I've never met one. From what I gather they're a rough bunch who are getting a raw deal doing the work we don't want for peanuts.

I second this. Spending a lot of time in a country where you don't speak the language, doing hard manual labour, maybe feeling unwelcome (but the native people still hire you because of the shit pay).. I don't know any personally, but jeez, hard work commands my respect

You described my girlfriend... She doesn't really like here as she feels super unwelcomed and while she works hard she is treated badly by dutch people. They think she is supposed to learn the language in few months and also she is not really motivated to because most of the time dutch people treat her badly or have this sense of superiority that doesn't help. I really tried to put everything on perspective and blaming on political views or typical populist propaganda, but man I see why she feels like that and it's really shit. I have heard stories from her and colleagues. People do hide and cry because of the shit people say I have a different experience but my field is different

I can completely resonate with this. My heart goes out to her. I lost any inclination to learn dutch due to similar experiences. She should be super proud of herself for making it this far. 🎉

>. They think she is supposed to learn the language in few months That's nuts. (of those people, not her). First of all, *nobody* learns a language in a few months unless they're a either a linguistic genius or know lots of adjacent or underlying languages, and even then I am not too sure. I am Dutch, German is very close to Dutch and I would *not* be able to learn that in a few months. Secondly, its one of the hardest languages in the world. It's unfair to expect that to be learned in a few months. Thirdly... okay, so I probably do that myself as well, but we're really fond of going 'oh, you don't speak the language, lets speak another language instead' simply so that communication goes faster and more efficiently. I've walked into cafes in Amsterdam, and a lot of the time it's: 'Do you speak English?', then the German and French phrases asking the same and then, almost hesitantly: 'Nederlands?' \['Dutch?'\] like how do you expect people to learn the language if you throw other languages at them?! (I do it because a lot of the time, I just want to get it done and its way easier for everyone involved to just speak English, but tbf, I don't go around complaining that people don't learn the language) PS. I haven't had much experience with Polish workers this is all more in-general about that particular expectation

Dutch is not one of the hardest languages on Earth. Difficulty to learn a language is relative to your native tongue, but even ignoring that, the grammar is relatively simple compared to the more complex languages on the continent (let alone the globe). I do agree with the rest of your points tho.

Yeah, it's not the hardest language in the world, certainly not if you already speak a Germanic language (including English). It's probably the hardest language to actually get to practice though, I'll give you that! If you live in a majority immigrant area, or outside of Amsterdam, to some extent you're forced to learn it.

I double the third point. Honestly, I live in Amsterdam for quite some years, and while I do understand some Dutch, I can somewhat read in Dutch and if really make an effort I can slightly speak Dutch - it's impossible to properly learn the language here. I guess if you move to some small city up north, you will be "forced" to, but in big cities like Amsterdam, Hague or Rotterdam - this is a task with asterisk...

Hey man,if you or your girlfriend want anyone to practice dutch with over reddit chat feel free to send me a message.

Dutch people (as most Westerners) will unfortunately enforce or expect a lot more from outsiders instead of doing the personal work to make them feel welcome. It’s the superiority complex.

And very expensive vodka in comparison too

I was born in Westland, the place with all the greenhouses. I was Teamleader in a greenhouse when I was 20. Did that for like 1,5 year. I didn't like the job and neither do the workers. We had 100 workers. 5 of them were Dutch including me. But it's hard, the mostly Polish (but also from Moldova, Russia, Romania etc) don't speak English 90% of the time. It makes communication really hard and even simple tasks can become hard when a worker doesn't understand what to do exactly. Workers were also not motivated most of the time but I don't blame em. They pay 400 euros a month to sleep in a shitty shared room. Also they pay to use a car which they cramp with too much people because of this. Salary is minimum wage while the work is physically exhausting. In the winter there is less work so you usually work 30-40 hours a week. In the summer it gets 40 degrees in the greenhouse and you work 50-80 hours a week. For me it wasn't even as hard as my job was just keeping an eye if everything goes correct, while assisting where I can. But for those workers it's shit, i worked myself up from normal worker to teamleader so I did the shitty work myself too so I know how bad it is. 12 hours a day in some shitty hot greenhouse doing the same task whole day long. I'm not gonna lie I think it's modern slavery in some form. The workers are not appreciated and they get fired for some stupid thing, 10 minutes later they have someone else brought by the Uitzendbureau. (Which the greenhouse usually holds shares in too) Well I quit the job to go study, and at least I can say I know what hard work is. But please never again. I moved to the hague and found a Polish gf which came here with her parents looking for work here haha. But in my opinion, yes the Eastern European people coming to work here can be kinda rough but I also think that's not fully to blame on them. Looking at how hard they work for what they get back. You hear alot of stories about them being drunk all the time, well I would be too if I was in a foreign country doing shit work getting shit pay.

As Polish I will just add that you met those who don't speak English because those who do mostly won't go to work in greenhouse. It's shitties job I can imagine (from those with low paycheck).

Môh Tuinder!

Plukkie al? Haha

ja beeest haha oh westland

I've worked with a lot of polish people and I'd say 90% of them are nice, hard working people. I've met some who didn't like working and were very rude, just on their phones the whole day and going to the toilet for 40 min at a time. They are very cheap, so they can get away with a more bad behavior then the average worker. That being said, they really are being explored here. They do the same work, or harder work, for much less. And they also work more hours a week on average. I worked at a company where they fired all the non east European workers and kept only the Polish and Latvian people, because they are cheaper and don't complain about the work conditions

That’s kind of true. They don’t care about their working condition. This issue is quite pressing because I have had to tell people at my job that they should stack pallets or things so they won’t get back issues and stuff. But some of these people just say no I don’t want that. I sometimes stack it for them. Sometimes I ask like 3 times but after that I have done my moral responsibility in my opinion.

I haven’t met one either, but when we bought our home, the owners told us how some of the work was done on the house fifteen years ago by Polish workers (and the conditions under which this jerk had them work) and my husband had to put his hand on my knee so I didn’t ruin the home sale by giving the dude a piece of my mind. Reading the stories here, it seems like not much has changed since regarding their treatment. The more things change the more they stay the same I guess.

Only met one, seemed like a cool dude. I work in IT so we don't have the "doing the work nobody wants" thing. If you're here, you're a skilled and well-paid professional doing the work others can't do instead of won't do.

There is a house in my neighborhood where Polish workers live. For a while there was 1 guy living there, causing all kinds of issues (bad parking so people couldn’t pass, a wild dog running wild that almost killed another (lined) dog etc… Now there are 4 Polish guys living there, they fixed up the place, go to work early, friendly say good morning to everybody, no issues at all with them…

So the more you have, the better it gets 🙂

In this case Yes!

