John Cruddas MP .. alleges government pushing immigration to undermine unions etc

[exosculate]

Interesting discussion, seems to be characterised thus.

No Borders lot - You're being racist unless you legalise the status of all illegal immigrants and allow unrestricted flows of labour.

Restrictionists - People en masse are not going to move to a love your sister and brother position overnight (perhaps ever). Thus scarce resources exacerbate tensions and do not heal fear of difference.


I do think the restrictionists have a real world, feet on the ground, feel to them as they stare at the no borders lot floating around in the fluffy wuffy clouds.

 

[TremulousTetra]

And there are 5 million plus people in the UK Unemployed or Underemployed.
Millions of people written off by society or used by dubious organisations to increase their own funds in helping the pooor etc.

I thought you said you did parrot the fascist arguments.

Because native-born workers who want to blame immigrants for their problems are hardly likely to join with the latter, or indeed persuade the latter to join with them.

That is the counterargument in a nutshell. This is what the honest pro-working class antifascist lefties, who nevertheless attack immigration cannot deal with. I agree with almost everything in the original article posted, and still will NOT attack immigration because of what you have said. I wrote somewhere else that working-class people need to use Labour methods to deal with problems that immigration can create for both indigenous and immigrants. This is about unionising the immigrants, and making sure there is a level playing field, so there is no scope for the capitalists and fascists to divide and rule.

 

[TremulousTetra]

deleted

 

[durruti02]

dear god there aint half some drivel on this thread, and not just from the normal idiots (a la balders) either!

Could some of the immigration controls supporters answer a couple of simple questions I wonder?

on 'lowering wages' - surely you realise this is largely due to them being illegal. so how the hell does this lead to a support for immigration controls? It is them that are playing a significant part in ensuring people work for less than legal/decent minimums. Making all those people legal would be a massive step to doing away with such behaviour from bosses.

On borders - how strong would you like them to be? Israel like walls? Bigger taller barbed wire? Should the border guards be armed or not? How many deaths do you think would be a 'price worth paying'? And why not stop these bloody scots from coming down as well? Or those daft northerners who want to move to London, surely we should stop them too.


[fights urge to insert a rolleyes]
well, who the fuck would then?

no belboid as a typical british lefty you ignore

WORKERS CONTROL

it is up to workers to demand that jobs ( and housing ) are filled locally


trouble is the trade unions are so tied in to capitalism they have fallen for capitlaism and thatcherism as being the only model

and they and the left are so ham strung by bullshit ideas of liberal moralistic 'anti-racism' .. that they are scared to mention immigration .. actually in london today it is black people predominantly who are losing out )

you bring up walls to keep immigrants out ..

BUT YOU TOTALLY FAIL TO UNDERSTAND THAT IMMIGRANTS COME TO BRITAIN BECAUSE THE STATE IS ADVERTISING THAT THIS IS A COUNTRY YOU WILL GET WORK IN

DO AWAY WITH WHAT CRUDDAS CALLS THE STATES 'TACIT SUPPORT' AND THE AMOUNT OF IMMIGRANTS WHO WISH TO COME HERE WILL FALL DRAMATCIALLY

(would you move to merthyr to get a job?? no beacuase there is no available work .. and would you as a elctrician try to get a work as an actor in a EQUITY shop?? no cos you know it is not possible )..

 

[durruti02]

rubbish. ever heard of the irish?

previous post war immigration was to fill jobs in periods of full employment

 

[durruti02]

So what's the solution? You offer.....nothing.

Ending their illegality would be the most significant change that could be made, as you recognise there is no way such people will ever stop trying to come here. Anything else would just be window dressing, at best.

i am not against ending illegal status .. but yet again why do you not think of the trade unions??

the issue here is (sadly ) not about moralism but about how we can rebuild a w/c movement ..at the moment immigration is being used to undercut unions

 

[durruti02]

and as poer normal you dont answer a single question put to you, but come back with idiotic what ifs.

How many are you prepared to see killed trying to get into this country then?

Go on, try answering just one question.

.. they come because as joihn cruddas says .. the state is giving '..tacit..' support .. to be honest it is more than tacit

belboid be a leftwinger and a trade unionist just for one minute please

instead of rambling on about iraq and gunatanamo and all the other moralist stuff imagine a left and trade unions that prioritiesed and argued and fought for in favour of the closed shop .. of workers cntrol of housing of the workplace of recuitment etc etc

we would have sustainable employment
we would not have fragemented communities
we would not have a white w/c looking massively toward the bnp but to that left

 

[durruti02]

I've answered that one several times to you baldy, funny how often your memory goes.

