News

‘I just feel like they treat foreigners differently now. [British institutions] have the public agreement, let’s say acceptance, to discriminate', says Roza. Roza is a Polish national and has lived in the UK with her two children since 2007, after her husband was head hunted to come and work for a British firm. There are many things that Roza and h…

Kosmy* arrived in London in the summer of last year. He had worked as a teacher in Poland and teaching in the UK was, for him, a stepping stone to his long term goal of teaching in New Zealand. He hoped that working in the UK would give him experience of working to a UK curriculum.For his first nine days in the UK, Kosmy lived with a friend. He soo…

What made you come to the UK, I asked Kathie*?‘In Poland if you come from a small town and you are lucky enough to get a job you stay in it for life. There’s not much opportunity to keep developing yourself. You have to wait until someone retires before a post comes up.’Kathie qualified as a nurse in Poland and decided to come to work in the UK bec…

Anne is an expert in Polish migration and social change in Poland, based at UCL’s School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies. She has designed and manages the Polish Migration website, an excellent resource for anyone interested in contemporary Polish migration (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/research/polish-migration). Anne’s current preoccupatio…

‘Why do Polish nationals come to work in the UK?’, we asked Stan. ‘Because it is close, fairly easy to get here from Poland, and fairly low risk for many people to give living and working in England a try. There are still opportunities for work where you don’t need to speak much English. Through these sorts of jobs people can dip their toes in UK w…

Amy attended this event to learn about the results of a research project about the participation of Polish migrant workers in UK trade unions. This study had been conducted by Dominik Owczarek, Dominika Potkańska and colleagues at the Polish Polish Institute of Public Affairs, alongside Lionel Fulton of the Labour Research Department.One of the key…