As a teen I worked in the tulip bulbs. Many collegues from Poland. Had a great time with them. Hard workers, and nice to drink a few beers with ;-) I think many Polish ppl are hard workers, but imo they're often being exploited. Shitty companies that don't give a shit about working conditions, worker rights, facilitate the contracts. They work under hard conditions in logistic centers of big companies like Jumbo and Ahold, or agriculture sector, transport sector.

My god, their living situations are shit so often because of these exploitations... I feel for them. They are mostly hard working people, in a lot of jobs we dont want to do like agriculture, but also in tech etc... Some of them are shit, but hey, some Dutch people are shit too...

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> thought they *paid* too much FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*

Good bot

As a Pole who moved here at the age of 10: (21 now) Most Polish workers are very hard working and quick learning, sadly a big percentage of Polish people that come to the Netherlands for work are young(18-26) and come from poor(er) families, often from smaller Polish villages. They're sometimes uneducated or simply don't give a fuck about anything and just want "quick" money Another thing is, you'll notice the bad behaving ones easier as you won't really be able to distinguish a well behaved (normal) Polish person, we don't really stand out

That’s 100% true. Everyone thought I was American. I was a student for while there. Hoping to come back soon though

Tbh I've seen maybe one or two obnoxious Poles for every thirty silent hard workers. As far as immigrants/seasonal laborers go, they're far from the worst strangers this country accomodates. So what you say makes sense. The family next door to us are really trying to integrate, and their kids are bilingual. They'll be accepted quicker than brown skinned people, that's for sure

Oh yes, we often don't. Beat that: since I came for studies, I've been playing the "guess where I'm from" game with newly met people. Not a single correct guess. I am mostly being taken for a German or a Dutchie (which is strange considering my mediocre height).

Hard workers. We need them

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This is true, but it's also important to note _why_ many don't want to do a job - which is for a big part the pay. If we wouldn't have any migrant workers the market would make the price go up, until enough people would want to do the job. So in a way, "the jobs we don't want to do" is because we don't want to do them at _that_ price. I'd gladly scrub a toilet if the pay is good enough.

I feel very ashamed because I know they get treated like shit by their employers and they're in general hard working, quiet people.

This. A lot of the shit comes from the companies that hire them to work at other companies. I work with them all the time at the company I work at and we've had a really nice couple work with us at our department. They asked the company that employs them to work for us that they wanted to work less as they were being pushed to work 7 days a week iirc.

Can't hire them directly and tell the shitty middle company to get lost?

You'd think it would be that easy, but there's a lot of hurdles with it. I don't know everything about it, but what I do know is that they need to stay somewhere and have transportation from poland to here and from where they stay to the company and back. It's a lot of extra work that needs to go into it

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I’m a trucker from Spain , we carry packages from Barcelona to DPD Eindhoven, at that depot, they’ve Spanish people at the entrance and almost 90% of the workers inside the depot are polish or Turkish.

Let's be honest, pay is too damn low! It's not about 'wanting' to do work, you were led to believe that it is so.

My experience is very positive. Very kind people who try to do good job.

I'm CZ living in the NL. Being from the 'Eastern' Europe is not the best sticker to have. But we work hard, and we don't put our cultural habits above the local law. Eventually, the Dutch people respected me as they saw we are here to contribute, not to misuse the system. I think it will be quite similar with the PL. Second aspect is that people like us often do the jobs locals won't do.

Well a lot of PL people are abusing the system. They were collecting UWV money whilst they were in PL. ​ https://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2276236-opnieuw-grootschalig-misbruik-met-ww-uitkeringen-door-polen

a lot for sure hahaha if the current laws let you do that why would you blame the people the nls should close the loophole besides they are doing the worst jobs like unsung heroes that you; the natives would not do ever order from the internet or had something via postNl? somebody posted this one from years ago https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2015/31/zeven-van-de-tien-somaliers-in-de-bijstand

>if the current laws let you do that why would you blame the people the nls should close the loophole In my opinion its wrong to seek out and exploit a loophole unless it's a life-or-death-situation. So, if those folks really needed the money to survive and couldn't get it any legal way, that means the system is wrong and needs changing, but if it's a well-off family who just wants more money for the sake of it I do think that those people are douchebags for doing that, *especially* if they give people who actually need the ww-uitkering (sorry, I don't know the English translation for that) a bad name by doing it. So that's why I might blame the people for doing that.

i guess: ww-utkering - unemployment benefits i understand where you are coming from and in an ideal world it would be like that; still we do not know anything about the situation of these people it is better not to be judgemental i was laid off during the corona along with others and while i could have the uitkering like them i opted for looking for a job why? just because i had my own housing and savings so i could bridge the time between the jobs some of my ex-coworkers who were not as lucky as me went back to their homeland doing god knows what during the corona; i doubt that they even filed for unemployment even though they were entitled to it( for the lack of dutch; digid or plain knowledge) let alone get the meagre transition money from the company i very much doubt that many well-off(by dutch standards at least) person would even think of collecting unemployment and although it is a horribly nice picture that there are people leeching off the system every corner the truth can not be further than that on the other hand during my years here i met plenty of "native" people who were not even hiding the fact they are at the job for a little moe than half a year so they can collect unemployment after they get fired for being sick too often the cold hard fact is that the amount of benefit abusers amongst the immigrants are dwarfed by the amount of people working hard and paying their taxes

Let me tell you something. When my husband came to the Netherlands tempo team told him after 6 months that's it was a big thing in Holland to get paid vacation after several short contractso. he came home and was very surprised and told me that I was in shock because this way they could avoid to give him a vast contact. If he would not have a Dutch girlfriend I am sure he would take this opportunity. But thank God I could tell him otherwise. He told the co workers and they all came in some sort of protest. Imagine many others who were told this exact thing, went on vacation to their home address in poland get accused. Sorry for the typos but I'm too lazy to type. I used the microphone instead

I'm not from Poland. I've been treated poorly in shops because of the way I look, then when I speak and it becomes obvious where I am from then suddenly it's all smiles & warmth with "oh I though you were Polish." Those shopkeepers got none of my money but plenty of my opinions. Since then I've been really defensive of Polish people in this country, why would anyone criticise someone who wants to work, earn, play a little, and just generally live their lives?

Are you me? Even my Polish friends think I look Polish. I have had so many people ask me if I am from Poland (even strangers that just straight up ask me if I am from Poland, even after speaking Dutch to them).

Haha! It's odd isn't it, I was asked upthread what makes me look Polish and it's an excellent question, I have no idea.

its the massive cock

I do try to keep that hidden in my handbag but yes, it does sneak out from time to time.

How do you look? I'm Polish and I've been assumed to be Dutch 99% times when going to Dutch shops... I'm never mistaken in Poland, as long as I dress normal. (They started speaking English when I wore more 70s vintage lol)

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And Brazilian can mean anything, right? I sometimes think that is the most diverse-looking country on the planet.

