They also live together as families so their living costs are less.
The fact that many of them are only planning to stay for a few years to earn some money before returning home increases their willingness to endure a lifestyle that, on a permanent basis, would cause their British counterparts to become clinically depressed.
For example, I know of a case of a dodgy landlord who rented out a 3 bedroom terraced house in Leeds to 14 young Poles. They were working day and night shifts and when one came home he would sleep in the bed that one of his housemates had just vacated! Cheap for them but not something we should be expecting young Brits to do in order to survive on their meagre wages. I am sure that most factory owners would relish a return to Victorian living standards among their employees but it seems a tad regressive to me.
In my summer holidays in 1997, I remember getting around £10 an hour for a night shift at a factory doing stacking, sweeping up etc on a 12 hour shift. The day rate was significantly lower. Recently, I saw a similar job being advertised that paid the same for day and night shift: minimum wage. The "incentive" to work night shift was that full-time hours might be available, but if you worked days then only part-time hours would be on offer.
The consequence of New Labour's unlimited Eastern European immigration is a vast flood of workers willing to do any job for less than the natives, thus bidding down wages for everyone else. And this at a time when the costs of housing in the UK are rising relentlessly. Still, I am sure that the upper/middle class mantra that "British workers are just lazy and pampered" will continue to dominate the BBC narrative.
