Dear Alochoks:
There is a lesson to learn for the Bengali restaurant owners in UK as I explained in Banglat TV UK recetly. Our restaurnat owners are crying wolf now. This problem was a foreseeable issue. Owing to my personal experiece from living in UK for many years I have seen and I believe all who have lived in UK will support my findings that:
the Indian restaurant owners never use to pay the right salary to their staff and they were being overworked forcing the staff to fibnd little money and start a restaunrant of his own to get out of this less than minimum wages torture;
they never used to get day offs for Eids and even for Juma and were allowed one day off (as there were no customers on that day) on Christmas;
they hardly got sick leaves;
the sentiment of Sylheti and Non-Sylheti sentiment runs high among the staff often resulting in bullying of employees;
the owners would not train his own staff in fear of losing him for a better opportunity;
the owners would often bring employee from Bangaldesh and exploit them with very minimum wages as they would also engage in manpower businesses.
I challenge that this UK Government step is applaudable as all the Indian staff are getting and demanding fantastic increase of their slaaries as at last the owners are bowing to their right demands.
The Indian restaurant owners need to establish silver service high standard businesses by putting their wealth together instead of setting up minor outlets everywhere.
Thank you.
Mufassil Islam
Human Rights Advocate
To: rkhundkar@earthlink.net
From: rkhundkar@earthlink.net
Date: Mon, 5 May 2008 13:18:30 -0700
Subject: [ALOCHONA] The Guardian - Bangla Restaurants in UK hiring Eastern European Workers
Curry houses test Europe's eastern promise
EU workers try to leap cultural gap as restaurant bosses struggle to find staff
Rachel Williams
The Guardian, Monday May 5 2008
http://www.guardian
.co.uk/uk/ 2008/may/ 05/immigration. immigrationandpu blicservices/
Mario was used to plain Romanian dishes but now is learning to adjust his taste buds to the spiciness of curry. Photograph: Corbis
A framed review telling of "modern magic in the city suburb" hangs alongside the abstract artwork on the walls of the Monsoon Indian restaurant. Beneath it is a photograph of owner Mahmud Miah with a beaming David Cameron. The lighting at the eatery in Hollywood, a few miles south of Birmingham and its balti triangle, is minimalist; there is not a scrap of flock wallpaper to be seen.
In the kitchen there is another sign of the changing face of the British curry industry. Faced with a desperate shortage of staff after new immigration rules stopped restaurateurs bringing in workers from the subcontinent, Miah has heeded government advice and looked to eastern Europe to fill the gaps.
His new kitchen porter, Valentin-Marius Corcoveanu - Mario to his colleagues - is a 21-year-old Romanian. He owes his opportunity to the closing of a short-term visa scheme under which restaurants employed Bangladeshi chefs, and the introduction of a points-based migration system for workers from outside the EU. Kitchen staff from Bangladesh would now have to speak English and have qualifications.
The strategy, announced in 2005, was devised on the basis that the need for low-skilled labour could in future be met by migrants from the new EU countries. Warning of a lack of staff that threatens the £3.5bn industry, the curry trade's leaders say eastern Europeans, with no background in the intricate art of balancing Asian spices and no grasp of Bengali, are not the answer. The Bangladesh Caterers Association (BCA) is lobbying for curry work to be officially deemed an occupation suffering from a special skills shortage, allowing new workers to come from Asia again.
Today's young British Bangladeshis are not interested in the antisocial hours and relatively low wages of curry house work, campaigners say, and chefs can take 10 years to train.
The BCA believes there are 30,000 vacancies across the 12,000 restaurants and takeaways it represents. Last month, Gordon Brown said people already in Britain would be trained up to fill staff shortages. In Hollywood, Miah has decided to try it for himself. On a hectic Thursday night, Mario is dashing back and forth to the storeroom, frying chicken pakoras, chopping vegetables and mixing a vat of yoghurt, lemon juice, mint sauce, coriander, green chilli and sugar. He decides it needs more sugar, as a colleague nods approvingly.
The cultural hurdles are evident, however. Mario has very basic English, but also struggles to understand the Bengali used by his fellow employees.
"Mario, jeera anno," head chef Mozomil Ali calls outs. Met with a blank look, he adds encouragingly: "Brown bag". Mario heads out to collect the cumin. "We try to teach him the names of the spices but there are so many he forgets," Ali explains. "So we tell him the colour of the bag they come in."
Speaking through an interpreter, Mario confirms the language barrier is his biggest problem. What Bengali has he picked up? There's a pause before he answers "dasila". A roar goes up among his colleagues. Dasila, they explain, is a jokey term meaning "get a move on".
He has also been learning to adjust his taste buds. Used to plainer Romanian dishes, his first brush with curry was not comfortable. "It was too hot. They eat too many chillies here." Being cooked a different curry every night by his colleagues helped. "I tried it again and again. Now I like it."
But Bajloor Rashid, the president of the BCA, says eastern European workers are not the solution. "They don't seem to fit in. Most of them are not really keen on working here. They don't last long." He told the immigration minister Liam Byrne this at a recent meeting.
In the meantime the staff shortages will cost restaurants an average of £19,000 turnover every year, Rashid claims. "A lot of restaurants could close in the next 12 months."
Mario is an experiment, says Miah. If he sticks around long enough he could become a cook. "If I can teach one of them they will get the others in. If they stay it will be fantastic." Mario, however, has other ideas. He plans to leave the UK after two or three years.
The second chef, Shaheb Uddin, is confident of Mario's ability to become a cook. "He will, because he wants to learn, but it will take time. The next Bangladeshi generation don't want to know about restaurants. Our next generation is them lot."
Cook's glossary
Mario asho - Come here, Mario
Haldi Turmeric
Jeera Cumin
Dhaniya Coriander
Annarish Pineapple
Chana Chick peas
Dasila Get a move on
Morgi anno Fetch the chicken
Sabji anno Fetch the vegetables
Jaldi jaldi Hurry up
Salad cotto Cut the salad
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