

6. James Bertram , Tuesday, April 16, 2019, 09:34:

Tamara, you might have missed the above article (about a month back) - but it is mentioned above - check it out.
One main reason I voted Leave is because 'small is beautiful'. I am particularly for better Animal Rights (and will try and campaign for a 40mph speed limit on rural roads, soon as this Brexit is done and dusted). With 28 countries in the EU, policies often get ground down to the lowest common denominator (take animal rights across Europe, for example).
By being an independent country we make our own laws, for a much smaller population, and much more specific for our circumstances; and therefore, once independent of the EU, we can strive to be the best in everything we do - the best workers rights, the best environmental rights and the best animal rights. True, once we have our independence, and can trade freely with the rest of the world, then we will have to fight hard for these rights, no one will give them to us automatically, but we have a much better chance of achieving this with just 60 million people and the 5th strongest economy in the world than we do by remaining in a large, dysfunctional and declining trading bloc.
Too, we can better help poor 3rd World countries (much poorer than Bulgaria) by being out of the EU, giving equal immigration rights to their citizens (not just favouring white Europeans), and fairer trade deals to their economies without the high EU tariffs. Too, I particularly favour reunion with our Commonwealth friends (if they will have us?) as we owe them a historic debt from colonialism, and to make amends for how we abandoned them when we joined the EEC.
The world does not stop at the EU frontiers.
I hope you can begin to see the vision. Leave voters are progressive thinkers, Tamara (not what the Mainstream Media would have you believe). Join us.

7. James Bertram , Tuesday, April 16, 2019, 09:39:

addendum: 'above article' mentioned above: 'We have previously looked at the question of workers’ rights which come from the EU. In fact they almost all come from UK legislation.'
Perhaps Brexit facts 4EU team can re-post the article, (as it adds to today's information)?

8. Steven , Tuesday, April 16, 2019, 12:57:

Sorry, James, we have far too many immigrants in this county already who are causing all manner of problems from enabling employers to be totally greedy and selfish by not employing Britons at all or by giving them poverty wages when they do deign to employ them , to severely weakening our sense of national identity, to causing higher crime rates as in that now sad cesspit former capital city called London displays with its Islamist terror attacks and mass stabbings etc. ALL forms of immigration needs to be radically cut and, if I had to make a choice, it would be Third World immigration I would target since they have far more difficulty successfully fitting into our society as the crime ridden hellhole of Londonistan shows.
Reclaiming our nations independence from the EU should be a chance to do things differently in Britain NOT repeating the same, old, failed globalist anti-British policies of no effective immigration controls, globalist off shoring economics etc.
Let’s have a truly worthwhile Brexit to build our country up again into the success story it could be not a hollow globalist one which is pretty pointless to have.
Tamara, we DO NOT have any obligation to help the likes of Bulgaria or Poland. It’s true they are poor but they are not suffering any natural disasters. If I were PM. I would severely restrict foreign aid and only have a small holding fund to help countries when they are in genuine national difficulties ie suffering from drought, hurricanes, tsunamis etc.
We should follow the nationalist policies of hyper-successful countries like Japan and South Korea. Britain FIRST should be a noble notion for a British government to follow just as Japan First is for the Japanese government or South Korea First is for theirs.

9. James Bertram , Tuesday, April 16, 2019, 13:39:

Thanks, Steven, an alternative vision. And I think we agree that neither of our visions of how we want the UK to be, are achievable whilst we remain in the sclerotic EU.
So there you have it, Tamara - as I said earlier, leaving the EU is only the beginning - it is from there that you will have to fight for what you want - far more achievable if you are only dealing with 60 million people's wishes not 500 million, if policies are designed for the UK's circumstances specifically, and with a strong economy not hobbled by the weaker economies of the EU. Small is beautiful.
But do not stick with mediocrity (the EU) when you can be the best (independent).
Separate note: It is hard to understand how the Labour party has become so, almost mindlessly, pro-EU. Tony Benn, Peter Shore and Barbara Castle fully understood that if you want to make the UK a more equal and fairer society then you had to retain British sovereignty to do it, not give control of our country to the EU. As someone just said on another board, signing May's Withdrawal Agreement, and joining the Customs Union, entirely scuppers Corbyn's plans for State Aid and Nationalisation. Is he now going to give up all his principles just to help May get her Surrender Treaty through?

10. steve , Tuesday, April 16, 2019, 14:03:

I think people should google the 'Viking line case' to see what the EU has in store for workers wages !!

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MR CORBYN, WANT TO WORK FOR £3.88 PER HOUR?WELCOME TO YOUR EU