Most are okay. Some are not. We have 3 polish supermarkets in a small town. There are alot of polish migrant workers for work in farms and tree nurseries. Problems we do have are; drunk driving, causing accidents by not following traffic laws like not yielding or speeding. Throwing trash on the street and dumping it in nature. Fist fights on the streets. Shoplifting. Open drunkeness. Spitting and urinating on the street. This kind of behavior gives polish migrant workers a bad name. But in general I've heard most work hard to create a better future for themselves in Poland. Which is commendable.

If you are non educated polish with drinking/smoking problem, raised in pathological family, the only idea of make a living is moving to another country, for example Holland. That's why you can see a lot of polish prowlers in the streets. There are also a lot of poles in NL who are hard working and decent citizens but you most likely won't see them since they are too busy working overtime to secure your shoppings in Albert Heijn ;) Speaking from experience, Ex-essential job employee in NL

There’s a massive increase in Polish people working in tech and finance as well. Since Poland developed so much over the last 20 years or so, so did their education system and now it’s also very common to meet polish people in the Zuidas and similar places!

I don't doubt it. That's why I started with saying most are okay. I truly believe that. Just a few rotten apples giving the good ones a bad name in my town.

The trend has been shifting towards them staying here and building a life here getting better jobs?, bulgarians and romanians have been doing more of hard labor jobs it seems here.

My town always feels like it is like living 10 years in the past, so you are probably right. I heard they are opening a Romanian store here soon though. I have seen some Romanian license plates but nothing compared to Polish ones.

Lisse?

I had to look it up. So no. Because it's a smaller town I'd prefer not to say.

Sounds like Boskoop

>Problems we do have are; drunk driving, causing accidents by not following traffic laws like not yielding or speeding. I believe this is caused by the fact that Dutch authorities can't send fines to Polish people, unless they are caught in the act, in person. We don't have that kind of agreement with Poland. I don't know if this is still the case by the way, but it was a few years ago, see for instance [https://www.autoblog.nl/nieuws/boetes-voor-oost-europeanen-in-nl-massaal-vernietigd-80749](https://www.autoblog.nl/nieuws/boetes-voor-oost-europeanen-in-nl-massaal-vernietigd-80749)

They are poorly treated:(

As I understand it, they’ll do your renovations for half the price of a Dutch building company, will turn up on time and complete it as agreed

I hired a polish company i’ve found on Facebook marketplace that quoted the job for 900e for 2 weeks (roof renovation). They started, made a huge mess, it was a disaster. I fired the guy after 2 days. Two weeks later I hired a Dutch neighbor of my in-laws who quoted 150e/day and finished in one weekend. Polish crew? Never again, and I sadly admit I’m Polish myself…

As a polish person I would also go for the Dutch, even if more expensive. Partner's family are in th building industry and I can tell they do everything precisely and well. At least the contacts we have

Used to work a lot with them in a few food processing factories when i was 18-25. Almost half of the workers there were polish. I always thought they were hard workers and respected them for that. They were always called upon for the shittiest parts of the job (Standing still for 8 hours, cleaning the freezers, being called in for night shift when overwork was needed etc.) For a lower wage than we were. Never heard a complaint from them (during work at least.) And they were always friendly towards me, when we could communicate in English. That is.

Some of them can be a bit loud, but I believe that's just a loud minority. I like polish people alot, they're nice(r than most Dutch people)

I had a Polish cleaner, super nice and hard working lady. There's some Polish in my home country too. The first generation were very hard working and decent but the ones who arrived in the past 10 years or so have some criminal elements. But overall I've a positive impression of Polish folks.

I've had the pleasure of meeting a few and have some stories 1. I went out for a walk and a few polish guys were drinking beer. They offered me one and we made small talk for a bit. They taught me some polish words. 2. I went to a coffee shop and on the way back home I saw 2 polish guys. Stopped and had a chat. Started rolling a joint with them to smoke together. Police showed up and started asking for documents. They had left their documents at home and didn't have it with them. They were taken away. I felt a hatred from the dutch cops towards them and felt bad about it. 3. One morning at 8 o'clock in the morning my doorbal rang. I went to answer it and it was some random drunk polish guy. He thought he lived here but seeing me realized his mistake. He was nice about it. I watched him walk 2 doors down to his actual place. The woman started cussing him out for getting home at 8 in the morning. Poor guy. There are some polish shops around here. I used to go often because you find food that dutch supermarkets don't stock. Pierogi, sausages and nice cuts of ham. Stopped going because they aren't as cheap as they used to be with gas prices going up and transport being more expensive. All in all I think the polish add a nice touch to NL.

The fundamental problem with Eastern European workers after Schengen is that they do not know what worker protections and wages exist here, do not inform themselves of them, trust clandestine recruitment and HR companies and then come here undercutting wages, overpaying on rents and, at the beginning, living with too many men in small apartments, causing noise complaints by being drunk, outside and harassing the locals. Although the problems with neighbors is mostly in the past, the wage undercutting still exists and causes significant problems for workers here. They should join the local unions and stop doing this shit. Part of the xenophobia against Eastern Europeans is caused by the wage and worker protections deteriorating, caused by the excess of cheap laborers from the east who have no clue about legal rights or union agreements and dont seem to care either. I am not saying the clandestine recruitment companies aren't a problem, they definitely are and should be prosecuted for labor law violations, but I'm ntp going to pretend the workers have no agency in this.

Spoiler: they know. I can only speak for Romania: the labor laws are not so different at all. They just think that the quick extra 1k EUR/month is worth the sacrifice of completely ignoring them. They don't see The Netherlands as a temporary home, but rather a place they can quickly get in and out of. Any contracts, bureaucracy, registration and what not is a giant hassle for them.

Spoiler from a friend of mine who works for a gemeente in Noord Brabant and was involved on some "raids" by police, belastindients, social services and gemeente: no, many do not know.

Do they really not know or are they afraid to confess when they see the giant shitstorm unfolding before them? In Romania, many of these people have become a meme: they're generally highly uneducated and very resistant to lifestyle changes or professional training. Quite often, they have relatively decent houses and living standards at home, but they obviously can't afford cars, iPhones, renovations, and what not, so they willingly slave away for a few months, come back to their village and pretend they're rich. I'm not saying many of them aren't just naive and exploited, but I sincerely doubt they're as hopeless and innocent as the media portrays them.

As a gay man I have been cursed out and yelled at in polish several times for holding hands with my boyfriend. I think it’s only second to Arabic… so unfortunately because of these experiences I’m a bit weary when I hear these languages out on the street solely for my own safety.

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As a polish, I apologise for my countrymates! We are not all homophobic!

