Polish Migrants Get Organised.

[audiotech]

Its the fact you bring race into it at all that makes me laugh.

Where?

 

[audiotech]

Sorry MC can you remind me as im sure i would like to answer the question.

 

[tbaldwin]

MC do you mean to ask me where i stand on this country taking skilled workers or skilled workers from this country moving abroad....Its just that ive said what i think on both issues many many times or have you got something new and/or more specific?

 

[audiotech]

MC do you mean to ask me where i stand on this country taking skilled workers or skilled workers from this country moving abroad....Its just that ive said what i think on both issues many many times or have you got something new and/or more specific?

Skilled workers migrating from the UK.

 

[tbaldwin]

Skilled workers migrating from the UK.

Well i think youll be able to guess that i am against people here who have had a subsidised H/E etc going to countries like the US to make loads of money.
I'm not against people migrating for genuine family/humanitarian reasons.. So i wouldnt be against people doing VSO etc...
If skilled workers from the UK want to make a contribution in helping poorer nations develop i think thats good...But like all aid sometimes its hard to measure who it really benefits.

 

[Gramsci]

Ahh - a self appointed expert on east europeans - should folk get your advice on culture and history before daring to appeal to those east europeans for joint activity, you being an expert and all?

liberal angst mate

Got any East european friends then?Considering your posting here attacking other people as a self appointed "expert" on the working class thats a bit rich.Unfortunately for u the majority of the working class in this country are reformist not revolutionary.Thats why back bench Labour MPs demanded immigration controls for Rumanians and Bulgarians.Thats what there working class constituents asked for.

For the record I dont agree with that.It would turn them into second class citizens.Also immigration controls wouldnt bother the CBI as Im sure Gordon Brown/Blair would set them in the interests of business.

The other country that has open borders for East Europeans in Sweden.As a social democratic country the idea of using immigration as a way of undermining wages and condition is no part of their culture.

 

[grogwilton]

good article from socialist worker on this:

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=10358

scroll down for a specifically polish view

 

[tbaldwin]

good article from socialist worker on this:

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=10358

scroll down for a specifically polish view

Hi grog has the Socialist worker had much in it about the impact on Poland of losing so many skilled workers?

 

[audiotech]

Well i think youll be able to guess that i am against people here who have had a subsidised H/E etc going to countries like the US to make loads of money.
I'm not against people migrating for genuine family/humanitarian reasons.. So i wouldnt be against people doing VSO etc...
If skilled workers from the UK want to make a contribution in helping poorer nations develop i think thats good...But like all aid sometimes its hard to measure who it really benefits.

You still didn't answer my main point. I'll try again. What practical applications would you like to see implemented to discourage skilled workers from migrating to another country from the UK?

 

[grogwilton]

Hi grog has the Socialist worker had much in it about the impact on Poland of losing so many skilled workers?

no. if you can read polish maybe you should have a look at the polish section of the ISJ's website: http://www.republika.pl/pracdem0/

Wont skilled workers leaving Poland require Polish businesses to offer them better conditions? which is a good thing no?

 

[tbaldwin]

You still didn't answer my main point. I'll try again. What practical applications would you like to see implemented to discourage skilled workers from migrating to another country from the UK?

Yeah thats quite a difficult point..I'm not too sure how you stop people going to the US etc. I think though one of the things the Polish govt has done is try to make polish workers abroad pay tax if they want to return home. But polaks ive talked too said they were avoiding paying.

I think getting people to pay up front for university fees could be a good thing. And encouraging medical students from the UK to work in this country could be done by a series of measures,making it a condition of studying here etc...

 

[audiotech]

Yeah thats quite a difficult point..I'm not too sure how you stop people going to the US etc. I think though one of the things the Polish govt has done is try to make polish workers abroad pay tax if they want to return home. But polaks ive talked too said they were avoiding paying.

I think getting people to pay up front for university fees could be a good thing. And encouraging medical students from the UK to work in this country could be done by a series of measures,making it a condition of studying here etc...

A pretty weak answer to the first point may I say? That may give a clue as to your politcal motives, if any, in raising the issue of immigration time and time again. Please don't say you're speaking for the majority as a reply, thanks in desperate hope.

Now, the tax thing? Are you saying that Polish migrants are expected to pay tax here and then again to their home nation?

Don't certain overseas students already pay up-front for university fees then? As for medical students? Far too many trained here already apparently. Junior Doctors are finding it increasingly difficult to find places and sustain work.

Some are trying other countries to get the employment and training they require in specialised areas of medicine. How does that equate to your understanding of immigration policy?

 

[northernhord]

Are any of the Unions still fiery or are they all benign nowadays

 

[tbaldwin]

A pretty weak answer to the first point may I say? That may give a clue as to your politcal motives, if any, in raising the issue of immigration time and time again. Please don't say you're speaking for the majority as a reply, thanks in desperate hope.

Now, the tax thing? Are you saying that Polish migrants are expected to pay tax here and then again to their home nation?

Don't certain overseas students already pay up-front for university fees then? As for medical students? Far too many trained here already apparently. Junior Doctors are finding it increasingly difficult to find places and sustain work.

