Immigration .. part of neo liberalism/Thatcherism??
- Thread starter durruti02
- Start date
belboid on your above reply to me you prove what i am saying .. that yes there has been an attack on the unions/wc .. and that if we now look at many of the de unionised workplaces there is immigrant workers there .. this is precisely what this thread ios about and what many on the left refuse to talk about .. do yu really think when the scum were planning all of this in their 'gentlemans clubs' they did not have immigrant labour ( as well as obviously students, unemployed etc etc ) in mind .. that is all initially that is being said ..
you are getting this the wrong way around " .. The loss of 'jobs for life' had nothing to do with immigration - it wasn't imigration or immigrants that attacked the printers, dockers, miners, etc etc. And it was that that destroyed the 'job for life'..."
NO OF COURSE IT WAS NOT IMMGRANTS WHO ATTACKED THE MINERS ETC ..
however for the whole neo liberal restructuring of britain economy they have been essential
p.s. yes i chanted along with the comrades in the 7ts ..
UNEMPLOYMENT AND INFLATION ARE NOT CAUSED BY IMMIGRATION
BULLSHIT
COME OF IT
THE ENEMY IS PROFIT!!
.. that remains true .. unfortunately as with most leftist drivel it fails to deal with the concerns of the w/c
p.s. you know also i/we are not anti immigration ..we are just saying it, like everythng else should be under workers control
and this is what makes me laugh anout CR .. he's in a group called Workers power yet s/he doesn't think workers should have power!!
you are getting this the wrong way around " .. The loss of 'jobs for life' had nothing to do with immigration - it wasn't imigration or immigrants that attacked the printers, dockers, miners, etc etc. And it was that that destroyed the 'job for life'..."
NO OF COURSE IT WAS NOT IMMGRANTS WHO ATTACKED THE MINERS ETC ..
however for the whole neo liberal restructuring of britain economy they have been essential
p.s. yes i chanted along with the comrades in the 7ts ..
UNEMPLOYMENT AND INFLATION ARE NOT CAUSED BY IMMIGRATION
BULLSHIT
COME OF IT
THE ENEMY IS PROFIT!!
.. that remains true .. unfortunately as with most leftist drivel it fails to deal with the concerns of the w/c
p.s. you know also i/we are not anti immigration ..we are just saying it, like everythng else should be under workers control
and this is what makes me laugh anout CR .. he's in a group called Workers power yet s/he doesn't think workers should have power!!
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
I know what you mean, I think , but when someone comes along and says they agree with the statement 'there are too many immigrants in this country' then that goes beyond what you are saying there.durruti02 said:
I dont really know if the plans for immigrants were laid when the general plan to destroy the unions was launched, tbh I doubt it, it reaks of too much plannig and awareness of what lay ahead. I would think it seems likely that they thought that they could destroy wages & conditions to such an extent that 'locals' would take those wages anyway.
as have many other things - to single them out in any way is uttelry misplaced.
crappy chant in not solving problems shock!
i absolutely know you are not anti-immigrant, or i wouldn't be bothering (tho I contradict myself there by replying to tbaldwin I suppose). But I come back once more to one of the points freom my first contribution to this thread - that if we have the power to control immigratin, we will have the power to control wages, investment in hospitals, etc etc, and most of these questins will become irrelevant.
belboid ..this makes no sense
"..so you would oppose the introduction of women if it was done in a way to lower wages. Note the way you have said tht - you haven't said you would demand that al lworkers are paid the same whatever their sex (or nationality etc) - but you have said you will oppose their right to work to maintain your living standards. How does that help build solidarity between men and women in order to strengthen the fight against lower wages generally? it is another divisive measure - and we all know that it is when we, as a class, are divided, that the bosses are strongest.
