A Jolly Bad Job Tip : Story on Post-Fire Work in Malibu Strands British Tradesmen

They came to rebuild houses destroyed by the Calabasas/Malibu brush fire. But Terry Shaw and Mark Hobson said Thursday they are the ones who got burned.

The two British construction workers are among more than 100 carpenters, bricklayers and other tradesmen who have flocked to Los Angeles in hopes of landing high-paying jobs rebuilding celebrity mansions that burned down during last month’s killer wildfire.

Trouble is, there are no jobs for the Englishmen--most of whom hocked possessions and borrowed money from relatives to join what some in Britain have dubbed “the Malibu Gold Rush.”

That rush was triggered by a Dec. 3 story in the tabloid London Sun proclaiming that “Brits Make Stash Out of Malibu Ash.” The article quoted British workers who saw the fire on TV and flew to Los Angeles to clean up.

One worker reportedly said he had earned “over a week’s pay for just one day” from mansion owners who “practically begged me to work for them.” Another was quoted as saying, “Americans are desperate for skilled labor. There is far too much work for professional American builders.”

The article said that contractors visited the English-style King’s Head Pub in Santa Monica nightly to recruit workers.

That was enough to send Shaw, of Newark, Nottinghamshire, jetting to the Santa Monica Boulevard bar. The 59-year-old welder arrived Tuesday. On Thursday, he was still jobless as he watched a spectacular ocean sunset from the front of the tavern.

“This view cost me 328 pounds sterling (about $492). There are no jobs. It’s a scam. I’ve spent all my money I had left from my last job, which ended in August,” he said.

Later in the evening, a British television crew showed up at the bar to film a segment warning Britons to stay home, which was to be broadcast this morning on Good Morning Britain.

Hobson, 21, a plasterer from North Wales, sold the van he used for work at a loss and borrowed money from his parents to come. He said he now has no money to buy his 15-month-old daughter a Christmas gift.

He and another British worker walked four miles along the Pacific Coast Highway looking without success for work.

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Alison Bain, British consul general for Los Angeles, said the workers would have learned of this area’s 9.4% unemployment rate if they had sought U.S. work visas before coming. The original tabloid story suggested that the permits were not really necessary.

Hobson was heartened by a story Thursday in the London Mirror reporting that Virgin Airlines would fly stranded workers home for free.

Then, remembering that the Mirror is also a tabloid paper, he added: “I’m going to check tomorrow to see for myself.”