Some are trying other countries to get the employment and training they require in specialised areas of medicine. How does that equate to your understanding of immigration policy?

1 Ooooh a hint that anybody who questions free market migration polices must be a Closet Racist....How very original.....

2 Have you not talked to any Poles then?

3 Your really do swallow news management.

4 Some ? Who ?
People who support survival of the fittest policies on immigration lead to poorer countries losing health proffesionals and people in those countries dying....Some of them pretend that they are Socialists.

 

[audiotech]

1 Ooooh a hint that anybody who questions free market migration polices must be a Closet Racist....How very original.....

2 Have you not talked to any Poles then?

3 Your really do swallow news management.

4 Some ? Who ?
People who support survival of the fittest policies on immigration lead to poorer countries losing health proffesionals and people in those countries dying....Some of them pretend that they are Socialists.

1) I was thinking closet troll myself.

2) Not recently no.

3) These are reports from Junior Doctors.

4) Junior Doctors you plumb.

 

[durruti02]

Why would the CBI want to see develop a low paid and by implication a low skilled workforce? The last thing I imagine that they would want to see is a workforce with low literacy and numerate skills afterall. I would also expect that the CBI would like to see a workforce with high disposable incomes to buy the goods they put on sale.

that not right MC .. they want unskilled and illiterate by the millions .. as an underclass

 

[durruti02]

Well you would be the only one wouldn't you. I've news for you - you're not.

so are you ? that is actively trying to organise migrants at your workplace? and who else on here?

 

[durruti02]

double post

 

[durruti02]

OK so as a shop steward you think the main issue to raise with your workforce is migrant workers taking our jobs?

* 1

You confuse what I would agree is one of the 'main' issues in media and genaral bourg. society propaganda with what is no where near the 'main' issue in workplaces. Or are you saying it is in your workplace?

5*

What I mean by dangerous is simple - if you were to go on and on about immigration in your own material at your workplace to the exclusion of the thousand and one other issues you end up simply reinforcing the 'popular' propaganda of the 'other' side and the feelings of powerlessness and fear. Part of the illusion created is that working class people are powerless - while we are divided and weakened on occasion, the level of disillusion and lack of confidence written in the subtext of your posts. These seems to say more about you than about the situation we face. The organisation of the migrant qworkers was one example of what is possible.

*2

OK you do something on the ground and I apologise for putting you in the same catagory as some of the other posters here (I can get cynical on occasion too...). My own views are not plucked out of thin air - the main work I am involved in at the moment is housing issues and the nhs. My views are shaped by lived experience and activity - I just wonr why your activity does not make you see through the myopia shown by some on these boards as the irrelevence it actually is to most peoples day-to-day lives (unless we think most people think like the Sun or the Mail says they do)

*3

I get the feeling you bang on about it because you like a lot of folk here see your main enemy as the SWP style left and this is a difference you have that not only distances yourself from them but is also likely to wind them up. I don't think they are a major problem (a bigger problem to folk like me maybe but not in the real world...) or that important. Anymore than I think immigration (and banging on about it) is central to fighting neo-liberal policies. Immigration is not the central, deciding theme of neo-liberalism's agenda that you seem to be overplaying it to be.

4*

There is also a lesser danger in that you constantly end up siding with some posters here who are everybit as shite as the more idiotic SWP posters on this site - while banging on about this issue you should also be honest about the arguements being put forward by your 'enemy's enemys'.

6*

I supported the original poster on this thread because the almost immediate response was to attack the unionisation of those workers. durruti mentioned the irish ferries dispute - the SP played a key role in that movement and set the agenda via the earlier GAMA dispute. It wasn't about putting one group of workers over another in any fantasy heirarchy - it was about using a strategy to defeat neo-liberal assults on working peoples rights by contering the unity of those folk to that agenda. Setting one group of workers against another will weaken all of us

7*

cheers dennis ..replying by * .. MC doesn't like me to highlight in the txt
*1
er no what an odd thought .. why did you think that up? no it is the usual .. outsourcing/ xmas leave / sickness hearings ... but we are all aware .. and we are of many hues and backgrounds that the assault on our TnCs would not have been possible without immigration in the last few years..

*2
dennis i have said to you many many times that the UKPC&N forum on U75 is a discussion forum .. why on earth would what i say on here reflect propaganda at work?? yes it informs what we do though ..

*3
i accept your views are not plucked out of thin air .. and mine are clearly not too .. they are based on 20 years of organising/working in the lower reaches of the public sector ... and they have not challenged my anti racism or commitment to internationalism etc etc ..BUT they have made me believe that our silence on immigration FOR cutting wages has been DISASTEROUS and is reflected in the snow ball of racism/rigtwing ideas and the BNP

(p.s. you have enough info to know how to get a character ref for me )

4* i think you have missed out a 'no' here ???? and again i agree it is "not the central, deciding theme" BUT it is the piece of the jigsaw that is missed out .. and until we are truthfull/open whatever a lot of other things will NOT fall into place

5* no but it is important to the background of our situation and impotence .. in recent years all the outsourcing etc could not have continued profitably without immigration

6* possibly .. and for you to appear to be supportting the SW liberals!

