How do I refute stupid anti-immigrant/foreigners arguements?

[AK]

Specifically those ones such as "they're stealing our jobs". Is there any evidence to support these such claims, too?

[S. Zetor]

Specifically those ones such as "they're stealing our jobs". Is there any evidence to support these such claims, too?

Whether there's any evidence depends of course on the particular situation in a given country, so I can't answer that. It might very well turn out that the share of domestic workers has been declining and that of the foreign workers been rising. The point, however, is that worker is a worker, and a foreign worker "steals" a domestic worker's job just as much as a worker from the neighbouring town does (i.e. not at all). So what you should challenge in this context is not whether domestic/foreign worker balance has changed one way or another (in general or in any given industry), but whether the starting of the question is valid. It isn't.

Most of the time the domestic worker from the neighbouring town isn't seen in that kind of negative light. For example, in my own union branch there's certain hostility towards Estonian workers coming over the gulf of Finland to work at the Turku shipyards, but no hostility at all towards workers who come from Rauma shipyards to work at the Turku shipyards. This is an attitude that needs to change.

The only logic that's there behind claims like that is the logic of (imperialist) nationalism, and maybe you can find arguments to persuade people who believe in such stuff, but personally I think it's more likely that if someone is convinced of "foreigners stealing our jobs", then the battle can be fought only for the souls of the undecided (which of course is an important battle). But if it's a one-on-one discussion, I would just state my opinion ("why do you hate the workers from behind the border but not the ones from the neighbouring town" or some such thing) and not waste more time on it.

However, often the practical situation isn't so straightforward, and the way of general principles ("worker is a worker" etc.) will not do. I'll tell you an example from my own union branch. In the Finnish metal industries 95% or so of the workers are unionised, whereas of the foreign workers almost no-one is (though some have joined our branch), and this poses serious difficulties for union control that the foreign workers are really paid what they are due (basic pay, overtime etc.) based on Finnish collective agreements (CA) and legislation. (As a technical aside, in the Finnish system even the unorganised workers [foreign or not] are covered by the CA, if more than 50% in the industry is organised, so it is not the CA cover itself that is the issue, but the control over whether it is actually being impelemented.)

In practice, when the foreign workers are brought in for 6 months at a time as posted workers by some Estonia or Poland based labour rental firm (often operated by Finnish capitalists), the shipyard's own shop stewards cannot get information on their contracts; for that, the foreign workers of the rental firm should elect their own shop steward, which of course never happens because of the ephemeral nature of the work. Language issues complicate the problem, and if I remember correctly, for working periods of 6 months or less, the registration at the tax office is voluntary. Of the tens of thousands of such foreign workers in Finland, only about a thousand have registered, and the rest work tax-free. This has obvious implications for the wages they get.

Now, the state-funded labour monitoring boards should keep an eye on that all legislation is implemented on the shop floor, but they don't have the resources to do it except here and there. Many of the Polish etc. workers at the shipyards get around 8€/h whereas the locals get 12€/h for the same work. It is clear that if this is allowed to continue, it will drive down local wages as well.

It is no wonder that in a situation like this grudge against foreign workers develops easily. There's two ways out of it, and both are manifest in workers movement at all times.

The first, reactionary nationalist and pro-imperialist way is to call for reserving the jobs for Finnish workers, and letting foreign workers in only when the last Finnish metal worker is employed. This is basically a call for a national front with the bourgeoisie against foreigners. The thing this reactionary approach gets right is that this would (as if a mirage like this ever could materialise..) solve the question of driving down the wages, because in practice every Finnish metal worker at the shipyards is in the union, and is covered by the CA, and has full-time shop stewards to see to it. But the solution would also reserve the better-paying jobs for the Finnish workers, and shut out workers from poorer countries like Poland or Estonia. This is clearly wrong, and divides the workers. The other thing that this approach gets right is that naturally a bigger reserve army of labour undermines the bargaining power of the union to the same extent.

The other way out is trying to draw the foreigners into the union (or the front), and demand together that everyone is paid the same. This would solve the question of driving down wages as well while not dividing the workers.

Unfortunately the former line seems to have the upper hand in many cases, especially when "open borders" is widely seen as the bourgeois platform (though of course in the narrow sense of letting in only those workers capital needs).

IMO getting the foreigners to join the union (or at least the front) is the only way, but it's going to be really difficult, and involves many twists and turns. (Someone might say that socialist revolution solves these issues, which is technically true, but not exactly in the cards right now.)

