Workers
have no country
Whether
Polish plumbers, Portuguese hop-pickers or Chinese cockle-pickers,
migrant labour in the UK is undoubtedly higher profile now than it
has been for many decades. The focus groups and private polling used
by the major parties are confirming immigration as the No 1 issue for
voters at the moment.
In
some parts of the UK the influx may well have resulted in increased
unemployment for existing workers and appears to be putting a
downward pressure on wages in some sectors.
It’s
worth noting that there has been an enormous effort made to vilify,
criminalise and erase racist language and ideas over the last few
decades. World socialists have not opposed these developments but we
have argued that racism – like other the so-called "hate"
crimes – is usually fuelled and ignited by poverty and fear, and
therefore cannot be removed until the cause is.
For
workers fighting over crumbs in lower wage unskilled jobs, the
temptation to blame your unemployment or wage level on foreign labour
may be strong. But nevertheless such views are false. The blame lies
elsewhere. In order to stay profitable, UK employers are demanding
cheap labour. It makes good business sense to welcome cheap labour
from overseas – you didn't have to pay for its education, and after
you have exploited it for a lifetime, you still won’t have to pay
its pension.
In
many ways the government is only repeating at the national level what
has been happening at employer level for many years with out-sourcing
of staffing costs.
And
while the free movement of labour is restricted, capital is of course
expected to roam the globe looking out for ever better rates of
exploitation, sniffing around the sweatshops for signs of harsher
working conditions or longer hours. But if these chickens come home
to roost – if little pockets of the third world's poor actually
have the gumption or bravery to start popping up on our doorstep –
then our local administrators of capitalism start to get a bit edgy
As
with so many issues, politicians are slowly realising that
governments must simply accommodate to capitalism with regard to
migration and accept it. They can only try to control it but if they
are to have any hope of effectively securing borders and finding
those who slip through they must expend vast sums as on ID cards and
the like.
The
World Socialist Movement didn't get its name for nothing. Unique
amongst all political parties left and right we have no national axe
to grind. We side with no particular state, no government, no
currency. We have no time for nationalisation or privatisation, for
border controls or for migration incentives. The world over, workers
must do what they can individually and collectively to survive and
resist capitalism. In many parts of the world that means escaping the
tyranny of political terror or economic poverty. Politically however,
workers should try and resist taking sides in the battles of the
economic blocs who just happen to be named on the front of your
passport. You must not blame another worker for your poverty. Instead
we would argue that workers should recognise that – whether migrant
or not, whether illegal or legal.
