An Issue 'for Britain' or for Workers' Rights? Ton! Blair claims that immigration is the public's number one issue. The left needs to be part of this debate about migration too, with our own answers, which challenge the apparent consensus. Bill MacKeith here situates the roots of migration in global inequalities of wealth and power, and argues that the key focus for the left should be workers' rights, not what migrants The economics of migration are revealing: a recent report loved ones divided, parents separated from children, and Migration: can (or cannot) 'do for us. from the Inter-American Development Bank spells out the importance of remittances sent to their home countries by workers from poorer countries of the South doing generally low-paid jobs in richer countries of the North. Hispanic from Central and South America living in workers industrialised North America sent home $38bn (£21bn) in 2003——almost one-fifth more than the $32 billion in 2002. Actual remittances are certainly higher than those recorded because four out of five Latin Americans choose not to use banks to send the money, and many workers are 'unofficial" or undocumented. But even these recorded figures show that remittances are more than all foreign investment in Central and South America, and more than total foreign 'aid' money. Remittances from the North ($13 billion) are second only to oil as an earner for the Mexican economy. Remittances of $2 billion by El Salvadorean workers in the US exceeded the country's exports. The same pattern is observed worldwide, from Filipina domestic workers and nurses in the UK to Pakistani and Bangladeshi oil workers in the Gulf. So remittances sent home by migrant workers are probably more useful to their home countries than aid; indeed a lot of trade such as oil generally enriches the elite only. On a world scale we can see how important migrant workers are in getting money into poorer economies, and the money comes without the strings attached to most aid and trade. However the costs to migrant workers are great. The 'strings' attached to the positive North-South money flow in migrant workers' remittances are mainly in the form of POLITICS the low status, low pay, and super-exploitation of the work of migrant workers. Migrants official and undocumented In the UK nobody knows how many undocumented migrant workers there are. A likely figure is at most in the low hundreds of thousands. These workers have little or no protection under law against their employers, landlords or others who control their lives. In the future, with the support of trade unions and others in the UK, undocumented migrants must be able to organise themselves collectively, to demand documents and protection under law, like the sans papiers in France. More numerous in the UK are documented migrant workers, with visas or work permits. But possession of the 'correct' documents does not guarantee a life of dignity, decent wages, working conditions and lodgings. On the contrary, as recent events in the UK have exposed, legal and illegal workers can be equally exploited. It is simply that undocumented migrants are more subject to bullying and exploitation by employers, agents and landlords. Recent publicity surrounding tragic incidents has begun to take the lid off a situation that has been conveniently ignored, where for years the numbers of migrants has been grossly underestimated by business and government. Of course, it is our duty to point out that right-wing talk of 'swamping' is a myth, but it should not be part of any socialist argument to underplay the actual level of inward migration, • • • Page 10 Socialist Outlook spring, 2004 issue_003
• • • because by doing so we tacitly accept the view that At the same time the British government is allowing immigration in itself is a problem. Migrant workers hit the headlines The local MP for Morecambe Bay had for months called for the dangerous work being done by Chinese cockle pickers to be better supervised. But the authorities, the Health and Safety Executive, local Trading Standards Office, and local and national government, failed to act. In March twenty Chinese cockle pickers drowned. In the immediate aftermath, another Labour MP. Jim Sheridan, launched a private member's bill to control the gangmasters organising such labour. Gangmasters organise casual, often migrant labour in food harvesting, packaging, catering, construction and cleaning. Recent media reports have publicised the Parliament. appalling pay, well below the minimum wage, long hours and unheated hutted lodgings and extortionate rents experienced by many workers in these industries. Money may be deducted from the pay packets of workers with work permits and visas, for tax and insurance, but not passed on to the authorities. Gangmasters may confiscate passports, or make deductions to repay debts to obtain the miserable jobs in the first place. Such schemes have been called 'bonded labour' comparable to nineteenth century migrant workers moved from South Asia to plantations in Government is supporting a voluntary 'ethical trading initiative' to establish 'best practice' in food packing supported by fifteen employment agencies in a new Association of Labour Providers. But voluntary schemes will not work. These labour agencies are making too much money from migrant workers to give it away voluntarily. The supermarkets' British Retail Consortium supports legislation to require labour providers to register; and the Transport and General Workers Union, which for years has worked to improve pay and conditions for workers in for example East Anglia and Lincolnshire, says such statutory licensing is essential to start enforcing even existing labour The building union UCATT also calls for legislation to protect migrant workers. A recent survey showed ten per cent of workers on construction sites in the UK had English as their second language. Probably most of these are from Eastern Europe. Managed migration The current UK government and European Union mantra is 'managed migration. This means that the needs of the employers and the state take precedence. rather than the rights of the migrant workers themselves. Western and Northern European states are pressing eastern and southern ones to harden the borders of Fortress Europe with money for more border police, border fencing. detention camps. issue_003 spring, 2004 Socialist Outlook Page 11. gangmasters to operate freely without legal controls and encouraging an increase in immigration for limited periods only. For non-patrials, without a UK-born grandparent, from the Commonwealth and all others outside Europe, a work permit and visa continue to be required for a specified post in the UK. There are four new types of short-term work permit: highly skilled, sector-based (an unskilled category intended for food processing, construction, catering and cleaning), seasonal agricultural scheme, and student. Employers are meant to check the local labour market or advertise locally, before seeking overseas workers: usually they do not. The furore in Parliament which led to the resignation of Immigration Minister Beverley Hughes in March 2004, is