A visit to Manchester City’s home ground, the Etihad Stadium, reveals the finishing stages of a new 400-bedroom hotel called The Medlock. This suggests that profits in the hotel business must be strong. In 2024, another hotel opened on Deansgate in the city centre, part of the Malmaison chain and the second Malmaison hotel to open in Manchester within the last two years.
The hotel industry employs around 45,000 people in Manchester alone, with approximately 80% of staff being foreign workers. Most of this workforce earns the minimum wage of £12.71 per hour. There is little pressure on employers to pay more, as immigrant workers are often willing to accept what is offered.
Another advantage for hotel owners is their ability to recruit staff who already have experience working in hotels in countries around the world. As long as a candidate’s spoken English and presentation are good, they are often hired with little or no additional training. This easy recruitment process reduces training costs and, in turn, limits opportunities for young British workers entering the job market who might want to work in one of the many city-centre hotels.
This is a clear example of multinational companies and the super-rich using immigrant labour to keep wages low and training costs to a minimum. This practice is not limited to the hotel sector but is widespread across many industries, including the National Health Service, where large numbers of nurses are recruited from overseas. Again, there is little pressure on the government to make nursing a highly paid and valued career for British workers.
Immigration has long been a source of hardship for the British working class. In the 1800s, London’s East End saw a significant influx of Jewish immigrants fleeing Russia, which increased pressure on housing, drove up rents, and placed greater demands on charitable organisations supporting low-income Britons. Another example occurred in the late 1950s, when low-paid dock workers from London marched to Downing Street to submit a petition calling for an end to immigration, partly due to concerns that their wages were being undercut by new arrivals. These marchers were attacked by Communist groups who threw bottles and placards at them.
British Movement demands that the interests of British workers should come first when it comes to training and job opportunities, and that companies should be prevented from using foreign labour to suppress wages and weaken employment contracts.
Manchester NS
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