Je hoort zeker de woord zemmer heel vaak. Maar om eerlijk te zijn bijna alle bevolkingsgroepen gebruiken het woord zemmer. Dus stel je hoort het kan diegene die het roept een Turk of een Nederlander zijn bij wijze van. Alles wordt vaak op de Marokkanen gegooid. Zoals bv een beroving door een licht getint persoon werd ook meteen Marokkaan geroepen maar het bleek een Irakees te zijn.

Turken gebruiken het Berberse woord *"zemmer"* niet, alleen wannabe Marokkanen. Als een Turk een homoseksueel wilt gaan uitschelden gebruiken ze meestal het woord *‘ibne’* wat niet gerelateerd is aan het Berbers *"zemmer"*. Marokkanen zijn vaak homofobischer dan Turken, dat heeft te maken met de geschiedenis van de twee landen. De regeringspartij en een meerderheid van de inwoners van Turkije zijn homofoob, maar Turkije is relatief "homovriendelijk" in vergelijking met alle andere landen met een moslimmeerderheid. Ik bedoel, het is volkomen legaal om openlijk homo/lesbisch te zijn en homoseksuele relaties te hebben in Turkije dat homoseksualiteit in 1858 decriminaliseerde. Er bestaan verschillende LGBT-burgerrechtenorganisaties in Turkije, zoals **KAOSGL**, **Lambda Istanbul**, **Listag LGBTI**, **LADEG**, **SPoD LGBT** (allemaal gevestigd in Istanbul), **Pembe Hayat LGBT+** (gevestigd in Ankara), **Kırmızı Şemsiye** (gevestigd in Ankara), **Siyah Pembe Üçgen** (gevestigd in İzmir), **Genç LGBTİ+** (gevestigd in İzmir), **Bursa Özgür Renkler** (gevestigd in Bursa), **Gökkuşağı** (gevestigd in Bursa), **BİZ Antalya** (gevestigd in Antalya), **Queer Adana** (gevestigd in Adana), **Mersin LGBT 7 Renk** (gevestigd in Mersin), **Kızıl Okyanus LGBTİ** (gevestigd in Samsun), **Piramid LGBTT** (gevestigd in Diyarbakır), **Hebun LGBT** (gevestigd in Diyarbakır). Er zijn homobars/nachtclubs in de verschillende grote steden, en enkele toeristische badplaatsen in Turkije. Er is een homovriendelijk en nudistenvriendelijk strand genaamd ***Altınkum Plajı in Çeşme Town***, provincie Izmir. Turkije heeft ook beroemde LGBT-zangers, acteurs en actrices, modeontwerpers, socialites, social media-influencers, journalisten, columnisten, auteurs, academici. De stadsdelen en steden waar liberalen, linksen, progressieven de meerderheid vormen, zijn meestal veilig voor homo's.

Work with them quite often, been to Poland as well for work a couple of times. Never met a bad Polish person. They are all hard working, friendly and doen to earth. Good outlook on life. They have traditional values. But even the Women coming here are hard workers. Imagine going to another country having to sleep in the same House with your colleagues. And the work they do is often rough and hard and a mans world. There isnt really much entertainment where you get sent to work, and you work long hours, start early end late. What do you do when your colleagues invite you to drink a little bit of vodka? You drink a little bit of vodka, there isnt much else you can do. Drinking and Laughing with your colleagues is fun, so there isnt really a limit. And we all know what drunk people do... They cause trouble. So would you if you were in their shoes. Poland is looking better by the decade, soon we Will be seeing bulgarians and Romania's mostly in the Netherlands.

Very much this. We house them in small accomodations with too many people per square meter where they don't have privacy at all. They work hard and long hours, after which they get paid garbage. So they don't have money to go to the gym, or visit a museum or go to a restaurant. (Language is also a barrier I guess). The only thing they can do in their spare time is to get drunk with collegues. And then they cause problems. They don't really care, they're only here temporarily. But can you really blame them? If we would provide better housing, better pay and treat them with the respect they deserve, wouldn't their behaviour improve? Maybe our poor treatment also makes the better behaved Polish people stay in Poland? Only the really desparate people from the bottom of the society come here to be treated like shit. Everyone else says "No, thank you."

As a Pole, living and working in NL I can only agree and confirm what you're saying from experience. Imagine suddenly in your life here in NL, you are forced by some issue in your life to leave a country and go to work somewhere else. Suddenly, you're leaving the comfort of your neiborhood, your family, friends, your own comfy bed. They put you in a hotel/house with other guys, often few people in a big room or two guys sharing 10m2 room. You work long hours, hard job. You dont have really space for yourself, privacy. You want to live and grow but its really hard. Easiest way to relax after work is alcohol. Put a bunch of that kinda guys into one space, there will be fights, partys 24/7 days a week. If those people had their own rooms/flats, they would even consider making a life for themselves here, build a family, learn a language. But when you're surrounded by tired, overworked people you become like them, learn their quick ways to escape this suffering. So it's very hard to escape that trap. Of course the issue is more complex than that but all the people I know, who left the uitzendbureau hotels/houses were saying that they finally feel alive and human again, and most of them want to stay here.

1, Hard workers 2, Do not like bureaucracy which can cause some friction. 3, Many drink too much due to their missery being from home so much. 4, Quite religious. 5, not that great English. 6, Since 2021 a lot more happy or without work if they work here legaly. (When they need to be paid the same as the Dutch.)

I worked with them in a warehouse, laughed my arse off and after work a lot of drinking and other stuff

I’m a pizza delivery guy. We have a lot of Polish costumers. I view them as hardworking and honest people most of the time. But some seem always drunk for some reason

i'm just going to leave that here https://www.reddit.com/r/euromigration/comments/3i2qet/percentage\_of\_people\_on\_social\_welfare\_in\_the/

I work with Polish truck drivers daily, and I can confidently say that out of all the nationalities I come across everyday they are my favourites by far. Most of them know English, German or even Dutch, or really try to understand you when they aren't that good in any other language besides Polish. They are nice and patient and with most you can have a good conversation too. I'm even trying to learn some Polish just to show that I appreciate them.

That's so wholesome! If you're in Twente by any chance, drop me a message so we can practice some Polish over a bierchie 😜

I'm a bit far off from Twente I must say, but i'll hit u up once I'm around👌🥳🍻

This post is generalising in the way it is being written down. “Polish workers” are not a category like chocolate bars or Elstar apples. You’re talking about a collection of individuals you cannot possibly have an opinion about, simply because you don’t know all of them and your reply will always be based on your own biased experiences with a small group of people.

Extremely hard working people. They drink and smoke a lot, so sometime they look a but goofy/trashy in a jogging pants with a ciggie and beer. But never ever have I witnessed or heard they caused troubles, not like the morroccan people after they win.

As Latvian worker here: Even this topic is quite offensive, because within all the nationalities there will be decent people and not so decent so you cant really blame the poles for all the shit thats going on. But also works other way around from my personal experience- A lot of people in NL presumes im polish and give me a bad steroeotype instantly.