In such an instance I would argue for oppositon to any worker undercutting the 'going rate'. But I'd argue against them as workers not as women, or migrants, or temp workers, or whatever..."
belboid where do i say i oppose womens right to work???
i have clearly said "...i would absolutely support an all male workforce opposing women bringing bought in .. if they are being brought in to lower wages ...." how is this against the right of women to work?? this is about cutting wages ..
and i clearly say i would argue for equality in the workplace ..er "..equally if i was a worker in that factory i would argue that any sexist employment practice should be scrapped .."
the point is finally you must see.. that yes we must not see strike breakers/wage lowers as women or immigrants or northerners or whatever ..but strike breakers and wage lowers .. and therefore we must see the first priority is to strengthen w/c organisations .. unions communities etc .. and that, that all weakens the working class is wrong ...
so by your own logic you are accepting that the mass immigration of the last few years is part of neo liberalism and is wrong?
you know if you say yes? .. i'm not going to send you a bnp application
.. i'm not going to invite you to shout deport all taffs!! ( though if the repatriation money was enough!! i'd go!! 
oh yes )
... but but maybe then we can then get on with the discussion about how we strenghten w/c communites and make the world better for everyone .. cos you know something else if we don't get revolution /workers power in the uk/us/europe the third world ( and all of us) are royally fucked!!
"..so you would oppose the introduction of women if it was done in a way to lower wages. Note the way you have said tht - you haven't said you would demand that al lworkers are paid the same whatever their sex (or nationality etc) - but you have said you will oppose their right to work to maintain your living standards. How does that help build solidarity between men and women in order to strengthen the fight against lower wages generally? it is another divisive measure - and we all know that it is when we, as a class, are divided, that the bosses are strongest.
In such an instance I would argue for oppositon to any worker undercutting the 'going rate'. But I'd argue against them as workers not as women, or migrants, or temp workers, or whatever..."
belboid where do i say i oppose womens right to work???
i have clearly said "...i would absolutely support an all male workforce opposing women bringing bought in .. if they are being brought in to lower wages ...." how is this against the right of women to work?? this is about cutting wages ..
and i clearly say i would argue for equality in the workplace ..er "..equally if i was a worker in that factory i would argue that any sexist employment practice should be scrapped .."
the point is finally you must see.. that yes we must not see strike breakers/wage lowers as women or immigrants or northerners or whatever ..but strike breakers and wage lowers .. and therefore we must see the first priority is to strengthen w/c organisations .. unions communities etc .. and that, that all weakens the working class is wrong ...
so by your own logic you are accepting that the mass immigration of the last few years is part of neo liberalism and is wrong?
you know if you say yes? .. i'm not going to send you a bnp application
.. i'm not going to invite you to shout deport all taffs!! ( though if the repatriation money was enough!! i'd go!! oh yes )... but but maybe then we can then get on with the discussion about how we strenghten w/c communites and make the world better for everyone .. cos you know something else if we don't get revolution /workers power in the uk/us/europe the third world ( and all of us) are royally fucked!!
TremulousTetra
prismatic universe
1. No immigration was OK when it was britsh people going there, but now your saying its wrong. Hypocracy IMHO.tbaldwin said:
2. Exactly the point, it refutes your distortions of socialist arguments I pointed to.
3. Yes, but your answer, banning immigration will not work, and encourages the bnp that they are right.
I’m not arguing FOR immigration, just not for banning people. If they come they’re welcome to equal rights, which imho will undermine bosses divide and rule tactics as I said earlier.
Yes, “It means Doctors Teachers and Engineers etc moving to richer countries as ac heap option to those countries training their own.”, but the answer is not just ban and fuck’em to rot. They will just move illegally. The answer is as I describe above imho. (did you read the SW link?)
ok sorry but this is very nieve....
"...I dont really know if the plans for immigrants were laid when the general plan to destroy the unions was launched, tbh I doubt it, it reaks of too much plannig and awareness of what lay ahead. I would think it seems likely that they thought that they could destroy wages & conditions to such an extent that 'locals' would take those wages anyway.."
...as siihi has shown above
but i/we are not trying to single out immigration!!! you have missed the point!!no it is the left who have singled immigration out by ignoring it .. and the right who have capitalised on that fact .. a fact that w/c people by the million have picked up on " the left care more about immigrants than us" etc etc
i/we are just trying to get an honest level playing field
ok got to go now .. need to go to wash room condo!!
