The Polish Plumber for the win

For the past two decades, Brits and other Western Europeans have mocked the big dumb Polish Plumber who migrated to the more prosperous countries in Europe once Poland joined the EU. While there was some resentment about the Poles taking jobs by working cheaper, they were jobs most Westerners would rather not have because no one wants to work with toilets and underground pipes. Those putting plumbers down pursued college degrees.

So many left Poland that Reuters reported in 2007, “In Western Europe, the Polish Plumber has become the cliché of a low-paid immigrant who has profited from the European Union’s eastward expansion.

“In Poland, it is no joke.

“The former communist country is short of everything from plumbers to pilots and that is pushing up wages dramatically and encouraging inflation, which threaten to choke off Poland’s own economic boom.”

Later the fear was not the invasion of the Polish Plumber, a legal alien, but his leaving.

The Christian Science Monitor reported on February 25, 2016, “Pro-Brexit campaigners blame Poles — and the tens of thousands of Romanians and Bulgarians who have joined them — for taking jobs and benefits from British workers. But the Polish Plumber has become an integral, even lauded part of British society. And if Britons vote to leave the EU and Central and Eastern European workers head home, everyday life could stumble — underscoring the contradictions inherent in the Brexit debate.”

Who will fix the toilets?

Who will fix the hamburgers?

Which raises the question: Who did those jobs in England before the Poles?

The story said, “If Polish construction workers, plumbers, and janitors were to stay away, British employers would face a dilemma. Fast-food outlets and cafes are heavily staffed by Poles, though a spokeswoman for the nationwide Pret a Manger chain declined to specify how many Poles it employs.”

Hmm, colleges should include courses on unclogging the sink.

Nearly a decade later, British media now fears that Poland will overtake England.

The Sunday Telegraph reported on Coronation Day, “Poland will be wealthier than Britain by 2030 — it’s time we took notice.”

What a way to greet the crowning of King Charles III by announcing the kingdom is going broke.

The story said, “After the fall of the Iron Curtain, the Poles were the first former Soviet country to restore democracy, free markets and the rule of law. Yet they still had a mountain to climb. In 1989, Polish workers had a GDP per capita that was just a tenth of their German counterparts.

“Three decades of steady growth has wrought a miracle. The economic disparities have narrowed dramatically. Adjusted for purchasing parity, GDP per head in Poland is now £28,200 compared with £35,000 in the UK, £34,200 in France and £39,800 in Germany. At its current trajectory rate, Poland will overtake the UK by 2030.

“Since the millennium, Poland’s real GDP per capita has more than doubled; by contrast, GDP per capita in Britain, France and Germany grew between 15% and 24% over the same period.

“The truth is that living standards in places like Warsaw or Wrocław are already comparable to those in Berlin, Paris and London.

“Indeed, the quality of life for young families is undoubtedly higher.”

Now I would like to attribute the success of the Poles to hard work and skilled labor, but brains as well as brawn made it so because the story also said, “The country has become a hotbed for future-facing industries such as battery manufacturing and tech.”

Still, the work ethic of the Poles is to be admired.

The newspaper went on and on about Poland using its economic prowess to battle Putin in Ukraine. The newspaper sought to shame the UK into supporting Zelensky and Kyiv, the world’s launderer of money. Somehow, giving Ukraine billions in war materiel will enrich your country as the Telegraph applied the chain-letter argument to international politics.

The real reason Poland and its plumbers have succeeded was buried in a report by the New York Times about the Polish Plumber image being used in a Polish tourism ad campaign on June 26, 2005.

NYT said, “Next week the tourist office will offer Paris a firsthand look at Piotr Adamski, the 21-year-old model, who will also pose at the Eiffel Tower in the same green overalls and Stanley Kowalski T-shirt he wore in the ad.

“Mr. Adamski has become such an overnight sensation that even Poland's former president, Lech Walesa, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the Solidarity labor movement, offered him advice for his Paris trip.”

Walesa’s observation was deadly.

He said, “I suggest that he ask the French why the heck for so many years they encouraged Poles to build capitalism when as it turns out they are Communists themselves.”

Two decades later, the Poles have men with testosterone while the USA has men in pink dresses selling tampons and destroying a brand of beer. You see, the Poles lost their freedom when Hitler and Stalin invaded in 1939. They went without freedom for a half-century, which is why they appreciate freedom far more that Western Europeans and Americans do.

The Polish Plumber isn’t Fabio, of course. NPR ran a picture of one balding and pot-bellied Polish Plumber on May 14, 2016.

But the story — “If Britain Leaves The EU, What Happens To The Polish Plumber?” — showed the real threat the Polish Plumber poses to Western society. He is self-reliant!

Krzystof Przadak told NPR, “Poland became a member of the EU in May 2004 — and I came in September. In the beginning it was very difficult, because I came alone. My wife and daughter stayed in Poland. Now, I am the owner of the company. I employ seven people. Slowly, step by step, I’m trying to expand the company.”

NPR spread the fear that Brexit would kick the Poles out of England. Przadak was nonplussed. He said, “If I have to go back to Poland, we'll see what sort of benefits, what sort of progress, Poland has made just in the 12 years.”

Apparently, Poland has made a lot of progress. I doubt Przadak returned because he seems to realize how much nouveaux communists need capitalists to keep their water flowing and their toilets flushing.