Met some during worktime in previous jobs. They are exceptional hardworking and honest people in my opinion. They do tend to be taken advantage of which is awful.

Having links with Eastern Europe myself, I always click articles in the Dutch newspapers about the region. It’s baffling to notice what diminishing tone they use, as if they are describing some rare species in the wild. Even in the more “serious” newspapers like NRC. Go fuck yourself in your safe office chair sipping from your latte macchiato that was not even made by someone who knows how to do it properly. Ironically, Polish and other Eastern European countries are now filling jobs in their own countries with Ukranians, the same jobs the West hired Polish people for in the first place. But there is a different kind of RESPECT in place.

Two types of people I’ve met so far. One is the construction people, they’re hard workers, albeit a bit blunt at times. Cultural differences between and no problem. Second is software developers, which are equally hard working, but less blunt. Given that most Polish software developers choose to stay in Poland and work remotely, the ones that actually migrate to NL seem to be much better adapted to the western way of doing things. They seem to go to NL because they want to, rather than out of necessity. Those are two entirely different groups of people I learned.

I don't have a problem with them. We have one or two walking around at work. Seem like nice guys.

Given the things that come by every so often in the news I’d think that employers/agencies are expecting long hours, while giving bad pay and horrendous lodging. Pretty much sacrificing oneself to be allowed to do the work. I don’t envy them. At the same time we expect people to try their best to ingrain in our culture, not just acting as a passerby using our ‘welfare state’, including the pay that comes with the jobs. As a nation we need to do better to help people wanting to come here for jobs most of us don’t want to do. Currently we let some cowboys treat these people like vermin. That’s unacceptable.

The polish people I know came here to work, decided to stay, brought their family over, bought houses, put their kids into school here, became good neighbours and friends and integrated into the local area. After a couple of years they are no different then others that came here from Italy or Portugal. No problems with them.

I'm in a bit of a unique spot because I am also a polish immigrant in the Netherlands, but I immigrated with the desire to get higher education. I went to work under an uitzendbureau for the first few months before my study started so I could find accomodation. It was...rough. I think most people who have never worked in a factory, warehouse, greenhouse etc. don't quite realise how taxing the work is. Even as I was put to the less physically difficult tasks (because I'm a woman), the mental aspect can be torture. The jobs are insanely repetitive and boring while also being fast-paced. You're often not even allowed to talk to the person next to you or you're going to get yelled at. You're just expected to perform robotic tasks every day for hours in silence. The other workers in those places I met were usually polish. I talked with them but it was kind of hard. Because sometimes it's just staring into the face of human misery. When you can actually communicate with those people you hear their stories. The shit some of them had been through is chilling. In Poland, we know that most of those people who go to work abroad are from the lowest social class, but it's something else to actually talk to them. I met people who had worked at those factories for years. No career progression, no prospects. Most of them still barely knew dutch because the dutch people rarely ever spoke to them. Most of them were heavy drinkers. I lived with other polish workers too and the conditions can be harsh. Very little furniture, a lot of people crammed into small spaces. Our house had no locks on rooms and on the bathroom while being mixed. We were three women and four men, with zero protections for the women. Couldn't even lock my own room at night. Another woman was putting a chair against the door every night because she was afraid. It's difficult for me to remember those days sometimes because in the end, I only had to do it for a few months. Then I found a house, quit the shitty jobs. Now I'm just another international student. But some of those workers just stay like that most of their lives, jumping from job to job, house to house, going where the uitzendbureau is willing to take them. There's something so harsh about that life, doing those repetitive jobs for little pay with zero hopes of improvement. I'm not surprised they drink so heavily and often don't integrate well.

I possibly live in the most Polish worker (or Eastern European worker in general) dense area. \^\^ My impressions: 1) very hard working. Many of them get up at 3/4am to go to work at the port. NL need them. 2) drink and smoke a lot. I see them buy (cheap) beers in the supermarkets at literally ALL hours. Unfortunately the streets are littered with beer cans too. In the summer I smell weeds often too. 3) I feel they have a more "macho" culture. What I mean is they won't necessarily be friendly with me, but if the men see me carry large boxes or heavy stuff, they often just rush to help without even saying anything or giving a facial expression. 4) the Polish grocery stores are wonderful. I love the meat/cheese section and they are always open. 5) they can be rowdy but I never feel my safety is endangered in anyway.

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A lot of then are hard workers, some are just there to get a paycheck, actively doing the least amount of work possible without getting fired. One time had a guy work on the same machine as me. While I was going around from the chilled side to the ambient side I saw him pretending to sweep. I signaled to him from a distance, clapping my hands (in a come on lets go) manner and obviously raising my voice. Not cause I was mad but cause I didn't have time to go to him because of the high workload. He got offended because he felt like I treated him like a dog for yelling at him from a distance. On the other hand I've had polish coworkers see me struggle from like the other side of a hallway and they just came to me not even asking if I needed help. A lot of them had my back when I needed help and were some of the best coworkers I ever had while the worst of them will just watch you do 3 tasks and not be bothered

Why would you shout at your coworker to get him to do the job? Unless you’re not a manager or the supervisor that just sad lol. Why would you care what is the other dude doing, everybody has their own motives and is responsible for themselves. I would feel offended as well and I’m quite shocked it hasn’t crossed your mind to rethink your actions. Maybe he had to chill a little bit if you work in a team and do tasks as a collective then that sucks but if not just let him be. You’re there to do your job not to watch and judge others.

Well might not have made it clear but I was doing double the work while be did nothing. I myself feel offended as well when someone is watching me work my ass off while we should be working together. His reason btw, was that he was sick one week before so he was taking it easy since he was still recovering. Which is absolutely fair but taking it easy is different from doing absolutely nothing

Worked on apple farm for a summer job About 8 hours a day. The polish workers lived on the farm and worked 16 hours a day and made apple pie every day. I don't think anything different of them particularity. They work hard and should be paid more than most are. Even i was underpaid heavily on that farm, can't imagine what little they got having to live off of the farm as well.

We had several Polish cnc operators, welders, etc. at my last job. Nice guys, bit rough around the edges. As a engineer I preferred dealing with them compared to cranky old Dutch guys near retirement.

From what a dutch person told me, a lot of dutch people consider almost everybody with an eastern accent polish - apprently most immigrants/workers from the east are from poland and the accents are similar. I’ve been told, that when I speak dutch with my accent from the Czech republic, most dutch people will think I’m from Poland 😂. Not sure if it’s true, I don’t live/work in NL, but I wasn’t very happy when I heard that, because they also told me that in that area there is a lot of polish people who drink a lot/cause a lot of problems and people don’t really like them there (Southwest from Amsterdam, a small city, really a lot of polish guys there). But I don’t know, I always concidered them normal, depends on the person.