"...I dont really know if the plans for immigrants were laid when the general plan to destroy the unions was launched, tbh I doubt it, it reaks of too much plannig and awareness of what lay ahead. I would think it seems likely that they thought that they could destroy wages & conditions to such an extent that 'locals' would take those wages anyway.."
...as siihi has shown above
but i/we are not trying to single out immigration!!! you have missed the point!!no it is the left who have singled immigration out by ignoring it .. and the right who have capitalised on that fact .. a fact that w/c people by the million have picked up on " the left care more about immigrants than us" etc etc
i/we are just trying to get an honest level playing field
ok got to go now .. need to go to wash room condo!!
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
I think I was a little confused by the way you posed your reply - the two statements seemed to contradict each other, and you put the one about 'opposing women beinging bought in' first. Fair enough, I've misconstrued your reply, and we seem to agree on how such a case should be responded to.
And your last paragraph also confuses somewhat - why is this argument essential to resolve before we can work out how we can help make the world better for everyone - I think we can disagree on this one, but still find that we can agree on practical activities that unite us.
Other than chanting ' refugee's welcome here' or whatever, what practical difference do you think our disagreements on this thread will have for wider building of w-c strength?
Paragraph one - thumbs up all round! paragraph two, aah well..... No, I do not think that it is the immigration that is wrong, just as I wouldn't have thought women's desire/need to enter the workplace was wrong, it is the employment practises that are wrong in each instance. if we blame the other exploited victim (other to the established w-c), then our chances of solidarising (I love that non-existent word, so much so, I think I'll never use it agian).
And your last paragraph also confuses somewhat - why is this argument essential to resolve before we can work out how we can help make the world better for everyone - I think we can disagree on this one, but still find that we can agree on practical activities that unite us.
Other than chanting ' refugee's welcome here' or whatever, what practical difference do you think our disagreements on this thread will have for wider building of w-c strength?
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
where? sorry, just not sure - do you mean post 13?durruti02 said:
but it won't be a level playing field - c'mon, how much are 'the left' drowned out by the right-wing press who do explicitly blame immigrants? the right haven't capitalised on what the left have ignoredm, they have capitalised on fear and bigotry. the right have always been, and will always be, racist fuckwits who use such language and idea's, nothing to do with any failings of the left.
That migration is discussed is a very sensible thing to say and do - but it should be about migration not just immigration, otherwise it will all but inevitably become about immigrants.
And, what do you say when you have agreed with someone that there 'has been too much immigration' when they then say, 'well who we gonna send back first then?'. Or will it just be a blanket ban, or what?
These are the practical questions which I think must be addressed if this position is to have anything other than an abstract theoretical meaning.
The article does not ignore these things.tbaldwin said:
In any case, I have refered to a study done by an academic at UCL: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/rdsolr0603.pdf
"This report, commissioned by the UK Home Office, is concerned with an empirical analysis of the impact of immigration on outcomes of currently resident workers in local labour markets. Until now, no such analysis has been undertaken for the UK. Our investigation is therefore the first to consider this important issue for the UK. The report attempts to provide a comprehensive analysis of the mechanisms by which immigration may have an effect on labour market outcomes of workers. This involves careful analysis of relevant theoretical economic models. Based on these considerations, an empirical analysis is attempted, drawing together several UK data sources which are appropriate for this purpose. The report carefully examines the empirical problems that may arise, and discusses implementable remedies. The analysis concentrates on employment effects and on wage effects of immigration. Distinctions are made, where possible and meaningful, between different demographic groups, and different skill groups."
