Overworked, undercutting and over here

The firm’s workforce is predominantly Polish, and Cuckson couldn’t be happier. In her experience, the Polish builders and decorators have not only been cheaper and more honest than their British counterparts, they have also been quicker.

“Polish builders are fantastic,” she says. “We have recommended them to all our friends. It’s nice to see hard-working people who take pride in their work doing so well. They are constantly busy.”

Martin Szewczyk, 27, is the living embodiment of this Polish work ethic. In 1999, he arrived in Britain speaking barely a word of English. Initially, he got a job as a gardener, earning just £180 a week, and slept on a friend’s couch. He started working on building sites and now, seven years later, is earning £50,000 a year. He has his own firm, Property Maintenance, based in Greenford, west London, employs eight men, speaks fluent English and is about to purchase his own home.

Business is apparently going so well that Szewczyk says he no longer needs to advertise: he works purely on recommendations and has three or four jobs on the go each week.

“I’ll admit I’m not a builder by profession,” he says. “My father is a plumber, and I used to help him a bit when I was a kid. But me and my team know what we’re doing, and we’ve never had an unhappy customer.”

He has achieved this through sheer hard work, rather than as having — as seems to be the popular myth — some sort of genetic or cultural predisposition to working extraordinary hours.

“It’s not true that Polish people are naturally inclined to work from sunrise to sunset,” he says. “We don’t work as many hours in Poland, but you realise (here) that if you want to earn more money, you have to work more hours.

“I know people who work 14 hours a day, seven days a week. And some cut living costs where they can — money is their sole motivation. One of my workers said he wanted picking up in Richmond, as that’s where he was living. I was impressed, as it’s expensive out there, and asked where exactly he was staying. He said, in the park.”

As he has put down more roots in his adopted country, however, his rates have also gradually risen as he has become more established.

“At the beginning, I was very cheap — you have to be to get started. But then you have taxes, you employ more people, you get into a lifestyle, and your prices have to go up.”

And, ironically, given his own language battles when he first arrived, Szewczyk lists another annoyance: “I get frustrated that my workforce doesn’t speak English. I have told them there will be no more pay rises until they start making an effort to learn the language.”

So in demand are Polish workers that a website, www.polishworkers.co.uk, has been set up, where homeowners can hunt for a labour force for their projects.

Stuart Edwards, an IT expert from Ashford in Kent, used the website to call for tenders for the single-storey extension he plans to build on his semi-detached home.

“The quotes I got (from British builders) were astronomical,” he recalls. “I would have expected to pay about £7,000, but people were saying anything up to £25,000, and I just knew I was being taken for a ride. It’s local lads coming around with no qualifications and a clipboard saying they are builders, and just plucking numbers from the air. I’ve spoken with friends who have had good experiences with Polish builders — it’s purely financial.”

Mark Davison, a site foreman for construction firm Optic Run, based in central London, says he hasn’t worked with an English builder for several years now — and won’t hear a bad word against his foreign site crew.

“There’s work out there for everyone if they want to look for it. Some people are just lazy and would rather blame other people for their shortfalls.”

Though as with any industry, there are horror stories. An extreme example of how badly things can go awry is that of Jane Smith’s attempt to refurbish and extend her four-storey home in south Hampstead, London.

“This man came around and looked at the property, which was really just a shell,” she recalls. “At the time I didn’t think (anything of it), but he asked a series of odd questions, like if there was central heating, and left, saying he would be in touch with a quote.

“A week later, I went back to the house to find the basement door had been changed and a Yale lock installed.”

Smith was the victim of squatters, and she herself ended up on the receiving end of a police caution, after a confrontation in which she lost her temper.

Suspicious, she called the man who had quoted for the renovation job, to be told that the squatters would leave if she gave him the contract. Their presence also meant her insurers refused to cover her. In the end, it took six and a half weeks, £9,000 in legal fees, and the imminent arrival of a bailiff to get the Poles out.

As with employing any tradesman, checking out references properly is crucial, and personal recommendations also help. But what do British builders think of the Poles? The crux seems to be whether their rivals are working within the letter of the law.

“I know we have lost a job to Poles working on the black market, not paying tax and on benefits,” says Frank Vevers, the owner of an eponymous family building firm based in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.

“The few Poles I have met have been on the deal and paid cash. They are undoubtedly good workers; the question is should we be importing people from abroad to do our own people out of jobs. Competition is a good thing, but only when it’s on an even playing field.”

As far as the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) is concerned, however, the more Poles the merrier. “They are addressing a gap in skills,” says Tom Dibaja, FMB’s external affairs manager. He says their skills and qualifications are certainly up to scratch, although lack of English can be a problem.

“For example, if they don’t understand the phrase ‘Look out, that scaffolding is about to collapse on your head,’ then that’s no good.”

Grumbles about the Polish influx aren’t only coming from sections of the British building industry. Tony Ribeiro, 41, a Portuguese-born builder based in Belsize Park, north London, says many of his compatriots are returning home as their slice of the market is being taken over by Polish rivals.

But the Poles themselves may soon face some competition from Romanians and Bulgarians, whose countries are due to join the EU next year.

The government has yet to decide whether they, too, will be allowed free access to the British labour market, but Michael Pawlk, 24, a Polish plasterer now working in Britain, expects pressure on prices if they are.

“There are many builders in those countries who will work for as little as £2 an hour,” he says, gloomily. “Everyone will be done out of business: us, the Portuguese and the Brits. And they are not as friendly as us Poles, you will see. Maybe they get here and work very hard for the beginning, but that will not last.”

How many Poles are there in the UK?

The 2001 census recorded 58,107 Polish nationals living in England and Wales. Since Poland joined the EU in May 2004, another 264,560 have registered for work here, making them probably Britain’s fastest-growing ethnic minority. (There are even more proportionately in Ireland, where 150,000 Poles have registered).

Are they all builders?

Not quite. A third of the newcomers have gone into business and management; others work in hospitality and agriculture.

So why is Britain so popular?

Partly because Britain (along with Ireland and Sweden) was alone among EU countries in allowing Poles to work without restriction. There is also the pay: a Polish builder can expect to earn more than £20,000 a year here, compared with £7,200 back home.

Where’s the best place to look for a Polish builder?

You could try Hammersmith. Wroclaw, Poland’s fourth largest city, launched a recruitment drive there last month to lure home workers. Alternatively, log on to www.polishworkers.co.uk.

Any good names to drop during a chat with my builder? How about Daniel Libeskind? The Polish-born architect designed Manchester’s Imperial War Museum North and created the master plan for the complex to be built at Ground Zero in New York.

What about essential phrases?

1. That sounds great — when can you start?
Fantastycznie, Kiedy mozesz zaczac? (fan-tas-titch-nee-yeh key-eddy moh-shesh zach-eau-ch?)

2. Can you do plumbing, too?
Czy robisz instalacje hydrauliczne? (chee robish insta-latz-yeh hid-row-lich-neh?)

3. Are you sure you want all that money in cash?
Czy napewno chcesz tyle pieniedzy gotowka? (chee nap-ev-noh h-tzesh till-eh pee-nye-zih got-oof-keau)

4. Do you take vodka in your tea? One shot or two?
Czy dodajesz wodke do herbaty? Jeden kieliszek chy dwa? (chee dod-ay-esh vood-keh doh her-batty? yeh-den key-lish-ek chee dva?)

5. Fix this before my wife/husband gets home!
Napraw zanim zona/maz wroci do domu! (nah-praw zah-neem sho-nah/m-eau-sh vroo-chee do do-moo!)

Rhiannon James