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Welcome to our blog, Menfranco general blog
and this post, Compare work opportunities
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Most times in the past when we migrant came to Australia we did very hard physical work, but we did not complain, because it was a job and we would earn money from it.
Compare work opportunities
What
sort of opportunities were available in Australia in the sixties
Dear
readers, before you read this post, you need to read our previous post, working
opportunities in Australia. When I arrived in Australia in March 1961 my
relative and friends were telling me that there were not many job vacancies
readily available, so, I had to be patient until a job would be available. But
what sort of work I could do they were not sure just I had to wait and see,
what I knew about working for other people was that if a job was offered to me
I had to work hard, since in my country when we hired some workers to do some
work in our family farm, we would aspect them to work hard so that they would
earn their pay, therefore I was in my right frame of mind to go out and work
hard, whatever job was offered would do me just fine. I have said this, because
it is necessary to understand that whoever attempts to migrate to another
country, he/she must be ready to work hard if they want to succeed, and it all
boils down you need to do a fair work day for fair daily pay.
Beside
my willingness to work I was also young and fit enough to do any manual job
that I was offered, the only problem was that I didn't speak English, I had
learned perhaps a few words on the way to Australia while we were sailing, as
there was an English teacher on the ship for that purpose. But as we all know
English is a very hard language to learn, especially if one comes from a
country that their language is phonetic and once you know some rules, one can read
from a book and somehow come close to the sound that those written words are
pronounced, but English is not written phonetically so to learn English one
must be exposed to the English speaking people and slowly learn from them, so
as you can see I and other emigrant like me had a lot to learn, before we could
speak English well enough to fit in the Australian speaking community.
Anyhow,
now let me tell you that although I had very little English somehow everything
turned out all right in the end, perhaps this is another reason why people
think that Australia is the land of opportunities.
For me
when I came to Australia I was still thinking the Italian ways, so, I was
thinking that I was on my own and I had to find my own way around, but here I
had a pleasant surprise when for the first time some relative took me to see
the unemployment office.
In
Italy when you go to an Italian office if you want something done quickly you
need to know somebody in there, otherwise before your turn comes the office
hours are over and you have to come back the day after, so I was wondering how
could we succeed in these Australian offices, since I didn’t speak English and
my friend was just a little bit better than me.
Anyhow
we waited our turn and soon we were being interviewed from this middle aged man
that seemed to have so much patience and understanding of the whole situation,
he slowly worked out what we wanted by asking and repeating what we did not
understand, and he noted everything down as he asked me many things to see what
sort of job I would be able to do, I remember even now that one of his
questions was if I were afraid of heights and I said no as I was going up some
tall trees to prune them, he also asked if I knew anything about building or
building maintenance, here again I said yes as we sometimes would repair some
farm building. I believe that these two things gave me the first job in the
building industry, as I was called one day to go to work for the
first time in Australia. My first job was on a chimney stack in
the brickworks where bricks are made, which somehow I managed to hold for a
couple of weeks, until a bigger gang came and I became a bit confused in the
middle of all those people, and I lost my first job for lack of knowledge or
lack of understanding English. But anyhow I had my first work experience and I
was sure that soon there was going to be another one.
Before
I close this page and start another one, I really want to say that Australia
is/was a great country to be in, just because people are given their
opportunities as they deserve, as long as they are willing to work hard for
what they deserve.
And in
the unemployment offices the officers are just great people to deal with, or at
least they were when I came to Australia. I am going to continue this article
and talk about how I ended up working in the Australian building industry.
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Australia
building industry
Working in the Australian building industry
As I have said above my first job in Australia was in the building
industry, because I ended up to work as a bricklayer’s labour, but I lost that
job for a couple of reasons. I believe that I lost the first job, because I
didn’t know much English and at the same time I had no much experience, and for
that reason I could not guess what they wanted me to do next. After that I had
another job which ended very much the same; but then one day suddenly a small
Italian builder needed a labour and he knew that I could be available, so he
came to fetch me and asked if I would be interested to work for him, and this
is how I ended up to work in the building industry, I worked for him for about
two years, but then he went on holiday to Italy for a long time, therefore he
temporary closed down the business, but by then the Italian building community
new about me, so, in a few days I had another job to go to, always in the
building industry with another builder or contractors working as a bricklayer
labour.
You see in those times there was a lot more work for people wanting to
work, but at the same time we knew that we had to work hard because there was a
lot of competition going on even in those days, so what could I say if we work
hard for it we will always find somebody that gives us work.
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Compare the old ways with the new
Here we
are trying to compare the old ways of migrating with the new ways.
Let us
compare the way that I and most other legal emigrants around the sixties, with
what is happening today illegal emigration, so that we might be able to spot
some of the reasons why things don’t seem to work as good as they used to work.
When I
and the other emigrants that came to Australia wanted to come to Australia
during the sixties we had to be screened before we could have a visa that would
allow us to come to Australia and work here.
This
screening was somehow strict, as they did not want anybody that could become
sick easily, so we had to go through a medical check, and there was another
even stricter check about being legally of good character, even if you had ever
had trouble with the police once you could be rejected, in fact they were so
strict about this that if one had been somehow involved with the communist
party, just by saying that he would vote for the communist he would not be
allowed to come to Australia.
Now I
hope that I have explained enough how strict those migrating laws were then,
but we believe that this was a good thing also, as it worked well for us then,
because as I have already said when I went to the unemployment office even
though I did not speak much English they did everything possible to find us a
job, and if they could not find us a job they would pay us the unemployment
benefit, which was something that it was hard to get in the old country.
Now let
me state my personal views about how Australia was then, I would say that just anyone
that has come to Australia and has
seen Australia the same way that I have seen it, they would know that Australia
was and is a great country to live in; and if there is somebody that did not
like Australia, it must be because they have their own personal problems and
they are home sick.
Today
Australia does not seem to be as good as it was before, because before anyone
that could see Australia the way I saw it would fall in love with the
Australian ways of living; but I have to say that we are still very well off
compared to other countries. So I have to conclude this hub and say that
Australia could be still the land of opportunities, if the people that come
here come with the intention of working hard as we have been working in the
past.
Anyhow
this post is becoming too long, so see you next time with another article about
Australia and the way that I have lived my life here.
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Menfranco general blog
Work opportunities in Australia
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, Compare work opportunity
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