I have a problem with you making value judgements about who should get jobs on the basis of so-called "race". You seem to now be hiding it behind the issue of non-UK nationals getting jobs rather than UK nationals. If this was your argument then why bring skin colour (aka "race") into it? There are light and dark skinned people in all three of the UK, SA and Aus. - including those who work in all three countries. Why are you trying to separate or treat people differently on the basis of "race"?tbaldwin said:
The NHS have apparently stopped direct recruiting from the Philippines and certain other countries (although apparently nurses still arrive via private agencies).ResistanceMP3 said:
I would however prefer to see western/rich countries offer compensation to the home countries if they are poorer and face shortages - in other words, fund extra training in these countries and provide support for their health systems. This would mean that rich countries would be able to continue to recruit from these countries, but poorer countries would also have enough staff for their own needs (or at least as many or more than they would have had anyway). Staff who do actually work in rich countries often send back money and take back skills and knowledge.
Of course doing this might well negate the 'cost savings' of recruiting overseas in the first place, and it might be argued that the training for the NHS should simply be increased in the UK, but there is the factor that you can't force people to become nurses, and in the UK you are competeing directly with a high wage private sector to try and attract people into the profession. It maybe isn't such a bad thing if lots of nurses are trained in poor countries, whereas UK nationals end up working in office/sales/marketing/finance/etc jobs in the UK.
elbows
Well-Known Member
treelover said:
~Im unsure if you are seeing a hidden subtext in what I wrote, or other things written in this thread.
My own position is quite simply that the vast majority of people I come into contact to in my day to day life, do express views which Id class as racist and xenophobic, or at best ignorant.
I dont find the term racist that helpful really. Theres just so many ways in which ingorance of other sorts of living beings can manifest itself. A wide spectrum of ignorance, which can also include people who consider themselves anti-racist, but make naive positive assumptions about the group they are trying to defend.
Its a mess. And the debate gets stifled both by people getting paranoid about others calling them racist at one end, and people keen to label others racist on the other. Both are understandable, are nothign new, have always clouded these issues and probably always will.
When it comes to immigration, the 'safe' and arguably non-racist way that anybody would want to debate it is via economic arguments. Those are the usual reasons given for why immigration is so bad, economic ones. But the argument a person chooses to use is not necessarily the same as the reason they actually dislike immigration. And the economic factors are linked to social factors, and pretty soon we are back to being unable to seperate these issues, ad getting suspicious of eachothers positions.
I wish we had a nice 'sim city' similator that reflected modern Britain, that we could use to test peoples notions of economic etc reality. My position is that if we took for example Kilroy's stated view on how things work, and ran his policies on the simulator, there would be drastic and hilarously bad economic implications. On the simulator, give every virtual immigrant worker 6 weeks off work, and then watch what happens.
No matter how hard I try, I cant get everyone to see all humans as equal. So maybe I can convince a few people through arguments that appeal more to their own self-interest. I want them to know that any burden they may feel in their brains about immigrants, any negative emotions and fears it gives them, are far outweighed by the benefits of immigration. Their fears, the negative side, is easy. It doesnt require information, or an understanding of economic systems, or things and concepts that sustain our daily lives but that are largely invisible to us day to day. Same as the stuff about the EU mostly. Showing the positive side not so easy, you dont know what youve got till its gone, hence my simulator thoughts.
All of this is not to say that the sorts of immigration levels we have to day is definately the best thing in the best possible model for how the world should work. When I say its essential, I mean for how things are actually setup right now, how our country and many others have evolved, how business and the economy operates. If we want to talk about theoretical ideals, worldbuilding from scratch, you could make a 'perfect' system either with or without immigration, depending on your preference.
Well Im fairly sure Ive badly communicated some of my thoughts on this, and Im bound to be wrong plenty, but there ya go.
Having read through this thread (not every last contribution though) it's clear that when people fail to take a class perspective they inevatbly end up following a road to reaction.
The capitalist class will use every means at their disposal to maximise the profitibility of their exploitation of the working class. The age old tactic of divide and rule being one of the means at their disposal.
Immigration/migration is used by the capitalists to drive down wages, it's used in a way that maximises their profits.
The only way to fight against that is by united working class action, not by falling for their divide and rule strategie.
To dismiss working class action, unity and the workers movement on the basis that it is weak is self defeating. No disrespect, Red Faction and others, it is also petit bourgeois. It means that you are suporting the exploitation of capitalism on the basis that you identify with it's social mechanisms and political system because it's the easiest way to tackle this or that sypmtom of capitalism.
