Immigration .. part of neo liberalism/Thatcherism??

[belboid]

fair play, i think i see what you're asking now at least! do you mean in the here and now, or in an ideal world? here and now i presume

 

[exosculate]

fair play, i think i see what you're asking now at least! do you mean in the here and now, or in an ideal world? here and now i presume

I'd love to hear this.

 

[Knotted]

fair play, i think i see what you're asking now at least! do you mean in the here and now, or in an ideal world? here and now i presume

That's about the size of it.

 

[durruti02]

No, I don't have 20+ years experience as a worker and shop steward(im only 21).
However, I am from a predominantly white, ex steel producing town thats sandwiched between three big multicultural centres (Leicester,Derby,Nottingham). I'm also a TnG member and have experience working in un unionised workplaces with large numbers of female immigrant workers. My introduction to the "left" was the trade union movement. Most of my political experience out side of the TnG is from anti facist/anti racist work.

I do feel like i'm fighting a losing battle when it comes to the whole immigration issue. Mass imigration in to communities that are already under recourced and in to already under unionised, low paid sectors has a negative effect. But I still stand by my view that to take an anti immigration view is not the best thing to do.
When the Gate Gormet dispute first raised it's head on the national news and the subsiquent solidarity action by Heathrow staff, I had comments from people such as "fuckin pakis, send em back" even, in one case from a fellow TnG member. I did't ask her if she would respect their picket line (hypathetically) as it was clear that she wouldn't. I see this attitude partly as an example of how working people have been taken in by the message that they are constantly being bombarded with about immigrants from all sections of the press/ media, main political parties, far right parties.
And partly because their day to day experience seems to back that message up.
Should trade unionist/socialists not challenge this attitude? I think we should. On the basis that lack of community facilites, social housing, low pay and job insecurity are not caused by immigration, they are caused by government polocy and market economics and that the best way to change them is to fight along side your neighbours and work "mates" whatever their national status. (not easy, but right)
Also, it's easy to dismiss the left as "wankers". If a bunch of outsiders turn up in your community waving "assylum seekers welcome here" banners around just do disapear and leave all of the same problems un challenged it's easy to see how they get that tag.
I also find it hard to know what angle to come from on this forum.

hi patty .. i do not think we are disagreeing in fact .. i argue consistently to defend immigrants .. but i also argue consistently that we as workers should have control/power over all that goes on .. not just wages but recruitment etc etc .. what i/we are saying is NOT that immigrants are to blame .. but that the state/capitalism using immigration .. and that we need to be open about this ..

the irony of gate gourmet was that one set of immigrants of what 20/30 years standing have been screwed by a compmnay using new immigrants .. i think i read most are eastern eurpoean .. if this is not an example of the bosses using immigration i just don't know!!

and do not try to come from any angle!! you have said some interesting things .. keep it up !

 

[belboid]

I'd love to hear this.

well, i'm afraid you'll have to wait till tomorrow, cos it's team-time for me now.

 

[Patty]

er i cant speak for others but thats not really what i think people like durrutti are saying. He is of course arguing for more local democracy. But he is Internationalist and Anti Racist in his outlook just like others in the IWCA etc
he is not for the vested interests of minorities but the good of the majority, Including of course the chance to have a say in issues that effect their lives.

And both me and Durrutti(Im sure) would argue that both you and the Nurse should have a vote.

I understand that Durrutti and yourself? are in favor of community controll of immigration.
This sounds like a nice idea, community controll of any thing sounds good to people of left/liberterian/socialist leanings and in most cases an ideal to aim for. Community controll of immigration though, the more I think about it is not something that as a trade unionist and non party affiliated socialist I would argue for. For these resons
1, If communities were in a position to controll their immigration. In other words make their own political demands on central/local government they would also be in a position to make other damands. Like full investment in to community facilities, social housing with affordable rents and good maintenence, funding in to local health care and training scheems. In other words all of those things that immigrants are accused draining from communities in the first place.
2,How would community controll of immigration actually be faught for? By phisically preventing immigrants from settleing in the community. Phisically removing recent immigrants from their new found homes? That is a recipy for racial violence.
3,It would alienate ethnic minorities in those communities and beond. It would lead to ghettoisation. White communities would stay white, muslim communities would only attract/recieve muslims, black,black etc etc. Then each community could argue with it's neigbouring communities for government money. It would lead to a "Why is the black estate getting a new school and not our white one?" situation.
4,How would trade unions respond to this? promote a british citizens only polocy in work places? Refuse to organise immigrant labour. That really would be counter productive for the whole TU movement

As I say, community controll of immigration sounds like a plan, but it would solve nothing. I still say that class unity is the only real solution

 

[sihhi]

3 - yes, and their emigration will force the Polish government to address how it is to retain such workers, maybe force the EU to subsidise their wages. Do you really think having a government imposition of who can and can't leave he country is a socially progressive measure? Sounds more like imprisonment to me. Also, as stated before, on a proper training programme, gaining good experience ion a well funded environment, with an opportunity to work for a specified period, such migratin of health workers can have a highly positive effect on health services both 'here' and 'there'.