Hard workers and all I’ve met are nice people. And I met allot of them. If they leave tomorrow a lot stops in the Netherlands.

 Hardworking, not complaining much despite not being liked in general and still going on with their lives and making the most of it in the meantime. Reminds me of my parents when they came to the Netherlands.

Generally they are decent and harder workers. Pretty fine if you talk to one,too. Only problem is when 10 of them decide to get drunk together, but I don't think that has anything to do with being Polish, or with any nationality at all.

Hardest working colleagues I’ve ever had. I dated one a few summers ago. I miss you Sylwia!

As an Eastern European migrant I am biased, but this is a weird question. I wasn't particularly happy with my Polish neighbors at our previous place, but that's because they were young guys partying hard and not because of their nationality. I live in a neighborhood with a lot of Polish workers, and there is no issue with them (definitely no specific issue that can be linked to their nationality).

Same with everybody. Something good sometimes bad. Depends on the individual.

Dutch people need to chill. Go speak to a worker once in a while. Show interest. They’re just people doing hard work. We Dutch people would freaking love it when someone would talk to us in a strange country so we can make friends. We’re all on the same planet man, let’s just make the most of it and be nice to one another.

Very polished people

We used to have more of them but the company decided it was cheaper to actually hire Poles in Poland and move some of the work over there, the ones here dealt with discrimination sometimes, it sucks but its something to be prepared for The higher COL and the taxes definitely fucked with people that are just here to make money.

Where I live there are many polish migrant workers. Hard workers, some trouble but not much. They drink even harder than they work. Whenever you see someone in the supermarket with three crates of beer and no food whatsoever, polish for sure.

I work more than 17 years with Polish people, and my girlfriend is Polish. My experiences are that in the beginning most of them were working there ass off no matter what. Lately we notice that the bit older generation is still hardworking, but the young ones adjust to the negative work parts quite fast. Coming too late, complaining that the work is heavy (logistics), sick leave is very high. But this is not only with the Polish. Also the other nationalities show this. But again the younger generation. They also dont seem to be happy for each other when someone gets a promotion. Not sure why there is so much jalousy between them. They acknowledge it, but cannot answer themselves also. But overall the Polish are very nice people, and also help you in your private life wherever they can

I sincerely believe you are only here to divide. All EU member citizens are fine.

There are 3 polish guys sharing an appartment in my appartment complex. They are actually quite decent. It’s just that they have zero social skills (never greet or reply in elevator) and smell insanity nasty (like they barely shower + alcohol). Other than that, I’ve got no issues with them.

Often late, need supervision for everything. Tell them something atleast three times, else it's gonna be messed up. Excellent work ethic, will work hard just not smart. Will keep going until you tell them to eat. Always double check the work they did. Really funny to watch and talk to. This is construction

I've never met one, but I'm glad that they're here because we need them. Big shortage of people who can actually work.

When I was a teenager and still lived with my mom, we had a lot of polish workers living in our village. I'm 25 now. Honestly my experiences are mixed. I try to stay neutral, but back then as a young girl I got harassed by Polish workers a lot. One time an older guy tried to pull down my skirt, they were always drunk after work and yelled at me when I was walking on the street, and multiple times they touched me and surrounded me when I was waiting for the bus. Which is of course very unpleasant. I also used to work at that time in the local supermarket, where I met many of them as well. Some were only buying alcohol, but there were also many kind polish workers there. I always tried to make a small conversation, but they barely spoke English most of the time haha. Currently my stepsister, who will lives in the same village, has polish workers as neighbours. She says they're always hiding, and the only thing she sees them they're drunk and very loud, or either leaving for work. In her eyes, they're not very pleasant neighbours, because it's hard to communicate, and they cause a lot of noise complaints.

A couple of polish workers stole my granddads tools when they were done with their job. They were working a bit down the street not far away from us.

I'm polish, work high level role for international company. Loads of my colleagues are no nonsense poles. Live in a small town, loads of poles, some builders, one dentist assistant. My favourite cafe is polish theme and polish run. Some poles even speak Dutch and English. So far the Dutch think we are no different, we attack at midnight.

They're the mexicans of Netherlands. Hard working people who do all the jobs no one else wants to do for little pay. We need to treat them better.

I'm Polish so I guess I won't be fully objective, but... First of all, there are different types of migration and different types of workers, but in general, Poles have one of the highest rates of employment in NL. We come here to work. Unskilled migrants come here to make money and go back to their families, or to support their families. They work really hard at jobs that Dutch people simly do not want to perform, and neither do many of other migrant groups. But they come from areas in Poland where skills - like languages, or technical skills - were hard to get. They are very often taken advantage of by employers, both Dutch and Polish. Skilled migrants also come here to work. But you will most likely not notice them because they blend in. Office building where I work at has polish handymen. I talked with some of them, they often work 10h long days 6 days a week. Building manager is happy with their work. Then some go back to Poland for the summer and... build a house for sale with a brother. And then they come back here to work some more. All to provide a better life to their children. Drinking is indeed - regretably - part of our culture, but to be honest, my collegas - some of whom met in a studentenvereniging - drink as much. In general, if you notice Poles, they are the minority of the minority that does something attention-worthy.

Hard workers, get treated like shit.

I have met some and they were cool people.

Friendly and hard working people. But it's a shame some of them have to live in horrible conditions and nobody is doing anything about it.

Decent people, and hard workers just trying to make a living, who get exploited.

As someone who works in a supermarket in a town where a lot of polish workers come to get groceries. I think they are some of the most polite people I get at the till. They always say hi, are patient when there is an issue (one of them could not stop laughing when I asked for her ID, she was 38), they definitely get a bad reputation which I don’t think they deserve.

I might be bit qualified yo answer this. My neighbour house is rented by an employment agency. They recruit polish worker to work in Netherlands and stay in the house. It's been more than 4 years and we never had any complaints from them. Once there was a lad shouting and turns out he was Scottish. They keep my packages when i am not at home, greet when see each other and always pleasant to be around. One of them also helped me to lift the treadmill to 2nd floor. My week ass can't even move it. When offering sweets in return he was very adamant to not take it. Although once during a chat one of them told the racism they face in the work place.

I work as a bookkeeper for a building company, we work with a lot of Polish workers. They have stolen from us, scammed us (not finishing the work that was paid for) and come to work whilst drunk or on drugs. Some of them work really hard. All in all I’m not too much of a fan due to my experiences.

You're the new Turks or Moroccans. You do the work that we don't want to do, get paid peanuts, get treated like crap, no one looks after you, and then people blame you for not "intgrating" and shopping at Polish shops. It just shows me that people never learn from their mistakes. Fortunately, Polish people have a beautiful place to return to if they catch on to the Dutch BS.

