The long running thread 'Immigration .. part of neo liberalism/Thatcherism??' inspired me to write the following. Although a few of the examples are from Ireland there are also some UK ones and in any case the examples cross borders IMHO.
There is a liberal argument against migration controls that sees them simply as something illogical – a product of an irrational racist mind. This irrational racist element often exists of course but it fails to explain why they are favoured by modernist parties that proclaim themselves opposed to racism.
However if you examine migration controls in the context of the need of capital for cheap labour you can start to see the logic behind them and the reasons why ‘anti-racist’ but neo-liberal parties are often the promoters of such controls. In the Irish context this explains why the Progressive Democrats who are generally liberal on ‘social issues’ haved been at the forefront of deportations while at the same time talking of the need of the Irish economy for thousands of migrant workers.
Many western countries have both minimum wages and workplace safety legislation. Across most of the EU employers cannot require workers to work more than 48 hours each week. In Ireland where there iscurrently a very low unemployment rater employers who only just fill these minimum conditions may find that they are always short staffed as workers move on to better jobs as soon as they become available. This will tend to force them to raise wages above the legal minimum to try and hang onto workers.
Of course employers respect for the law only holds if they think breaking it will be discovered. Obviously workers who are aware of their rights will be inclined to report any employer who breaches them – often back pay etc can be gained by doing so. But if employers could find workers who are unaware of their rights and/or afraid for one reason or another to report abuses then employers may well risk under paying them or not observing health and safety legislation.
The main source of such labour are migrant workers who are either ‘illegal’ (have no right to work or even be in the country) or who are insecure because their residency or work rights are very restricted. This can mean they are forced to work ‘illegally’ or as is common in Ireland that their employer holds their work papers and because of this is able to keep them isolated, perhaps right down to accommodating them in isolation from other workers.
In the last while we have seen proof of this sort of exploitation of migrant workers in Ireland. GAMA construction were discovered to have employed hundreds of Turkish construction workers who were only receiving 1/6 of their legal wage – they were also forced to work up to 84 hours a week, almost double the legal maximum of 48 hours. GAMA got away with this for years by keeping the workers isolated “Gama workers slept, six to a room in bunk-beds and ate in dormitories on the building sites. They had to work for a year before being allowed to take any holidays”[1]. And when news of the conditions broke the companies reaction was to try and force the workers to move back to Turkey (GAMA held their work permits).
In February 2004 the BBC reported that “there are as many as half a million illegal migrant workers in the UK, mostly concentrated in the South East. Many more are here legally, but earn less than the minimum wage and are forced to work in dangerous conditions, with no training.[2]” In the same report a farmer admitted that “certain crops "would go unharvested" if ‘illegal’ labour was eliminated.
In March 2004 after the Moorcombe bay tragedy in England when over 20 Chinese ‘illegal’ workers were drowned in unsafe conditions Hsiao-Hung Pai infiltrated another ‘illegal’ Chinese labour group for the Guardian. Her report showed not only how tied into the economy this ‘illegal’ labour was but also how the ‘illegal’ status of the workers was used to intimidate them into silence. When she questioned the fact that another worker had not received overtime payment her boss told her "Who the fuck do you think you are? No legal status, and you think you can just go in and make a complaint? You look after your own job first! Stop minding other people's business! Remember you are illegal![3]”
This is a common pattern across the western world – it is estimated that there are 8 million ‘illegal’ migrant workers in the USA for instance. Politicians can get votes by whipping up hysteria about ‘sponging’ migrants but the reality is this very hysteria is central to keeping such workers isolated, working in unsafe conditions and working below the minimum wage.
The west’s migrations controls are not about stopping the flow of migrant labour – the governments know that significant sections of the economy depend on such labour. The laws are about ensuring that such migrants are insecure and isolated and feel unable to stand up for their rights.
