I'm tired of EU officials and Labour ministers saying how this country has benefited from the huge number of East European workers who have come here in the past few years.

It certainly hasn't been good news for me and others in the building industry.

As a labourer, I earn £6 an hour, which brings me about £200 take-home pay.

After rent, Council Tax, household bills and travel to work, I'm left with just £36 for food, clothing and everything else.

If it wasn't for a £40 weekly Housing Benefit, I'd be better staying at home.

I guess the only reason I get up at 6am is pride and because I enjoy the company of the lads at work.

Because of the competition from these new workers, my pay hasn't increased at all in the past four years. To make matters worse, employment agencies - which supply so much of the labour these days - prefer hiring foreign workers because they can get them for less than £6 an hour.

Loyalty means nothing - I'm just a payroll number.

This isn't a criticism of the newcomers and I've no time at all for the likes of the National Front. It's a swipe at New Labour, which seems to think having an economy built on poverty wages is something to crow about.

And far from helping, the minimum wage has merely encouraged employers to pay poverty wages. Perhaps old Karl Marx got it right after all.

-Name and address supplied