7* agree absolutely and in ireland they did not shy away from the issue .. GG was our irish ferries and we bottled it

 

[durruti02]

Thats a good question - I'd be interested in knowing what these debates were and were we could find out more about them

that would be interesting .. though it is relevant to remember we had full employment up until 197???

 

[audiotech]

that not right MC .. they want unskilled and illiterate by the millions .. as an underclass

They would like a skilled, servile workforce more to the point.

 

[audiotech]

so are you ? that is actively trying to organise migrants at your workplace? and who else on here?

I'm a TU rep.

 

[durruti02]

I'm a TU rep.

no i asked do you work where immigrants are being used for cheap labour as i do not whether you were a union rep

i supect you do not and i think more and more you do not have a clue as to what you are commenting on .. lets have a quess what union .. AUT?? NUT??

 

[audiotech]

no i asked do you work where immigrants are being used for cheap labour as i do not whether you were a union rep

i supect you do not and i think more and more you do not have a clue as to what you are commenting on .. lets have a quess what union .. AUT?? NUT??

Your feeble guesses of my supposed trade union membership takes the biscuit. AUT? NUT? For fuck sakes he thinks I'm teacher, or a lecturer!!

Now you know what, I think that you believe all proles are thick and couldn't possibly be intelligent enough to put a cogent argument across? You just can't believe that a worker has an intellect can you? Piss poor.

Oh, and for the record I work in an area which has staff on the minimum wage. Some of the staff not being born in the UK, on low wages and therefore by your standards "cheap labour".

 

[Das Uberdog]

He likes to slander people with assumptions about their class and occupations... in response to my acknowledging of a 'chav' subculture in British society he claimed that I was obviously some middle-class twerp, and I assume he thought I was of a similar age to himself as well.

It's symptomatic of the basically degradatory and rhetorical arguments levelled at anyone who dares try and defend minorities and immigrants generally on a left-wing basis... the idea that Swappie politics is undermining our true 'white working classes'.

 

[tbaldwin]

It's symptomatic of the basically degradatory and rhetorical arguments levelled at anyone who dares try and defend minorities and immigrants generally on a left-wing basis... the idea that Swappie politics is undermining our true 'white working classes'.

erm so you think durruti is defending our true white working classes.....I think you need to be a bit less narrow minded...

 

[durruti02]

Your feeble guesses of my supposed trade union membership takes the biscuit. AUT? NUT? For fuck sakes he thinks I'm teacher, or a lecturer!!

Now you know what, I think that you believe all proles are thick and couldn't possibly be intelligent enough to put a cogent argument across? You just can't believe that a worker has an intellect can you? Piss poor.

Oh, and for the record I work in an area which has staff on the minimum wage. Some of the staff not being born in the UK, on low wages and therefore by your standards "cheap labour".

yet again wrong sooo wrong dear oh dear .. "think proles are all stupid" i don't assume anyone is stupid until i hear them i few times .. i am beginning to assume you are though .. stupid and m/c

i see little sign of a w/c intelect in you

"work in an area" .. that sounds very general .. so why do you not know or understand the processes i refer to?? .. i doubt you tbh .. if you had you would know about the wage freeze i refer too .. you would know of the reticnce to go on strike cos of the knowledge that they will just bus in agnecy .. you would know about how privatisation has slashed wages and continues too ..

pm me if you don't wanttto say on here

 

[durruti02]

He likes to slander people with assumptions about their class and occupations... in response to my acknowledging of a 'chav' subculture in British society he claimed that I was obviously some middle-class twerp, and I assume he thought I was of a similar age to himself as well.

It's symptomatic of the basically degradatory and rhetorical arguments levelled at anyone who dares try and defend minorities and immigrants generally on a left-wing basis... the idea that Swappie politics is undermining our true 'white working classes'.

where i live most of the victims of the processes i talk about are afro caribbean .. so much for your weak arguement

 

[audiotech]

yet again wrong sooo wrong dear oh dear .. "think proles are all stupid" i don't assume anyone is stupid until i hear them i few times .. i am beginning to assume you are though .. stupid and m/c

i see little sign of a w/c intelect in you

"work in an area" .. that sounds very general .. so why do you not know or understand the processes i refer to?? .. i doubt you tbh .. if you had you would know about the wage freeze i refer too .. you would know of the reticnce to go on strike cos of the knowledge that they will just bus in agnecy .. you would know about how privatisation has slashed wages and continues too ..

pm me if you don't wanttto say on here

As for the first para? Do grow up thanks.

As for the second para? I don't work anywhere near where you're based, so how should I be expected to know anything about the situation where you are ffs?

If what you're saying is happening in your area then it's no good moaning to me about it is it? Or, for that matter asking me to pm you - god forbid! Why would I want to chat with some loon anyway.

 

[brasicritique]

MC5 , Dennisr and the others as spokes people for the SWP do you think that we should let everyone who wants to come for work do so?

Do you think that society would be able to cope if we adopted your open door policy?

I have to warn both of you that it might take you a while to get a latte