The wokers movment can be built, it has been built in the past and is growing now. I point to the Gate Gormet strike (by a majority asian workforce) the solidarity action by Heathrow staff (by a multicultural workforce). The DWP strikes, the firefighters strike, rolls royce(majority british workforce) as proof of this, all of those strikes have took place in the recent period.
Internationally there have been international dock workers strikes in the Red Sea, Egyption and Isreali dockers both suporting each other(now there is a seemingly unbrigdeable national division, arab/isreali).
To say that the workers have no country is not a meaningless statement. It is a stemant of fact. I work for a multinational import/export company, I have more in common with the Chineese imigrant worker who works next to me, the Brazillian dock worker and the Polish truck driver who slave for the same boss as me than I do with my very Britsh Managing Director and all of his freinds at the CBI.
We live in racist times and it's going to get worse before it gets better, but at least it seperates the wheat from the chaff.
The capitalist class will use every means at their disposal to maximise the profitibility of their exploitation of the working class. The age old tactic of divide and rule being one of the means at their disposal.
Immigration/migration is used by the capitalists to drive down wages, it's used in a way that maximises their profits.
The only way to fight against that is by united working class action, not by falling for their divide and rule strategie.
To dismiss working class action, unity and the workers movement on the basis that it is weak is self defeating. No disrespect, Red Faction and others, it is also petit bourgeois. It means that you are suporting the exploitation of capitalism on the basis that you identify with it's social mechanisms and political system because it's the easiest way to tackle this or that sypmtom of capitalism.
The wokers movment can be built, it has been built in the past and is growing now. I point to the Gate Gormet strike (by a majority asian workforce) the solidarity action by Heathrow staff (by a multicultural workforce). The DWP strikes, the firefighters strike, rolls royce(majority british workforce) as proof of this, all of those strikes have took place in the recent period.
Internationally there have been international dock workers strikes in the Red Sea, Egyption and Isreali dockers both suporting each other(now there is a seemingly unbrigdeable national division, arab/isreali).
To say that the workers have no country is not a meaningless statement. It is a stemant of fact. I work for a multinational import/export company, I have more in common with the Chineese imigrant worker who works next to me, the Brazillian dock worker and the Polish truck driver who slave for the same boss as me than I do with my very Britsh Managing Director and all of his freinds at the CBI.
We live in racist times and it's going to get worse before it gets better, but at least it seperates the wheat from the chaff.
exosculate
a stagger with a beat
This thread proves once again - that some people assume any debate about the impact of immigration on working people (already here) is automatically racist.
The impact on wage rates alone is alarming. I agree its a neo-liberal thing just like the fake war on immigrants from Mexico entering the USA.
The impact on wage rates alone is alarming. I agree its a neo-liberal thing just like the fake war on immigrants from Mexico entering the USA.
exosculate said:
I don't automatically assume that any debate on the impact of immigration on working people is racist.
I feel that the impact of division amoungst working people, already here or other wise is far worse in the long run.
Should we fight neo liberalism head on, strike for better wages. Build an independant political movment to take power away from the capitalist class. Aim for a society based on democracy and common ownership?
Or
Should we fight for scraps amoungst our selves. Leave the capitalist class intact and clear the road for open racial diviisions and the far right?
I feel that some people who should perhaps know better are allowing themselves to be taken in by the current tide of racism. That makes them more dissolusioned than racist.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
tbaldwin said:
You said it, baby.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
belboid said:
I agree that emigration should be discussed aswell- but emigration from Britain is currently an option in general only for better-off, middle-class people or for slightly better-off retired working class people.
Historically in Britain emigration has been very important in suppressing class struggle at home- it didn't go as far as Cecil Rhodes argued ReSettler colonialism:
"how to solve the social problem: in order to spare the 40 million residents of the United Kingdom a bloody civil war, we, colonial statesmen, must obtain new lands where to settle the excess of population... If you want to avoid a civil war, you must become imperialist".