AFAIK this is not the case though- the emigration of Polish workers in general and Polish dentists to Western Europe and Britain in particular is increasingly becoming a source of major division within the Polish working-class.

As I understand it- there is some resentment of those who've left to be migrant workers in Europe and do well out of the currency conversion etc etc. The case of the 200 dentists who left to Britain provoked major controversy in Poland. The current social democratic government did badly out of it while the nationalist and agrarian parties did well out of it.



Arguably the most extreme situation of out-migration in Europe is Moldova where only the very poorest of the working-class remains in Moldova, nearly all others in the working-class are working abroad. There there is great division between families who do have males abroad- and those who don't.

I'd like information on how Polish Trotskyists ind socialists and anarchists view the current migration. I don't know what their positions are.

Also if anyone knows what Swiss Trotskyists ind socialists and anarchists have as their position on the upcoming referendum- I'd be very obliged (I am a nerd about some of these things).

http://www.wbj.pl/?command=article&id=28107

Voters are due to go the polls on September 25 to decide whether to make it easier for immigrant workers mainly from eastern European nations to get jobs in wealthy Switzerland......

However, the campaign to throw out the law is gaining force among voters worried for their jobs.

An opinion poll published in Le Matin newspaper showed the 'yes' camp had fallen to 42 percent from 49 percent in a previous poll, with 39 percent indicating a 'no' vote, compared to 36 percent in the previous poll.

The anti-immigrant Swiss People's Party (SVP), which has two seats in the coalition Swiss cabinet, is running a campaign warning that job security would be the first casualty of a 'yes' vote in the poll. In July, Switzerland's unemployment rate was 3.5 percent.

Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, one of the socialist party's two cabinet members, told the paper that waning support suggested Swiss voters were still unsure over what was at stake.

"We know that the Swiss have concerns and it is easy for the opponents to play on those concerns," she said, vowing to get the 'yes' message across to more of the electorate.

 

[cockneyrebel]

Another good post patty.

what i/we are saying is NOT that immigrants are to blame .. but that the state/capitalism using immigration .. and that we need to be open about this ..

So capitalism uses immigration for its own ends. So what? Capitalism uses labour for its own ends. Should we all give up our jobs?

All you seem to be saying is that immigration can lead to problems and is used by the capitalists. Again, and what?

 

[rednblack]

i just wish the left what stop using pro capitalist propaganda to defend immigrants 'it's good for the economy' and all that bollocks yeah, it's good for the CBI etc

'ooh we need immigrants to fund pensions' neo liberal bollocks - tax the rich and corporations to fund pensions ffs

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Your 2 added points.

I havent been to Hospital in the developing world but have spent a long time in the last 3 years in various london hospitals. I found it shocking just how many people from abroad are working in those hospitals.
Being a very chatty bloke i always asked the nurses and doctors where they were from etc. There were loads of phillipino nurses etc and maybe the phillipines does not need all those nurses but the reason that so many go inot nursing is they see it as a route to the west. So its not just that we are taking their nurses but that we are taking most of their best educated young people.
So the open door policy leads to people working towards getting what they need to get out of those countries.
I dont blame any of those individuals at all. But the effect they have, by what they are doing is not good for people left behind in countries, that badly need all the skilled workers they can get.

Fair enough, but isn't part of the problem that nursing pays so abysmally badly in the UK? If people come from abroad and bunk in with a couple of friends, save some dosh, its worth a lot back in their country, but 15k a year is absolutely nothing these days, especially in London. Immigrants work as nurses because most british people don't want to do it, especially for the salary offered.

 

[reallyoldhippy]

.. but i also argue consistently that we as workers should have control/power over all that goes on ..

Agreed. Totally.

Some of us are arguing that as workers we ought to use that control/power to ensure that no person should be prevented from movement. But failing that, where would you draw your lines? Along which borders?

Me, I moved from Kent to work in Nottingham pits in the 60s. Thousands upon thousands moved from Scotland and the North East to pits all over England. Thousands more from Scotland to steelworks in the midlands. They got the same shit about taking local peoples housing. You couldn't go down a pit and not bump into a Pole. In the way capitalism works, all of us were holding down wages because they'd have to have paid shitloads more to get enough local people to do the job.

