Die Neue Zeit
4th February 2009, 02:11
Regarding the recent British oil workers' strike and the protectionist slogan "British jobs for British workers," I can't help but have mixed feelings about all this and connect it to a bigger picture.
I think a poster here said that the Italian workers were seen by the British oil workers as scabs of sorts, seeing as how typical scabs are brought in to work in the stead of the strikers. Are there indeed similarities here?
Also, the material brought up in this right-wing column (especially the responses) raises other questions:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/dominic-lawson/dominic-lawson-nationalism-has-its-roots-in-socialism-as-well-as-fascism-1543648.html
There is, in any case, a strongly internationalist streak within the Left, which stems directly from the writings of Karl Marx. Thus this week's statement from Socialist Resistance, the newspaper produced by British supporters of the Fourth International, roundly criticises the British demonstrators calling for the Italian labourers to "Go back to Italy". "The demands of the strikers themselves imply that Italian workers at IREM should be sacked and replaced by British workers and that jobs in Britain should be ring-fenced against workers from outside. This is seriously wrong where would it leave British workers working under similar conditions in other European countries?"
This plea for solidarity with foreign labour are we not all brothers? has always been a difficult sell to a purely domestic audience.
The Italian workers aren't exactly showing any international solidarity with the British workers by stealing their jobs now, are they? If the Italian workers wanted to show international support they would join in with the strike as well or fly home.
International socialism plays into the hands of big business. If the workers demand better conditions or go on strike, the the oil company can just fly in cheaper workers from abroad who would be prepared to live in sub standard accommodation and accept worse conditions.
Lawson is being selective. No socialist supports the dismantling of hard-won collective agreements and labour conditions. Nationalist slogans and comments are obviously a problem, but the central issue is the free rein now given to international capital at the expense of workers' pay and conditions.
Much of the comment on this issue has been sadly characteristic of the british middle-class: filled with contempt for the inferior orders, and not averse to a bit of cheap johnny-foreigner service labour themselves.
Dafyddtaylor is absolutely correct in pointing out that nationalism, as in the case of Garibaldi, was the invention of the rising bourgeoisie, not of the socialists that appeared much later on the scene of history. WW I, the ultimate expression of nationalism and imperialism, with which it goes hand-in-hand, was a war between the British and German capitalist empires. When the bolsheviks took over the first thing they did was to get out of it.
The British strikers have been called many names although what they are doing is nothing more than what American workers did when they fought against scabs brought in straight from Ellis Island by their bosses. Resisting the bosses' desire to increase their profits by using coolie labour is a fundamental part of the workers' struggle for their rights.
It's sad to see public discourse over workers' rights retrograded to the days of robber baron capitalism and sadder still that so few people know the extent of their personal debt to the past struggle and sacrifice of the working class for the freedom and rights they take for granted today.
With all the talk of immigrants "stealing jobs" (read: taking up whatever underemployment is available to them), shouldn't the Left be more aggressive in pushing for the mandatory private- and public-sector recognition of professional education, other higher education, and related work experience from abroad, along with the transnational standardization of such education and the institution of other measures to counter the underemployment of educated immigrants?
After all, even if professional workers with stubborn petit-bourgeois delusions (not every prole with professional education has this delusion, of course) go over to the BNP with their "stolen job by educated foreigner" rant, at least the manual and clerical workers won't be as affected.
I think a poster here said that the Italian workers were seen by the British oil workers as scabs of sorts, seeing as how typical scabs are brought in to work in the stead of the strikers. Are there indeed similarities here?
Also, the material brought up in this right-wing column (especially the responses) raises other questions:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/dominic-lawson/dominic-lawson-nationalism-has-its-roots-in-socialism-as-well-as-fascism-1543648.html
There is, in any case, a strongly internationalist streak within the Left, which stems directly from the writings of Karl Marx. Thus this week's statement from Socialist Resistance, the newspaper produced by British supporters of the Fourth International, roundly criticises the British demonstrators calling for the Italian labourers to "Go back to Italy". "The demands of the strikers themselves imply that Italian workers at IREM should be sacked and replaced by British workers and that jobs in Britain should be ring-fenced against workers from outside. This is seriously wrong where would it leave British workers working under similar conditions in other European countries?"
This plea for solidarity with foreign labour are we not all brothers? has always been a difficult sell to a purely domestic audience.
The Italian workers aren't exactly showing any international solidarity with the British workers by stealing their jobs now, are they? If the Italian workers wanted to show international support they would join in with the strike as well or fly home.
International socialism plays into the hands of big business. If the workers demand better conditions or go on strike, the the oil company can just fly in cheaper workers from abroad who would be prepared to live in sub standard accommodation and accept worse conditions.
Lawson is being selective. No socialist supports the dismantling of hard-won collective agreements and labour conditions. Nationalist slogans and comments are obviously a problem, but the central issue is the free rein now given to international capital at the expense of workers' pay and conditions.
Much of the comment on this issue has been sadly characteristic of the british middle-class: filled with contempt for the inferior orders, and not averse to a bit of cheap johnny-foreigner service labour themselves.
Dafyddtaylor is absolutely correct in pointing out that nationalism, as in the case of Garibaldi, was the invention of the rising bourgeoisie, not of the socialists that appeared much later on the scene of history. WW I, the ultimate expression of nationalism and imperialism, with which it goes hand-in-hand, was a war between the British and German capitalist empires. When the bolsheviks took over the first thing they did was to get out of it.
The British strikers have been called many names although what they are doing is nothing more than what American workers did when they fought against scabs brought in straight from Ellis Island by their bosses. Resisting the bosses' desire to increase their profits by using coolie labour is a fundamental part of the workers' struggle for their rights.
It's sad to see public discourse over workers' rights retrograded to the days of robber baron capitalism and sadder still that so few people know the extent of their personal debt to the past struggle and sacrifice of the working class for the freedom and rights they take for granted today.
With all the talk of immigrants "stealing jobs" (read: taking up whatever underemployment is available to them), shouldn't the Left be more aggressive in pushing for the mandatory private- and public-sector recognition of professional education, other higher education, and related work experience from abroad, along with the transnational standardization of such education and the institution of other measures to counter the underemployment of educated immigrants?
After all, even if professional workers with stubborn petit-bourgeois delusions (not every prole with professional education has this delusion, of course) go over to the BNP with their "stolen job by educated foreigner" rant, at least the manual and clerical workers won't be as affected.