[	Tags	|	brits, english, foreign, foreign workers, jobs, language, local, poland, polish, uk, workers	]
[	mood	|	listless	]

I read with interest today how Poland is concerned that its retracting expat workforce now faces competition for Polish jobs back home in the form of foreign workers from Belorussia and Ukraine. These incoming workers are already accepting lower wages than those which your average mobile Pole has grown accustomed to. As Brits, of course, with our world class wit, we’re smugly enjoying the beautiful irony of it all.

Whilst the macro economics document the ebb and flow of foreign workers, figures like “up to five hundred thousand Poles took up work in the UK at the peak of the boom” (Metro, 16^th March 09), the consideration of whether a worker is foreign or not, at the local micro level, comes down to much softer, qualitative assessments.

Consider a young Polish couple who moved in next door to us about 6 years ago. I seem to remember they spoke utterly fluent English from the start, to the level that allowed us to smirk together (nationalistically) through Sir Wogan’s Eurovision commentary.  They’d taken up work in local insurance and financial support call centres, and were promoted quickly to positions of responsibility, thanks to their multilingualism, tenacity and diligence.

With the language on their side, these people brought us fresh news from the Continent, and respite from the usual conversational permutations of middle-class angst. Once we could understand each other, we got some rapport going . From that point, the whole ‘foreigner’ bit started to pale away. Gradually too, our heavy questioning about their early lives under communist rule 70s Poland also receded into the usual chit-chat about life, saving for a house deposit, and, well, middle class angst. That was it. For us, they were integrated, part of the community, and great friends with a 'British' sense of humour to boot.

As I work in language training, I’m possibly going to dwell on the fact that their English was exquisite, and that this was the catalyst to them being friends ahead of being Polish and Polish ahead of being macro-economic 'foreign workers'. I can’t help thinking if more of us spoke the language of our “foreign counterparts” and more of our foreign workers really worked hard on their English, then that scraping movement of labour within Europe could be lubricated somewhat, for the enrichment of people at home or abroad. Too whimsical? Probably. OK here’s some grit to end on. We need to get our fingers out and get to grips with language. That way, when the pound devalues to the point when it suddenly becomes attractive enough for half a million Brits to travel to the euro zone in search of jobs, we’ll integrate half as effortlessly as most foreign workers have done in the UK. Provided we can lose a dot of that smugness first, that is.

Which reminds me of another irony I enjoy. That's the middle section of the Venn diagram which contains the overlap between two groups of people: those who spend their working lives bemoaning the presence of foreigners in the UK who don't integrate or speak the language properly, and those people who chose to retire abroad, without speaking the language properly, and who end up living in an English-speaking bubble enclave! Still, the exchange rate has probably curbed that particular exodus for a while.

Further info on Polish lessons