Open borders actually means that people may be more likely to come here, but it also means they are much more likely to leave as well - as they would not be (all but) barred from returning again upon leaving. So there needn't be any such drain on other countries' skilled/essential staff at all.

we have open borders now .. did you actually bother to read the joseph rowntree / john cruddas report????

 

[durruti02]

Ho Ho what a great thinker you are..... Comparing someone to Holocaust deniers like Le Pen or Griffin shows just how pathetic your arguements are...
I dare say publically at least they are against child molesters murdering children. does that mean in your warped mind that if people agree with them on that then they should be compared to them?
You really are a fine example of a bigoted twat.

oh dear that is truely sad post by belboid mate .. meanwhile in barking

 

[durruti02]

I thought you said you did parrot the fascist arguments.
That is the counterargument in a nutshell. This is what the honest pro-working class antifascist lefties, who nevertheless attack immigration cannot deal with. I agree with almost everything in the original article posted, and still will NOT attack immigration because of what you have said. I wrote somewhere else that working-class people need to use Labour methods to deal with problems that immigration can create for both indigenous and immigrants. This is about unionising the immigrants, and making sure there is a level playing field, so there is no scope for the capitalists and fascists to divide and rule.

i do not disagree with this .. but at least we have an acceptance from you that immigration is indeed a problem for the w/c in the here and now

and absolutely it is trade unionism ( and community organisation) that is the way forward

immigrants should indeed be unionised and workplaces must organise closed shops so workers can resist attempts to bring in cheap labour

this will be hard

unfortunatley the left has totally taken its eye off the ball in terms of matters that are fundamental and basic to ordinary w/c people

this has both made the neo liberal project's job easier and pushed many w/c people toward the bnp

 

[TremulousTetra]

i do not disagree with this .. but at least we have an acceptance from you that immigration is indeed a problem for the w/c in the here and now

and absolutely it is trade unionism ( and community organisation) that is the way forward

immigrants should indeed be unionised and workplaces must organise closed shops so workers can resist attempts to bring in cheap labour

this will be hard

AT LAST durruti02 reads whats been said for 6 months.

unfortunatley the left has totally taken its eye off the ball in terms of matters that are fundamental and basic to ordinary w/c people

NO, thats yours and baldys phallacy, the left has always argued immigrants should be unionised and workplaces must organise closed shops so workers can resist attempts to bring in cheap labour. Point to ANYONE who disagrees with this.

 

[durruti02]

AT LAST durruti02 reads whats been said for 6 months.

NO, thats yours and baldys phallacy, the left has always argued immigrants should be unionised and workplaces must organise closed shops so workers can resist attempts to bring in cheap labour. Point to ANYONE who disagrees with this.

calm down calm down!

i have shown i am very aware that you rmp3 are a cut above the average lefty , on here before ..

however , your second point .. no this is NOT true .. you are correct that no one disagrees with these issues BUT the left really only pay lip service .. they DO NOT GET INVOLVED .. tell me, if they did do you think the left would be so irrelevant ??

HI /IWCA/SP have all shown that you can get an audiance for radical ideas .. but you need to put the work in .. to individuals .. day in day .. the rest of the left do not do this

 

[TremulousTetra]

calm down calm down!

i have shown i am very aware that you rmp3 are a cut above the average lefty , on here before ..

this is not true. I am not a cut above. I just have the time and patience to explain the REAL SW position.

however , your second point .. no this is NOT true .. you are correct that no one disagrees with these issues BUT the left really only pay lip service .. they DO NOT GET INVOLVED .. tell me, if they did do you think the left would be so irrelevant ??

HI /IWCA/SP have all shown that you can get an audiance for radical ideas .. but you need to put the work in .. to individuals .. day in day .. the rest of the left do not do this

first of all you contradict yourself there when saying "no this is not true", and then you say "you are correct that no one disagrees with these issues".

So firstly we have here the truth at last. You and Baldy have been going on for six months about how the whole left has nothing to say on the issue of immigration which concurs with your own thoughts, when the realityis as you now concede, that both yourself and the erest in the left agree, that immigrants should be unionised and treated equally so as to undermine the divide and rule tactics of the capitalists and the fascist. the solution is not stopping immigration, it is unionisation and unity, as I and the rest of the left have been arguing all along.

BUT the left really only pay lip service .. they DO NOT GET INVOLVED .. tell me, if they did do you think the left would be so irrelevant ??

HI /IWCA/SP have all shown that you can get an audiance for radical ideas .. but you need to put the work in .. to individuals .. day in day .. the rest of the left do not do this

this may, or may not be true, but the discussion of how the left relates to the working class is a completely different discussion from the one you have been engaging in over the last six months imo.

