Guru’s Foreign Briefing: offshoring

Part four in a series of highly stimulating lectures on how to avoid cultural misunderstandings when you are the guest of Johnny Foreigner.

The recent news that migrant workers now account for 70% of the UK’s prostitutes could come as a shock to the government working party which, for the past two years, has been hard at it trying to get to the bottom of this thorny issue. However, it could also create a pleasant membership bonanza for the GMB union, which has been touting for business in this sector.

But while this influx of new talent demonstrates an advanced grasp of cross-border co-operation, does it mean there has been a massive round of redundancies among the natives, or has there been some kind of outsourcing deal whereby UK ‘toms’ are shipped over to some unspecified destination?

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This raises inherent legal questions that must be considered when sending labour abroad. Are the Brits who have been sent elsewhere covered by the full force of the Transfer of Underwear (Prostitution of Employment) Regulations – or whatever TUPE really stands for? When the hordes of the UK’s finest find themselves standing at street junctions touting for business in Hungary, Greece or Romania, just which company is responsible for what? (Answers on a postcard – in a phone box, presumably.)

Despite these legal complications, there is an upside: the patriots among you can rest easy in the knowledge that there will always be some distant (street) corner of a foreign… err… field, that is forever England.