Romanian, Polish and Hungarian construction workers in the UK

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pongoman

Have you experience with hiring or working with Romanian, Polish, Bulgarian or other East European construction workers? What do they tend to charge per week or per day? Any noteworthy differences?
 
My experience is -

Romanians - demolition workers
Bulgarians - dry liners
Poles - carpenters, bricklayer, ground workers

People who cast around the net asking about East European trades - potential cheapskates

TBH our European cousins are generally no better than Brits at doing the job (some good, some bad, some indifferent). The biggest issues are always language and communication (I have seen some fabulous cock ups!) and safety - safe working practices seem to be rarer in eastern Europe than here

Prove me wrong.
 
I used to know a builder that used Lithuanian workers....he paid them £80 and they were semi skilled to skilled and very good.


I've supplied joinery to loads of customers that have taken on Eastern European builders......because their quote was much cheaper....almost every job had problems, not so much with quality but a lack of understanding UK buildings regs and building practices.

I can't see Eastern European labour is going to work for you....you would need to be on site all day with high supervision and know how to schedule work.....it's not so easy as it looks.

It would end up costing you more
 
Ive met and worked with plenty of foreign workers. Some good some bad some very bad. Language is a an issue. Ive worked in Canada and Australia and I will say there was a language barrier even when both speaking English.

Putting Foreign labour aside our building industry was sloppy at best, under skilled and under valued. Chucking Eastern Europe at the problem has just made the problem worse.
 
Would you say that project management was far worse these days with far too many things being done out of sequence because management are ignorant of how trades work?
 
JobAndKnock said:
Would you say that project management was far worse these days with far too many things being done out of sequence because management are ignorant of how trades work?
Click to expand...


Without a doubt I found on big sites project managers was run by some who have never got their hands dirty. Their main aim was to get the job over the line. I would offer advise that was not listened to because the resulting problems would be some body else's problem, and they would be ****ing up another project.
 
Generally for labour intensive lower skilled jobs eastern European workers are better. They turn up and are keen to work. For more skilled trades then it makes no difference- take them as you find them uk and European and you will pay the same rates
 
Bodd said:
Without a doubt I found on big sites project managers was run by some who have never got their hands dirty. Their main aim was to get the job over the line. I would offer advise that was not listened to because the resulting problems would be some body else's problem, and they would be ****ing up another project.
Click to expand...

A good project manager would sit down with each trade and discuss the project in detail before work commenced, it's at that point the trade should pick up on any issues and advise accordingly, and the project manage should take that advice and run with it, before that tradesman started. That way nasty surprises is kept to a minimum, and the build has got more chance of it being completed on time.
 
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