--
1 Workers Solidarity see http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=463
2 Feb 10 2004 see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3475147.stm
3 The Guardian, Saturday March 27, 2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1179164,00.html
There is a liberal argument against migration controls that sees them simply as something illogical – a product of an irrational racist mind. This irrational racist element often exists of course but it fails to explain why they are favoured by modernist parties that proclaim themselves opposed to racism.
However if you examine migration controls in the context of the need of capital for cheap labour you can start to see the logic behind them and the reasons why ‘anti-racist’ but neo-liberal parties are often the promoters of such controls. In the Irish context this explains why the Progressive Democrats who are generally liberal on ‘social issues’ haved been at the forefront of deportations while at the same time talking of the need of the Irish economy for thousands of migrant workers.
Many western countries have both minimum wages and workplace safety legislation. Across most of the EU employers cannot require workers to work more than 48 hours each week. In Ireland where there iscurrently a very low unemployment rater employers who only just fill these minimum conditions may find that they are always short staffed as workers move on to better jobs as soon as they become available. This will tend to force them to raise wages above the legal minimum to try and hang onto workers.
Of course employers respect for the law only holds if they think breaking it will be discovered. Obviously workers who are aware of their rights will be inclined to report any employer who breaches them – often back pay etc can be gained by doing so. But if employers could find workers who are unaware of their rights and/or afraid for one reason or another to report abuses then employers may well risk under paying them or not observing health and safety legislation.
The main source of such labour are migrant workers who are either ‘illegal’ (have no right to work or even be in the country) or who are insecure because their residency or work rights are very restricted. This can mean they are forced to work ‘illegally’ or as is common in Ireland that their employer holds their work papers and because of this is able to keep them isolated, perhaps right down to accommodating them in isolation from other workers.
In the last while we have seen proof of this sort of exploitation of migrant workers in Ireland. GAMA construction were discovered to have employed hundreds of Turkish construction workers who were only receiving 1/6 of their legal wage – they were also forced to work up to 84 hours a week, almost double the legal maximum of 48 hours. GAMA got away with this for years by keeping the workers isolated “Gama workers slept, six to a room in bunk-beds and ate in dormitories on the building sites. They had to work for a year before being allowed to take any holidays”[1]. And when news of the conditions broke the companies reaction was to try and force the workers to move back to Turkey (GAMA held their work permits).
In February 2004 the BBC reported that “there are as many as half a million illegal migrant workers in the UK, mostly concentrated in the South East. Many more are here legally, but earn less than the minimum wage and are forced to work in dangerous conditions, with no training.[2]” In the same report a farmer admitted that “certain crops "would go unharvested" if ‘illegal’ labour was eliminated.
In March 2004 after the Moorcombe bay tragedy in England when over 20 Chinese ‘illegal’ workers were drowned in unsafe conditions Hsiao-Hung Pai infiltrated another ‘illegal’ Chinese labour group for the Guardian. Her report showed not only how tied into the economy this ‘illegal’ labour was but also how the ‘illegal’ status of the workers was used to intimidate them into silence. When she questioned the fact that another worker had not received overtime payment her boss told her "Who the fuck do you think you are? No legal status, and you think you can just go in and make a complaint? You look after your own job first! Stop minding other people's business! Remember you are illegal![3]”
This is a common pattern across the western world – it is estimated that there are 8 million ‘illegal’ migrant workers in the USA for instance. Politicians can get votes by whipping up hysteria about ‘sponging’ migrants but the reality is this very hysteria is central to keeping such workers isolated, working in unsafe conditions and working below the minimum wage.
The west’s migrations controls are not about stopping the flow of migrant labour – the governments know that significant sections of the economy depend on such labour. The laws are about ensuring that such migrants are insecure and isolated and feel unable to stand up for their rights.
--
1 Workers Solidarity see http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=463
2 Feb 10 2004 see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3475147.stm
3 The Guardian, Saturday March 27, 2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1179164,00.html
rolleyes: ) as anyone else.