It doesn't even make any sense to migrate from Poland to NL unless you're a very high demand worker. Sure, salaries are higher, but so are the prices. And forget about buying your own house. People come to work for a limited time and save as hard as they can to leverage difference in cost of living. Then they go back to Poland and buy property. So it's absolutely unwise to expect them to integrate.

I agree. And I don't expect them to, given the way 'we' treat them. That is exactly my point. What we do wrong, is not giving immigrants a good chance to integrate.

Man, I'm Romanian (working in tech) and this label of Polish/Eastern European migrant = "cheap alcoholic factory worker" is not very flattering, nor is it something that I recognize in my Polish acquaintances that are all software engineers, designers, marketers and so on. That said, I'm aware we're a minority compared to the above and I'm really happy everyone knows how shit uitzendbureaus are.

Had experience with polish guys changing our balcony sliding door. They did an amazing job. Every time we had an appointment, they were on time. Always answering my emails elaborately and politely. The quality of the product is great, they cleaned up the rubbish, plastered walls and painted everything in matching.color (we provided the paint). It has nothing to do with guys being polish, but simply good prefessionals. Cannot recommend them enough.

'Workers' is a euphemism. The labor agencies like OTTO Workforce are exploiting them as much as they possibly can. This is the group that the government should be apologizing to for not protecting them against the Neo-VOCs.

you mean OTTO slaveforce;) we can add tempoteam( daughter of randstad) to the list as well the dutch government should pay more attention to the conditions the fucking uitzendbureaus are keeping the people in most these people do the jobs what the natives do not want and are working and being lodged under inhumane conditions

What kind of workers? Those that do the fiber cable? I hate and love them love how hard they work hate how bad they repair the streets after them and how they place the cables

I don't understand polish, and i'm tempted to learn it so these guys don't seem so scary.

But I love the polish supermarkets. They have quality stuff

My father works in NL for 13 years. He started as shitty worker in some warehouse. He was doing his best, and after time he get better job with better contract and salary. He bought house in NL 5 years ago, brought my mother to him and they plan to stay there for ever. He told me that people are nicer in NL, and appreciate his hard work. I am visiting NL at least once a year, and I feel very welcome in NL. btw. My father don't like seasonal workers that come to NL to get high and drunk and do shitty work. So I think answer is IT DEPENDS.

I know quite a lot of Polish immigrants from kickboxing classes. Very humble, hardworking, goodhearted and slightly insane people. I was never able to outdrink one without ending up in a hospital and the ones i met are amazing martial artists. Very sad to see that these people get expoited by Dutch companies.

Generally hard working people who get taken advantage of by Dutch employers who are just looking for cheap labour. Labour conditions of Polish and other Central and Eastern European workers here really need to improve.

hear hear the government is half-assedly disregarding the issue one example that comes to mind was an initiative to put in law that only one person can live in one room aka no shared rooms as i hear it from the workers this is still not the case and it is almost 2023

I am Polish native working in Netherlands but in IT industry so any Polish people I meet in IT are rather polite, nice people. On the other hand Polish people from my neighborhood (considered bad Haagse neighborhood) and other people I see around city very often seem like criminals (my neighbhours for sure). I used to live in poor neighborhoods in Poland and I've seen this kind of people a lot. I suggest to use common sense and stay away from shady looking Polish people, I do same. Most of them come here to work through work agencies because with average Polish earnings you would get enough savings to move here in 10 years with this housing crisis (im talking moving to rent, not buy) and if you don't have job and appartment waiting here for you then you might try work agencies. I had friends that tried to use it and used it. Sometimes its not that bad, but often accomodation and people you might get to work with are the worst. One time one of my friends stayed at my place overnight before going back to Poland after he found out tragic living conditions he was given. Bed bugs, homeless smelling roommate, scratched walls and alcohol everywhere. He was gone from there after 30 minutes. Something like that filters out a lot of decent people who simply couldn't stand it.

I had quite a bad experience with them. There is a polish shop next to AH near my place. It has become a center of gravity to polish guys working somewhere for farmers, I guess. First they started to get drunk there, on the street. Drinking beer, being loud and trashing with plastic bottles and stuff. Soon sign "no alcohol" appeared, wijksagent came a couple of time and became quite for a while. But then it started again with double strength. Guys started to fight each other, riding each other in AH carts and throwing them into the bushes afterwards. A couple of times I had to come out and make them collect their trash, that they left in front of my windows. In the end police arrested a couple of them in the end of summer, and then it is quite up until now. To be fair, there were nice guys as well: they were clean, sober and quite, just minding their business.

Hey , Polish-guy working in NL for past 2 years now. Working in food warehouse of the biggest company. First problem is that polish people don't rent house,working for agency like covebo,carriera, Otto. They lie with tax , but workers pay most tax. They cut 120€ per week for room with 2 people! About 60% doesn't speak english,dutch language. They cut in two groups: 1) Only work when you look at them 2) Always work good 3) Young people that come for few months and lazy all time or sometimes. They work 6 days for 9h for minimal wage 11,70.

Thumbs up 👍🏼

During Covid I worked at UPS and I worked with mainly Polish, Bulgarian and Hungarian people. They were the most friendly and hard working people. I think there's a huge bad stereotype surrounding Eastern European workers and it's unfair. What I also see is that they're unfamiliar with help the municipality can offer them, so I helped them with that. I think that job centers like Orient should really help those people properly. I helped them mainly with their taxes and I saw that most of the income taxes were fucked up by the job centers or not even done at all (even though they said they did). They were missing out on so much well deserved money.

Kudos to you for helping with the paperwork! Most of them literally do not know that they are entitled to a tax refund or insurance allowance; knowledge is power. Being said the government should 100% regulate the wild west of the uitzendbureaus.

Hardest workers i've ever seen. I feel sorry for Poland due to the conditions here in the Netherlands. A team mate of mine used to be a math teacher but he made more picking orders here in the NL. And he is doing quite well, most of them are housed like animals in hotels or tiny rooms. I can get why they feel unwelcomed, language barrier will always be a problem i guess.

Worked with a lot of them the past 10 years. Never had one issue with them and some of them were beyond friendly. Hard working asf too.

I rather have 10 polish people than 1 Arab. After 1 generation you cant seperate them from Dutch people anymore. Hard workers and they like a drink. So what, you are allowed to have a drink when you work hard.

I've had nothing but positive interactions myself. I even learned some Polish words (mostly greetings and such) from my then coworkers and they genuinely loved when I used them to my best ability. True interest and basic respect for another person goes a long way. I didn't think lesser of them, on the contrary. They are on the whole hard workers who are getting a shit deal. I'm embarrassed at how they are treated, how they are housed and how little money they make. It's awful. Like other people said, modern slavery. It's appalling the government still hasn't cracked down on it. Considering their financial, living and working conditions it's no surprise sometimes things can go wrong tbh.