PS. I will tell you how my style does differ from other people's when talking to the left, or indeed anybody. I do not look for what we disagree about, I constantly look for what agree about. This is not a holier than thou position, it is a pragmatic position, taught to me by the SW.

 

[exosculate]

PS. I will tell you how my style does differ from other people's when talking to the left, or indeed anybody. I do not look for what we disagree about, I constantly look for what agree about. This is not a holier than thou position, it is a pragmatic position, taught to me by the SW.

Rolls about hysterically.

 

[TremulousTetra]

Rolls about hysterically.

a good example of how the rest of the left operates.

However, I will concede you that not all SW comrades operate in this pragmatic fashion all the time. It is the guiding principle of SW, and it is this principle of the United front that enables the UAF, respect, defence council housing etc, and to generally not write off the working class with the "wrong opinions" like so many on the left do.

 

[exosculate]

a good example of how the rest of the left operates.

However, I will concede you that not all SW comrades operate in this pragmatic fashion all the time. It is the guiding principle of SW, and it is this principle of the United front that enables the UAF, respect, defence council housing etc, and to generally not write off the working class with the "wrong opinions" like so many on the left do.

You think the SW's operate in such a way?

I definitely do not!

 

[TremulousTetra]

You think the SW's operate in such a way?

I definitely do not!

you see you don't read what's been said, you immediately look for the adversarial position..

I originally said, MY style is due to what I have been taught by SW. However, you will hear it many times reiterated by other members that the main principle of the United front is to concentrate on what unites people, instead of what divides them. you will hear it many times said, that you can ignore the differences as the "struggle" is a great educator. In fact SW is often criticised for this position by many on the left. So I don't think you can deny that the United front is a guiding principle of SW.

With regard to how SW operates, I think you are being naive in the extreme if you do not believe all political organisations genuinely believe their strategy is the best way forward, and they will use every means at their disposal to make sure their strategy is most influential in the movement. Do SW fuck up at times trying to do this? Yes, just like everybody else.

 

[belboid]

durrutti has made a large number of interesting responses to many of the pounts raised here, not all of which I can be arsed to go through, tho its interesting that,m in fact, he has been forced to accept much of the no borders position - tho without saying so of course!

lets pick up on a couple of things tho....

oh dear that is truely sad post by belboid mate .. meanwhile in barking

well, I'll take it you missed how it was a direct response to a similar 'point' made by torybladwin (I know he's a mate, so you feel somewhat obliged, but doesnt it get embarassing sometimes?) - oh, and it was quite clear that balders hadn't missed the point, but he wanted to try and change it so that someone might just possibly miss his original daftness.

Lets restate it tho, just for fun like. my 'lepen, griffin, someotherfash, tbaldwhine' as a fairly direct response to his 'george bush, tony blair, belboid'. And then he has the nerve to try and go 'ooh thats not fair comparing me to people with the same opinion'. There is another difference tho - he lumps me in with people who dont share my opinion at all - in case you missed it bush & blair do not support no borders at all - and it does not, despite your plain daft assertion above, operate in this country or the US. Had you completely missed the fuckng great wall bush wants to put across the US/Mexican border? Or the whole idea of Fortress Europe? If you think that that is a 'no borders' position, then you are, frankly, a fool. Meanwhile, the people I listed alongside baldy not only share his opinions re immigration (if for somewhat different reasons, I wont deny that) - they also share his sense of their importance and priority, and the need to protect 'our' workers. So actually, it is a pretty fair comparison.

Now lets try and brush aside one or two of your actual points - there werent really very many when one dusts of the verbiage - still more than tb's one point tho, or exo's none, so it is something!

i am not against ending illegal status .. but yet again why do you not think of the trade unions??

the issue here is (sadly ) not about moralism but about how we can rebuild a w/c movement ..at the moment immigration is being used to undercut unions

Again, tho, there are so many straw men positions its a bit daft. 'why dont you mention the unions' you ask? As tho I had ignored or written them off, which is simply untrue. The unions will indeed be one of the main bastions in defending and extending immigrants rights, as ensuring 'fair' pay for all is an absolute essential in resolving any problems around immigration. Thats very simple aned straightforward and I've said as much in all of the many many discussions on immigration on here.

But you've already maed the crucial admission anyway - you are for an end to illegal status. That is a de facto recognition of a no borders position! If anyone who arrives here can be allowed to work, then where does the difference come? I'm sure you'd agree that such people should also be allowed the same benefits (or social wage) as 'native' workers, or else the same differentials in pay would still happen and undercut 'native' wages. there is no alternative - except building a massive wall around the UK and shooting anyone who arrives here, and I doubt you'd advocate that.