To some extent this occured one part of the unemployed was encouraged to settle in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United States (to South Africa, Rhodesia, Argentina in smaller numbers)
One other role of British-style colonial emigration (probably exaggerated) was its ability to give lumpen middle-class bureaucrats (who could not be accomodated into the state bureaucracy system) something useful to do- and not engage in 'socialist demagogery' among the masses as in Russia and France.
There were emigration funds and societies sponsored by all sorts of groups including churches support people emigrating to the Dominions.
Indeed internal migration has also been used in the nineteenth century fr instance some Liverpool and Manchester capitalists shipped workers across the Irish Sea to use as wage-lowering material.
I agree that discussing emigration is a good idea because many do fixate on immigration without bearing in mind that
British emigration of pensioners to Spanish Mediterranean, emigration of middle-class people to France, semiskilled/skilled workers to Australia, holidayhomeseekers on the Croatian Adriatic coast, and economics professionals to Latin America is resented.
This is the key point- people do say "too much immigration currently" but when questioned people do not usually say
"let's send all the darker ones back".
One person's said to me "people should learn English- and get along with people not work faster and harder than everybody else and fuck everyone else off- if they do that then they can stay sure".
As a result I disagree with your analyisis that what's going on is just a "capitalisation on fear and bigotry".
It is a concern derived partly from their experience of how some immigrants that are here have behaved around them.
I personally argue against sending anybody back given that it is impossible to draw up a list of who should go.
If people call for sending back all people who arrived since 2000 fr instance- then the case is that this will encourage greater forgery and illegalisation.. and is unfair anyway given that Digby Jones who brought them in in the first place will not be kicked out... calling for a kick out will damage unity with those who came in 1999 and have lost people who were kicked out.
I argue for a complete amnesty of all illegal workers and more than just the current rate of 11 per year convictions of bosses using those illegal workers.
A blanket ban on any immigration or emigration is no less fair than the current system. It is more fair than "open borders".
Socialists often argue for things that are not in the interest of capital and are just not going to happen without a shift in power dynamics- like a genuine citizen's income, nationalisation of land, entirely free public transport, life sentences for bosses who ignore H&S when it leads to deaths, prison reform or criminal justice system reform.
But by arguing for the idea of the right of working-class areas to determine immigration- the ground can possibly be shifted-- rather than saying "Right we can't do anything about immigration- let's just carry on doing what we were doing 30 years ago [when there wasn't as much immigration/emigration]" which is NOT working.
Hope that's clear.
What is all this crap about immigrants lowering wages? Capitalists lower wages, and if they can't find workers here to work for less, they'll move their business abroad. Or perhaps those who are in favour of immigration control think we'll achieve "socialism in one country".
The working class is only the revolutionary class by dint of our superior numbers. And often that class is its own worst enemy. Those "socialists" or "anarchists" who pander to this little englander mentality just hold off the day when we achieve something progressive to the advantage of all.
The working class is only the revolutionary class by dint of our superior numbers. And often that class is its own worst enemy. Those "socialists" or "anarchists" who pander to this little englander mentality just hold off the day when we achieve something progressive to the advantage of all.
I have a friend who is a scaffolder who has gone to work in Australia. He isn't any of those things. I have another ex-flatmate who is a research chemist who went out to Canada when he had finished his PhD. Maybe a bit more 'middle-class' but in fact he wasn't getting paid that much. There are a fair number of people who post here on u75 who have worked overseas at one time or another. I worked for a year in Japan. Maybe you don't count that as emigrating as it wasn't for that long - but there are a fair number of people who are teaching overseas in Korea, Thailand and China, and they aren't all graduates etc either. I don't know what you mean by better-off and slightly better-off? In fact I doubt that these people are in fact, in terms of their wages etc.sihhi said:
reallyoldhippy said:
I am in full aggreement.
Ive said most of what I wanted but I think it's worth pointing out that immigration/migration is nothing new. Contrary to the apperent beliefes of some people who have contributed to this thred.
the history of migration can be traced right back to the ealiest humans, how did we come to populate every hospitable continent on earth otherwise?