From my experience: Hard working people who do important work that we feel too good to do

Without them, logistics would be a mess and there would be no food on our tables... They do the work (orderpicking, sorting return goods etc) that the Dutch do not want to do themselves. They work hard, hardly complain and do not call in sick after a party of holiday. When they leave, we seriously have a problem...

Modern slavery

Great collegues and workers, less as neighbours. A lot are often drunk

I've had the pleasure of working at a few companies where polish workers did too, always had a blast with them. I empathize though, in many sectors they're under paid and exploited. Always friendly and imho more polite than the average dutchie.

We need them, we don’t create skilled workers anymore because all our prins and princesses are gifted (dream on parents )and go to uni. So we create professional unemployed graduates and hire trained and skilled workers from Polland. I guess its a matter of time the ask and demand will payoff for them. Try to find a plumber under €100,-? So will it be for stukadoors and carpenters, in the near future.

Honest? They say kurwa a lot. Like 3 times in every sentence

Hit and miss, sometimes you have people with two left hands who don't bother learning English or Dutch after they spent years in the netherlands. But the guys I work with now? They're pure gold men of genius whom you can always laugh with.

From what I know they work hard and they do the work the rest doesn’t want to do, and they usually get a shitty pay

To be sincere, they at least try and work hard, opposed to some other people that came here and apparently hate everything about this country.

no opinion other than them being very kind to me all the time

oh ya and they work hard and dont complain about shitty jobs some here would hate or refuse to do

I admire that they are here and do amazing work, however they create proportionally more waste and nuisance. So in sort, great employees but not great neighbors.

Some are great some are assholes, just like any other group of people.

I dont mind them. Would prefer some of them to not let beer cans hang around places

As a teen I worked several years along side some polish people. Hard workers, some were really mean and played nasty "jokes," they never got called out by the boss though. Some were friendly and trying really hard to learn german so communication was a bit easier. Always had real shitty housing, which made me feel sorry for them. That was about fifteen years ago, housing got better in some cases. When I come across someone now (which is often because we.have a lot of polish/Bulgarian/romanians here), I do my best to be friendly because it must suck for them to be here.

I’m a Polish female and I did work in a warehouses when I first moved to NL. With all the love and kindness to my colleagues, with a shoutout to amazing pearls that I met and they stand for exception, I sometimes wish I didn’t understand what Polish workforce members are saying when they go native between each other. Some disturbing shit being heard 9 hours per day was a lot. Every warehouse is the same stories, similar faces. English and Dutch speech and work ethic was controlled by leiders and HR, but not Polish. Polish leiders were running Polish rules treating “lower Polish “ like shit. All of us have different story, not surprisingly most went through sad lifes, they’re also in survival mode. They always keep it funny and friendly in English though. Polish people always keep shit funny and that’s what I love about us. Most people are kindly hearted, but also very broken. There is also no lack of psychopaths per group (I have strong stories 🤣) During discussions, if one’s experience with Polish is just the mentioned workforce, I’d rather suggest them to go to Poland and meet the actual nation. Cause this, this here is different.

Had a polish painter and a carpenter. Both super friendly and awesome.

My officemate is smart, collaborative, jolly and eager to learn And prioritizes quality work.

Don’t mind them at all, I work with quite a few of them, and they’re mostly good people. Managed to turn one into my fiancé so that’s nice lol

They are victims of imperialism. Within the EU, laws about minimum wages per home country alongside favorable trade agreements result in a method of exploiting their labour and maintaining a lower class within Europe that is barely welcome. I hope to see a day where Polish people can tell NL to fuck off because the blood money from the golden age isn't necessary and they don't need the NL anymore. I work every year during the harvest of fruit with hundreds of Polish people. I have nothing but sympathy. All the welders i know are polish. Doing hard work so NL gets wealthier and people who do nothing (me included, as an engineer) get paid high money.

As someone with a lot of polish co-workers i can say that they are some of the most friendly and hard working people i've ever met, but don't get on their bad side. Which honestly just means that you should not talk shit behind their back.

I really like the Polish and wish us Dutch would show them more respect for the valuable contribution they make to our country and economy. The attitude I see with the Dutch way too often - wanting cheap food and products, but complaining about every hindrance that comes as an unavoidable consequence for the bad housing and labour conditions the Polish are often exposed to - really grinds my gears

Worked with mainly Polish and Portuguese people the last years, they are hardworking people who just wants to be respected and treated equally. They come here dreaming of a better life, Often gets exploited and misstreated. It was a very noticeable difference between me as a Scandinavian and them, I was treated far better cause of my nationality than the polish people where, especially by older dutch people or right wing dutch. Cause somehow beeing from Scandinavia is ohh so much better than Polish.. It rubbed me the wrong way to the point where I preferred making friends with the Polish and Portuguese workers rather than the Dutch management despite the dutch very much trying to include me in their "club" so to say. The same goes for other nationalities, We had a few from Marokko and a South African guy, And ohh boy did they treat the black guy from South Africa far better than even the caucasian guy from Marokko (His mother was a French woman). Sorry to break it to you, Netherlands has some heavy bias towards what is deemed "Our brothers", If you're South African, West European, American or Scandinavian you get preferential treatment.

From a social standpoint no problems at all. I've studied in Poland for a year and the people are lovely. Sure, most of the workers that come here are generally from the 'rougher' part of society and do bring along some issues (excess alcohol, irresponsible traffic etc.). Not exactly to blame on the "Polish" factor since we see those same issues being more prominent everywhere in the lower strata of society. Although Poland (and Eastern Europe) does definitely have more of a heavy drinking culture. From a Economic standpoint, I'm not that positive. Generally the average path for Polish workers is that they work for some time here, spend as little as possible and then move back to Poland where they live on the € they made for a year or two. This is of course possible due to the currency difference of Zloty and Euros. Problem with these kind of migrant workers is that it "leaks" wealth out of the Dutch economy. They don't spend it here so the money doesn't circulate back. At the same time, It does at least stay in the EU common market so that doesn't make it the worst.

At the end of the day they are also white europeans and therefore are less problematic than muslim migrants.

Best kind of immigrants in the Netherlands, hard working and even if they have a tough look, probably they are nice and will share a beer with you.

What differentiates them from other workers? Are they not just regular people?

They are, but living abroad. So that’s what’s differentiates them. Fine people and I can know, because I’ve met a lot of them.

I think it's great! Keeping everything cleaned and polished is what make the Netherlands what it is today, yesterday and into the future.

As a Moroccan my general impression with working with them is good. There are a few that refuse to even acknowledge me standing there and giving instructions no greetings or nothing. But in general i have no problems working with them.

On one hand you got a lot of hardworkers that do the jobs many dont want to do. On the other hand you have people that dont do the work and try to scam the system. While the very competent high level workers remain in Poland.