No one (on what might loosely be called 'the left') would disagree with ending the practise of britain & british companies trawling poorer nations to bring their skilled professionals over on a cheaper wage, its an utterly disgusting practise that is damaging to both this country and the country of origin. Find anyone who has argued for it - you cant, so to pretend that this is a brilliantly bold and radical insight is utterly untrue.

instead of rambling on about iraq and gunatanamo and all the other moralist stuff

its the return of the straw man. the problem with which isnt merely that its a complete waste of words and energy, it also makes you look a bit daft when i havent been making any such arguments, indeed it makes you look desperate and is if you cant actually defend your 'position'.

argued and fought for in favour of the closed shop .. of workers cntrol of housing of the workplace of recuitment etc etc

funnilly enough, thats what we do most of the time in fact (tho not simply in the abstract 'this meeting believes in workers control of......), solid practical trades unionism and community politics. And you know what? It doesnt stop me arguing about immigration at all! there is no contradictin at all, quite the opposite. You are posing a false distinction in order to seem more 'radical', but in fact you become more conservative, scared of defendinfg the rights of migrants, and making de facto concessions to the far right (or not so de facto in baldys case).

we have open borders now .. did you actually bother to read the joseph rowntree / john cruddas report????

ok, i know I mentioned it before, but it is a point worth repeating - no we bloody well dont you fool. If we do why are chinese and african people dying every day trying to enter the country?.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Quite.

Incidentally, has anybody actually yet demonstrated that immigration actually affects the wages and conditions of native-born workers in any significant way? I'm aware of the mechanism by which this might take place, but I've not been shown that it actually does. People just say things to the effect that "there's lots of immigants in such-and-such an industry and the wages are low" as if this demonstrated anything - but it doesn't, not unless you can show that previously the workforce was much more compsoed of native-born workers and the wages and conditions were rather better.

If you can't show that, then all you're saying is that some industries always have a high proportion of immigrant workers, which is not news to anybody.

 

[Fruitloop]

So if the situation was that employers in particular industries were using immigrant labour just to avoid improvements in wages and working conditions rather than forcing them down, that would be OK?

 

[Donna Ferentes]

No, the point would be that the argument (that immigration damages working conditions for native-born workers) would be specious.

 

[belboid]

good point, i forgot to mention that as well. I was going to as there was an article in this mornings guardian about wages in the fruit picknig sector. Very very poor of course, and employing an awful lot of migrant labour. So if there were no migrant workers would the wages be a lot better? Of course not - they would simply employ more of the students & unemployed - as they already do - instead. It would not lead to a rise in wages at all.

 

[Fruitloop]

But the unempoyed are a finite resource, whereas new sources of immigrant labour will always be available.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

good point, i forgot to mention that as well. I was going to as there was an article in this mornings guardian about wages in the fruit picknig sector. Very very poor of course, and employing an awful lot of migrant labour. So if there were no migrant workers would the wages be a lot better? Of course not - they would simply employ more of the students & unemployed - as they already do - instead. It would not lead to a rise in wages at all.

And as I say, we've yet to see any evidence that the mechanism claimed to operate actually does operate in any significant way.

This is the usual arrangement with immigration, isn't it? Lots of claims, little practical evidence.

 

[Fruitloop]

Given that Steinbeck was writing about this exact effect in the Great Depression, I don't think that its existence is really in doubt. The only difference with international migration is that the cultural differences create an even longer lag-time before the migrant workers can be brought into any kind of w/c organisation.

 

[belboid]

why? do you think that unions and the notion of solidarity are totally missing in other countries?

 

[Fruitloop]

I think that notions of class solidarity that cross ethnic/cultural divides are lacking in most countries.

 

[kyser_soze]

Surely it's the union's job to go out and start talking to recently arrived immigrant groups, advising them of their legal rights, encouraging them to set up/join their own collectives etc?

This 'goverment is undermining the unions with immigration' seems like yet another example of how it's some on the left simply fall into a 'blame someone else' instead of actually taking positive action...

As for the restrictionists...what right do you have to tell someone that they can't work where they want? I agree with Belboid that the active recruitment of skilled workers should be stopped - but who will replace those who work (for example) in the NHS? Why is the potential pool of the local workforce ignored/not considered for retrainnig in such areas? Why aren't unions out in force in poor areas helping inidigenous w/c people out and into jobs where there are such skills shortages?

 

[kyser_soze]

Also, using the US as a comparator is not really valid, especially WRT to trade unions because of the different approach taken, and of course by the role that organised crime had (still has) within it's history.

 

[treelover]

not a manual worker are you KS?