The reason why it's difficult is that many of the foreign workers are employed for short periods (6 months at a time), and their general mindset is not oriented towards staying in Finland, of which joining a union is seen a part. So they're not necessarily really interested in union membership, and also as they come from a poorer country, 8€/h can be a good hourly wage for them, so they might not want to rock the boat so that they can get the 12€/h that locals get. In this sense their interests are not the same as those of the local workers, a division caused by imperialism (to put it in general terms), or better put, a division that is imperialism.

IMO the foreign workers have 100% right to work in Finland in whatever jobs, but what they do not have the right for is to work for less than what the local wages and terms are. That is simply impossible to accept. Every attempt must be made to draw the foreign workers into the union front, and due consideration must be given to their unboubtedly more vulnerable position, but in case they're not willing to improve their wages and terms up to the level of the local workers, the union must take measures against what objectively is scabbing.

What a pity then that the Finnish Metal Workers Union is such a wimp. When they should put several subcontractors at the shipyards under blockade until the foreigners have been guaranteed equal terms, they keep calling for "cooperation" even when the fascists are lining them before the shooting squad.

[JacobVardy]

thanks mate - do you mind if i reprint this response?

[mikelepore]

Simple arithmetic. If the capitalist class in this country decides to make 100 million jobs available, and there are 120 million people who want them, then there are 20 million who won't get them. How could we possibly identify who's doing the stealing from whom? If immigrants or non-citizens are stealing the jobs of local residents or citizens, that's the same as saying that people whose names begin with the letters A through G are stealing jobs from people whose names begin with H through Z. Or, the people whose birthdays are in January steal jobs from everyone else, so if everyone who has a birthday in January were to be expelled from the country then the labor market would experience a temporary increase of demand relative to supply. All of these fictitious descriptions are of the same type. The simple fact is, the capitalist class decides to make a limited number of jobs available, and the subsequent lottery can be described any way you prefer.

[AK]

Most of the foreign workers in Australia come from Lebanon, China, India, Sri Lanka, etc., so I'm guessing that this sentiment would have it's roots in racist attitudes (ignoring the fact that - in Australia - most of these workers ARE of other races). However it is in reality just a matter of cheap labour and the conditions that these foreign workers are used to and seemingly accept.

Another point to mention is that many here hate people of other nationalities simply because "they don't speak English (properly or at all) and we speak English in this country". How would we stop that sentiment? Especially when it does pose a logical problem that people would find it hard to understand each other.

[tellyontellyon]

Demand a decent minimum wage and union rights for all.
Migrants are being exploited and used as a way to keep wages down.
Demand good wages and employment rights for all to stop exploitation and to stop the capitalists trying to split workers against each other.

[S. Zetor]

Another point to mention is that many here hate people of other nationalities simply because "they don't speak English (properly or at all) and we speak English in this country". How would we stop that sentiment? Especially when it does pose a logical problem that people would find it hard to understand each other.

I'm not sure anything can be done to this immediately, and probably it will persist even when everybody's totally equal.. persists in the sense that it's always going to be annoying when you have to get a message through and there's difficulties and you can't be sure that they understood what you said, or that you understood correctly what they said. The real problem is not that this is annoying (which I believe will always be the case) but what it means politically in a situation where one social group is clearly in a weaker position.. like migrant workers.

If the argument is along the lines of "like in this country", then that's just reactionary call for assimilation..

Nobody has to like anyone, i.e. there's no thought crimes. Not liking someone's accent is just stupid (occasional fun-poking is inevitable and I wouldn't be a dick about it), but if you're going to give people too much shit for not being politically correct, nobody will take you seriously. I don't know if too much can be done to this problem on the level of propagating the idea of tolerance, rather it would be more useful to e.g. try making arrangements like getting someone who has the language skills to be the intermediate between different language groups on the job. If there is no arrangements like this, IMO then the friction will always be there and get worse over time, as problems due communication problems keep piling.

In my union branch the secretary and one of the office workers are studying russian for this purpose, and the local metal workers union office has a guy there once a week who speaks polish and a few other slavic languages to solve problems of the foreign workers. That's clearly too little, and won't solve problems on the job, but that's the way forward.

[Comrade Gwydion]

Our laissez-faire capitalist party made a funny statement last night. Immigrants here are expected though not legally required I believe to learn Dutch. There are courses offered to learn Dutch. The leader of that party suddently said that
a) Immigrants should pay to take this course
b) Nobody should receive social security unless they speak dutch.

So basically, learning dutch is fucking expensive, and immigrant will not be able to pay it untill they allready know dutch!