Is there more or less immigration in to britain now than at any other time in it's history? Or is that just a perception created by the assylumseeker/immigrant scapegoating of the government and right wing press? I don't have hard figures but you get my point?
More of an after thought on my part but there you go.
exosculate
a stagger with a beat
Patty said:
Whilst I appreciate your position. It changes little. The day to day experience of working class people in certain respects is made worse by large scale immigration. It is certainly percieved as such by many who are not politicised in the way you would like them to be. You are therefore failing to have recognition of the feelings on the ground of how people feel about a reduced welfare cake and lower wages.
I feel there are people on the left who should know better than to make simplistic political rhetoric that does not connect in any sense with the majority of the populatiion. People are concerned with day to day issues - like the Council list being longer because there are many thousands of newbies on the list - as just one example. Or that real wages have not increased for several years on building sites etc because of a flood of cheap labour. These things increase racist attitudes and do not enhance a tolerant multicultural society.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
I dont know anyone either who would say as straigyhtforwardly 'send the drlkies back' or anything similar. But when pushed, it tends to be the 'darker people' who are first on the list - certainly around here anyway. It's not the aussies, or the spaniards, it's the Somali's, and the Congolese. Very few people are explicitly racist about it, but the consequences are pretty damned similar.sihhi said:
& if peoples concerns are only 'derived partly from the actions of some immigrants around them, what are the other reasons?
Housing lists have grown recently due to the attack on social housing, not due to imigrants.
Similarly, building site wages are low because of the general state of the economy & the amount of building work being carried out, not because of immigrantlabour.
I do agree with the following statement of exo's:
"It [immigraton leading to the worsening of life for 'locals'] is certainly percieved as such by many who are not politicised in the way you would like them to be. You are therefore failing to have recognition of the feelings on the ground of how people feel about a reduced welfare cake and lower wages."
Which is why we shouldn't try and re-inforce that notion by arguing for racist crap like 'there are too many immigrants here'. The bosses are the problem here, not the other workers, whether from Congo or Congleton.
cockneyrebel
New Member
Council housing has gone down from over 5 million in 1980 to just over 2 million now. The increase in housing association properties has come been tiny in comparison. By 2010 the Decent Homes Scheme, if the government gets its way, will mean there will be no council housing left.
As said before, a decent minimum wage and good trade unions would sort this out. Surely a better thing to be campaigning for than concentrating on immigrants. In other words agree with belboid that things like fighting for a good minimum wage, TU rights (like secondary picketing), a defence of the welfare state and campaigns like "Defend Council Housing" are the answer. Not complaining about how many immigrants are flooding in and fucking things up.
Cockneyrebel: Can you tell me where you got your figures from about housing as I am under the impression that the number of Social housing units has gone up and is now the highest it has ever been.cockneyrebel said:
I don’t know myself I am only going by what I have been told by someone who works in the public housing sector.
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
Epicurus said:
These are the figures, as percentages of the husing stock, for England (OO: owner occupied, C: council, RSL: registered social landlord, PR: private rented:
1981 OO: 57 C: 30 RSL: 2 PR: 11
1991 OO: 68 C: 20 RSL: 3 PR: 9
2002/3 OO: 70 C: 13 RSL: 6 PR: 10
source: http://www.odpm.gov.uk/stellent/groups/odpm_housing/documents/page/odpm_house_023327.pdf warning it's a pdf file.
The overall message re. social housing is that it has dropped from roughly a third of all provision, to just under a fith, while the balance of social housing provision between local authorities and RSL's has shifted massively in favour of the RSLs.
Interestingly the increase in home ownership is actually an increase in indebtedness (up from 32% in 1981 to 41% 2002/3), which has not been matched by an increase in those actually owning their homes out right (25% 1981 and 29% 2002/3). This is down to the 'liberalisation' of credit and the length of repayment. As the rate of outright ownership begins to rise further, it will be very interesting to see what the government attempts to do with the wealth accumulated in those properties.
Cheers - Louis Mac
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