Despite your claim that it's Yuppies migrating to London, it's loads of young working class people who are fleeing the once industrial towns of the North and Midlands. Get out of Hackney and see whats happening in other parts of the country.

And as for those pull-the-ladder-up-after-you types - as bad as scabs in my book.

 

[james_walsh]

Most of us agrue that our (socialist etc) politics are in the self intreasts of the british working class , then when faced with a problem ROH and cockneyrebel want to get all moralistic. You can't have it both ways when taking your politics to the mass of people, they spot the hypocrisy.

 

[belboid]

Most of us agrue that our (socialist etc) politics are in the self intreasts of the british working class , then when faced with a problem ROH and cockneyrebel want to get all moralistic. You can't have it both ways when taking your politics to the mass of people, they spot the hypocrisy.

actually, most socialists have argued that working-class interests have no natinal boundaries and don't argue in favour of the 'british' w-c. Or plucky little Belgium.

 

[exosculate]

actually, most socialists have argued that working-class interests have no natinal boundaries and don't argue in favour of the 'british' w-c. Or plucky little Belgium.

No they never address things like national questions - unheard of!

 

[Knotted]

actually, most socialists have argued that working-class interests have no natinal boundaries and don't argue in favour of the 'british' w-c. Or plucky little Belgium.

But nobody has yet explained why the abolition of borders is in the interests of the working class internationally!! As Sihhi, Lletsa and I have pointed out the entire debate both here and elsewhere revolves around migrants and ethnic minorities in *Britain*.

 

[cockneyrebel]

But nobody has yet explained why the abolition of borders is in the interests of the working class internationally!!

What you don't think a world where the working class has freedom of movement would be a good thing i.e. a socialist world?

The fight for freedom of movement goes hand in hand with the fight for socialism, which is why the repetitive stuff that tbaldwin comes out with is such a load of crap i.e. equating freedom of movement for the working class as being a neo-liberal agenda.

The breaking down of nationalism and national borders is an intrinisic part of the fight for international socialism.

I'd be interested to see someone coming back on the points patty raised above.

 

[exosculate]

The breaking down of nationalism and national borders is an intrinisic part of the fight for international socialism.

Yeah in the long run, not particularly practical at present though.

 

[cockneyrebel]

But by the time the working class has control over immigration controls, it will mean the working class will be in power, and, as belboid has pointed out, be able to deal with the issues that really have eroded the living standards of the working class.

 

[exosculate]

But by the time the working class has control over immigration controls, it will mean the working class will be in power, and, as belboid has pointed out, be able to deal with the issues that really have eroded the living standards of the working class.

Which is why it is a meaningless debate that doesn't even have a propaganda value to it, as most people in Britain (where the British left should be focussing) do not connect to it as an idea at all. Other realpolitik stuff should be focussed on.

 

[belboid]

I'd love to hear this.

bet you'll be disappointed.

no borders (I dont really like the phrase 'open borders', the point is there are none) is, of course, and abstract demand in the here and now - but one that asserts our (classes) independence of their nation states, one of their tools for dividing us, both within and without each individual country. It is an explicit rejection of the idea that we have more in common with our bosses than we do wih other workers from wherever they are in the world.

Furthermore, it is a rejection of the spurious notion of 'community' - something which has precious little to do with working-class politics. My boss lives in 'my community' as me, so did my last boss. The onherent interests of two neighbours can be totally opposed, if one has bought their home whilst the other still rents from the council, for instance. The idea of 'community', a oppossed to class, can also reinforce the notions of segregation and divisiveness.

No borders points out that we live n a world where they can largely ignore borders - can move their money to where it will be most profitble, and that we should have the same rights.

Can only be brief I'm afraid, as I am actually having to do some work this week! Its a right bugger....

 

[Knotted]

What you don't think a world where the working class has freedom of movement would be a good thing i.e. a socialist world?

The fight for freedom of movement goes hand in hand with the fight for socialism, which is why the repetitive stuff that tbaldwin comes out with is such a load of crap i.e. equating freedom of movement for the working class as being a neo-liberal agenda.

The breaking down of nationalism and national borders is an intrinisic part of the fight for international socialism.

I'd be interested to see someone coming back on the points patty raised above.

Why is freedom of movement only possible under socialism?

The Blair government is fighting for greater freedom of movement into this country even while he attacks assylum seekers' rights. Does that make him a socialist?

I suspect that you use the phrase "freedom of movement" to sound orthodox because Marx and Lenin and others mention it. However they were talking about Germany and Russia which were multi national states and the right to move between these states. Marx certainly was not talking about the freedom of movement in a broader context. For example he called for the confiscation of all property of emigrants in the Communist Manefesto.

