The Common Thread

Here too .......gonna be quite a mess here this summer without our Eastern European worker bees....restaurants are gonna really struggle
 
Nantucket has done it right! If you haven't been, it is worth seeing what good planning on the part of the land owners (Beinecke family), not for profits and the government can do together.
 
Nantucket has done it right! If you haven't been, it is worth seeing what good planning on the part of the land owners (Beinecke family), not for profits and the government can do together.

Hopper, I live on Nantucket. What on earth are you talking about when you refer to "good planning"? The story Mike posted is EXACTLY the same as what is happening on Nantucket. Visas got screwed up. American kids seemingly don't want many of the jobs here AND there is no housing for employees. Look on Facebook Nantucket housing and see the hundreds of people looking for housing. The Beinecke family, of whom you seem to be familiar, developed our down town area ages ago. They are not present town planners or real estate magnates on the island now. They were developers way back in the day as is Steve Karp who pretty much owns most of the down town area now and has for the 25 years I have lived here.
 
Steve Karp tried buying up our waterfront and we sent him packing....

conversely though my wife sits on the Planning Board of our resort town up north and they have done an outstanding job balancing sustainable growth without selling out our soul while protecting our quality of life as well, and they ve also solved the affordable housing issues ....much can be learned from them and I tell them all the time they should be consultants, they are that good at what they do
 
You are truly fortunate that your planning board thinks of the good of all...not just the few. I daresay that most of us can't say that. Self interests usually win down here.
 
Hopper, I live on Nantucket. What on earth are you talking about when you refer to "good planning"? The story Mike posted is EXACTLY the same as what is happening on Nantucket. Visas got screwed up. American kids seemingly don't want many of the jobs here AND there is no housing for employees. Look on Facebook Nantucket housing and see the hundreds of people looking for housing. The Beinecke family, of whom you seem to be familiar, developed our down town area ages ago. They are not present town planners or real estate magnates on the island now. They were developers way back in the day as is Steve Karp who pretty much owns most of the down town area now and has for the 25 years I have lived here.
Correct info from the source as always.
 
Nantucket has done it right! If you haven't been, it is worth seeing what good planning on the part of the land owners (Beinecke family), not for profits and the government can do together.

Walter Beinecke sold his assets on Nantucket in the late 80's if I remember right (Reed - correct me if I am wrong) so what you say is a bit dated. And for what it's worth, I don't know how much his approach back then was guided by a preservationist attitude as opposed to good business - the two often coincided for him at the time...

Regarding the commonality between concerns over foreign workers in the US and in France, it seems that all the recent French presidential candidates had stances that would cut down on foreign workers - Le Pen obviously with a much more draconian approach than Macron and others. I expect this will play out further in the Assembly elections in June.

I don't know how significant foreign workers are for St Barth - I only came across a couple recently but only met individuals in the hospitality/service sector. Now if there are a significant number employed in the construction industry, maybe tighter restrictions for France would slow the building... a silly thought, I know. I would be interested to learn how reliant St Barth is on foreign workers from those who know.
 
Do residents of EU countries get a preference in SBH to work and live? Are they considered foreigners?

EU countries. The EU countries are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and (UK ?)
 
Do residents of EU countries get a preference in SBH to work and live? Are they considered foreigners?

My limited understanding is that
- EU citizens are free to work anywhere in EU countries without visas
- the more right wing in French politics advocate policies that would restrict this by measures such as taxes on companies when they hire workers who are not French citizens, a law giving French citizens preferences for jobs (something I had thought already existed), and a law requiring that employees speak French at the workplace (I believe this was mainly directed at the construction industry and has been rejected by the sitting government).
- workers who are posted in France by businesses in other countries may receive pay that is lower and benefits that are less than French performing the same job - pay and benefits are based on the country of the business; this allegedly takes jobs away from French citizens.


What little I know is from my being an interested but semi-detached observer too, and one who may be getting information from Faux News. Hopefully someone with real knowledge can explain this all and how it may apply to St Barth.
 
My understanding after talking to Kimberly (Reed) about it is the influx of non EU Eastern European workers in SBH is prevalent and on the increase
 
- the more right wing in French politics advocate policies that would restrict this by measures such as taxes on companies when they hire workers who are not French citizens, a law giving French citizens preferences for jobs (something I had thought already existed), and a law requiring that employees speak French at the workplace

We encountered a couple of waiters on our last trip whom we presumed to be Austrian. At least they were speaking Austrian.
 
We met delightful servers from Poland. One spoke Polish, French, English and a fourth that I think was Italian.
 
On my recent visit:

Waitstaff - Poland, Spain, and France.
Kitchen - France, and I'm not sure about the Asian staff at Orega
Maids - Portugal
Construction and Landscaping - Portugal
 
Izzy, you have your Nantucket information correct. In regards to SBH, there are also a strong number of folks from the Dominican Republic and some Haitians as well.
 
This is how bad it is in P Town and how bad it will eventually be in SBH for the same exact reasons ...I saw four of these signs walking Commercial Street this morning ,..two in restaurants :culpability: ..and this with our season kicking in in two weeks

IMG_2466.JPG
 
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