evidence that 'managed migration' from Eastern Europe has even been carried out without the knowledge of Divide and rule at work The clear intention of the government is to have two classes of migrant worker: those from the EU who may stay, and those from outside the EU, who will only be allowed to stay for a short period, and without their families. So we face the prospect in the UK of increasing numbers of migrant workers with the temporary, precarious status of the guest worker, the German Gastarbeiter. This creation of a new 'reserve army of labour' should be accepted neither by the local UK-resident worker nor by the migrant worker. We should argue for all workers to have the same rights at work as the rest of us from day one. Not only rights at work, but the right to access to health and education services, welfare benefits, to family life, to vote and to stand in elections and be lodged and educated - in fact full citizenship. This is increasingly what many migrants in Europe are demanding Trade union action is central Historically trade unions have sometimes played a reactionary role as in the early twentieth century, when, at a time of mass migration of Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe, a few trade union leaders called for immigration controls, arguing that immigrants undercut rates of pay. This resulted in the 1905 Aliens Act, perhaps Britain's first immigration control legislation. More recently, during the Imperial Typewriters strike in the 1970s, white workers crossed picket lines set up by black fellow workers in And with black workers establishing themselves in the workforce and unions, trade unions have come to play an increasingly progressive role. Black workers, while they are more likely to be members of a trade union than most workers, are less likely to ••• POLITICS
sponsorship of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, a been opening up recently with the publication of books • • • be on a trade union's leading body. However, black (mainly migrant) workers have always played a leading role in trade union activity, from the founding in 1839 St Kitts-born William of a garment workers union by Cuffay to disputes in the late 20th century including Grunwicks photo-processing plant, Burnsalls engineering in Birmingham and Hillingdon Hospital in West London. With the arrival of many more migrant workers in recent years, including those seeking asylum, the position of trade unions has continued to develop in a progressive direction. Where next? In some parts of Europe migrants and trade unions are working more closely than in the past. In Paris, on 30 January, migrant workers and supporters occupied the meeting hall of the Economic and Social Council, one of the three main institutions of the French state. The action on was part of the First European Day of Actions Against Detention and for Migrant Rights. Following the occupa- tion, a special meeting between all trade union federa- tions in France and migrants' organisations took place. In the past three years the Trades Union Congress in the UK has adopted a relatively progressive position. They have organised two conferences on Migrant Workers, and on Migrant Workers' Rights. In Overworked, Under- paid and Over Here, the TUC rightly argues for 'a public debate regarding the need amongst unions, and with gov- ernment, to put the interests of migrant workers, and those who work alongside them, centre stage? The TUC is correct to back the campaign for the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers and Their Families. This was passed by the General Assembly in 1990, but to date only twenty-five states have ratified it, not one of which is a 'migrant-receiving' state of the rich The TUC could learn from the AFL-CIO trade union federation in the United States of America, which has in recent years played a leading role in pushing demands for migrants' rights in the USA. An example was its mass mobilisation in September and October 2003. The AFL-CIO supports the right of migrant workers present in the US to be 'legalised' and to live and work in the US, and migrant workers' right to be united with their families in the US. Open borders? This proposition is rightly argued on the basis of human rights - that there should be free movement for people, as there is for goods and capital. It is a strange paradox that as the nation-state is ceding powers increasingly to multinational bodies like the European Union, governments are making it ever more difficult for some people to move about the world. Perhaps not so strange if we acknowledge that within Fortress Europe EU citizens POLITICS may move freely, but non-EU citizens have to come begging and in most instances, especially if the person is black or poor, go begging. There are fears that free movement for people would precipitate increased racism, tension, chaos and civil or inter-state war. But this argument ignores the fact that most mass migration are generally towards places where there are jobs available and where the new arrivals become employed soon after arrival, making a massive contribution to their new or temporary home. The characteristic activity of migrants on arrival is to work extremely hard. The Daily Mail and fascist British National Party are among those who try to obscure this awkward fact by falsifying statistics, stories, and history. Increased ease of international travel for a minority of people in the world's poorer countries, the possibility of sending remittances to those in the family or community left at home, and the possibility of a 'better life' are among factors that have led to what some call 'an age of mass migrations'. Different forces come into play when large numbers of people flee catastrophic disaster, whether man- made or natural. However, as the presence of millions of war refugees in Iran and Pakistan demonstrates, such mass movements of refugees do not usually lead to 'instability'; rather they result from it. Refugees are like anyone else - they want and need to work. The government's January 2002 ban on asylum seekers working is all the more disgraceful in this light. But of course we should broaden the argument beyond the issue of work. In refusing to accept the 'Open Borders' principle, Western governments are refusing to accept responsibility for the consequences of their economic and military destabilization of poorer countries. It is not up to migrant workers to provide a resolution to these problems - unless we mean a resolution that challenges the basis of capitalism itself. 'No One Is Illegal' manifesto A public debate on the desirability of open borders has on the subject by Teresa Hayter (Open Borders) and Nigel Harris (Thinking the Unthinkable, reviewed in Socialist Outlook 1). The BBC's website has a discussion on open borders including some promoting it. In the past tew months a manifesto for open borders - No One Is Illegal - has been published by an experienced group of people working in the field of migrant rights. Alongside the demand for equal rights for migrant workers open borders becomes less difficult to debate. Page 12 Socialist Outlook spring, 2004 issue_003