You, Belboid and Reallyoldhippy are trying to use 'internationalism' as a trump card so as to ignore the points of others. Can you concretely explain why the 'breaking down of borders' aids working class movements either nationally or internationally? For that matter can you explain why 'breaking down of borders' is the 'breaking down of nationalism'?

 

[belboid]

I suspect that you use the phrase "freedom of movement" to sound orthodox because Marx and Lenin and others mention it. However they were talking about Germany and Russia which were multi national states and the right to move between these states. Marx certainly was not talking about the freedom of movement in a broader context. For example he called for the confiscation of all property of emigrants in the Communist Manefesto.

Marx talked of confisacting the property of emigrants fleeing a socialist country - exprop[riating the bosses trying to escape with their dosh. Not the same thing at all.

You, Belboid and Reallyoldhippy are trying to use 'internationalism' as a trump card so as to ignore the points of others.

no we are not, that is simply a lie. YOU have failed to show in any way why supporting borders is internationalist.

(oh, & btw - its belboid, little b, ta )

 

[cockneyrebel]

Which is why it is a meaningless debate that doesn't even have a propaganda value to it

Well considering the right-wing are scape goating immigrants and putting the issue of nationalism above class, I'd say it's a very relevant debate i.e. pointing out that class issues, not immigration is the issue.

 

[reallyoldhippy]

Most of us agrue that our (socialist etc) politics are in the self interests of the british working class , then when faced with a problem ROH and cockneyrebel want to get all moralistic. You can't have it both ways when taking your politics to the mass of people, they spot the hypocrisy.

But very many of the british working class have moved to jobs. And what makes the BRITISH working class so fucking special?

What's moralistic? Taking values other than those of the state and capitalism?

What both ways can't we have?

 

[exosculate]

Well considering the right-wing are scape goating immigrants and putting the issue of nationalism above class, I'd say it's a very relevant debate i.e. pointing out that class issues, not immigration is the issue.

Arguing against the scape goating of immigrants is not the same as a no borders argument.

The right are ambiguous - they all wanted the expansion of the EU so that cheap East European labour could move about whilst pretending they don't like cheap immigrant labour at the same time.

 

[Knotted]

bet you'll be disappointed.

no borders (I dont really like the phrase 'open borders', the point is there are none) is, of course, and abstract demand in the here and now - but one that asserts our (classes) independence of their nation states, one of their tools for dividing us, both within and without each individual country. It is an explicit rejection of the idea that we have more in common with our bosses than we do wih other workers from wherever they are in the world.

Furthermore, it is a rejection of the spurious notion of 'community' - something which has precious little to do with working-class politics. My boss lives in 'my community' as me, so did my last boss. The onherent interests of two neighbours can be totally opposed, if one has bought their home whilst the other still rents from the council, for instance. The idea of 'community', a oppossed to class, can also reinforce the notions of segregation and divisiveness.

No borders points out that we live n a world where they can largely ignore borders - can move their money to where it will be most profitble, and that we should have the same rights.

Can only be brief I'm afraid, as I am actually having to do some work this week! Its a right bugger....

You raise a reform (the abolition of borders) for the sake of propaganda, striking a certain pose etc. But most people would understand it as just a reform albeit a radical one.

Furthermore our bosses love immigrant labour. The reform would be favoured by sections of the boss class. So your posturing fails to achieve its propagandistic purposes.

 

[belboid]

Do you want to put an argument behind your assertions Knotted? Back up your simplistic statements which appear copied off the other posters on this thread? Bosses do not like free movement of labour, they like to control the movement of labour - as you do. certainly far more want it controlled than want it free. So from your 'logic' you are an even bigger friend of the bosses.

 

[Knotted]

belboid,

Why do you have to call for a reform of immigration controls at all? For that matter other than those who wish to abolish immigration controls I have missed anybody supporting either existing immigration controls or any wish list for immigration controls.

Why the accusations of lying? Why not just state your position if I am misrepresenting it? Are you ashamed?

 

[reallyoldhippy]

You, Belboid and Reallyoldhippy are trying to use 'internationalism' as a trump card so as to ignore the points of others.

You list the points and I'll show you where they've been addressed.

 

[belboid]

belboid,

Why do you have to call for a reform of immigration controls at all? For that matter other than those who wish to abolish immigration controls I have missed anybody supporting either existing immigration controls or any wish list for immigration controls.

Why the accusations of lying? Why not just state your position if I am misrepresenting it? Are you ashamed?

why not state yours? you are actually posting up some incredibly vague statements, and trying to pick holes in a couple of points made against them. The need to reform immigration controls has been made throughlout the thread - as you noted. make your mind up.