Attacking immigrants is no good for workers

[Czy]

[Source]

Socialist Worker Tue 17 Dec 2013, 16:16 GMT

Restrictions on the ability of Romanians and Bulgarians to work and settle in other European Union (EU) countries are lifted on 1 January 2014. From the reaction of politicians and the media you would think the world was about to end.

Politicians of all mainstream parties see opposition to immigration as a potential vote winner. David Cameron has floated setting a limit of 75,000 migrants a year, even though it breaks EU rules that he supports.

Lib Dem deputy prime minister Nick Clegg came out against the cap, saying it would be illegal. He was concerned that it might damage trade and lead to reprisals from other EU countries—not that it would be racist.

Other politicians claim we don’t have enough resources. Yet new migrants coming to Britain work and create wealth. They buy products and pay taxes. There is a shortage of housing, schools and hospitals because of cuts put through by Cameron and Clegg. It is nothing to do with immigrants.

A new survey found that 80 percent of British people back tougher measures to stop new immigrants claiming benefits. But it also reported that 77 percent welcome migrants who “work hard” and become part of the community.

Convince

The experience of migrants who arrive has always been that they work and in fact claim fewer benefits than the existing population. It is anti-migrant campaigns by the government and the press that convince people that immigrants cause social problems.

Again and again we are told that the only way to defend workers is to block immigration and look after a mythical national interest. Even supposed left wingers come out with these arguments, arguing that migration is a bosses’ trick to undermine wages.

Some go further. Academic Paul Collier’s new book Exodus was lionised in the “left wing” New Statesman. It talks about how brave he is to raise the issue of migration. He didn’t talk of any benefits capitalists might gain and only saw immigrants as a drain.

“Poor countries are poor because their social models are dysfunctional,” he wrote. “Prosperous societies would therefore have reason to be wary of such settlers.” This kind of argument is nonsense. Blaming migrants for social problems does nothing to help working people.

Workers’ interests are best defended by uniting with other workers. Marxists have said this since the revolutionary Karl Marx called for unity between British and Irish workers in the mid 19th century. And it will be true as long as capitalism exists.

[Bala Perdida]

I don't think many people realize how hard it is being an immigrant. They work harder than everyone else, for less than everyone else. They are undermined by restrictions on working and are forced to settle for cheap labor jobs. They are probably the most exploited of the proletarian in the first world. The fact that we must work with and defend thief every right should be obvious to anyone on the far left.

[brigadista]

More hysteria in uk media all the Bulgarians and Romanians are already here and welcome from me - i heard that there is a report in the possession of the uk gov that shows immigration restriction will increase uk nat debt by 30% -

However it's the bosses that are the problem not immigrant labour - Brit workers should be supporting immigrant labour and inviting union membership but the uk unions well where do I start ? In fortunately many are buying the divide and rule ...

[ArisVelouxiotis]

Meanwhile in greece almost everyday immigrants from pakistan mostly get stabbed or beaten up by the neonazi party golden dawn...

[barbelo]

Enjoy your wage being artificially lowered.
Meanwhile to immigrate to a country such as Russia you need to make an HIV test, imagine the hassle to work there with a tertiary degree in a white collar profession.

I'm sincerily tired of seeing no-border policies in EU painted in an humanitistic coat while it actually only damages worker rights and situation, and benefits big corporations in need of cheap labour.

[DasFapital]

Enjoy your wage being artificially lowered.
Meanwhile to immigrate to a country such as Russia you need to make an HIV test, imagine the hassle to work there with a tertiary degree in a white collar profession.

I'm sincerily tired of seeing no-border policies in EU painted in an humanitistic coat while it actually only damages worker rights and situation, and benefits big corporations in need of cheap labour.

You have a black flag for your avatar but support nationalism? Well that's something...

[Lily Briscoe]

I'm sincerily tired of seeing no-border policies in EU painted in an humanitistic coat while it actually only damages worker rights and situation, and benefits big corporations in need of cheap labour.

And what is the solution, in your opinion? "Native" workers rallying around immigration restrictions?

[tallguy]

Blindingly obviously, attacking immigrants is bad for workers generally as well as being inherently immoral in itself. However, it is wholly wrong to conflate a concern with immigration policies and attacking immigrants. Which is what the OP is implicitly doing. In fact, I would go further and suggest such an underhand debating tactic is more or less the inverse synonym of the right-wing race-card used in debates on this topic since it is no less disingenuous or pernicious to transparency in that debate.

[Comrade Jacob]

I don't think many people realize how hard it is being an immigrant. They work harder than everyone else, for less than everyone else. They are undermined by restrictions on working and are forced to settle for cheap labor jobs. They are probably the most exploited of the proletarian in the first world. The fact that we must work with and defend thief every right should be obvious to anyone on the far left.

You should see how people treat immigrants in the UK, it's truly despicable. Although it definitely has improved in the last few years.

[hatzel]

More hysteria in uk media

I know it's the done thing nowadays to stand news reporters in 'appropriate' locations when they're giving their pieces to camera, but - for those outside the UK, or who didn't watch the evening news - they had them on a live link to the airport in Bucharest, to report on exactly how many hundreds/thousands/millions of people were flooding onto planes. The conclusion was...ah...very few. Maybe tomorrow?

[helot]

I find the focus on workers fucking disgusting. It's pretty obvious that the ordinary person's hostility to migrant workers isn't from their own thoughts but from propaganda outlets. It's why the focus is on workers in the first place and not on capitalists. All the claims that immigration needs to be restricted yet then ignore the movement of capital makes it pretty apparent.

[RedWaves]

Racism towards immigrants is wide spread in the south. It's really just a trick that the bourgeoisie use "they are taking your jobs" and it works every time, cause the people down here are so fucking stupid they can't put two and two together and see the one's blaming immigrants are the same ones that bring them in for cheap labor.

It's not that most of them don't understand how difficult it is to be an immigrant, it's that they don't give a shit, and don't want to care. They look at them as invaders, as filth, as the scapegoat cause they can't imagine not worshiping their rich labor masters that are the true ones oppressing them. Most of the fear on the Mexicans coming over is solely based on "they'll date your daughter!"

It comes down to class warfare, just like how the manipulate the poor into hating each other with "welfare queens" and the whole tagline that you should hate people that get benefits when you don't.

If anything, the workers could easily buddy up with the immigrants to fight the rich establishment oppressing both of them, but no. This is America, you can't do that, cause Americans love to have an enemy, and what better enemy than immigrants coming over to ruin the great American land? This has went on for so many generations, you could write books on American racism towards immigrants dating back to the early days.

That's how it goes, and that's why they attack them. Blame everyone but the true class that is oppressing them; the bourgeoisie capitalists. That's how it is in Alabama anyway. When they aren't moaning about blacks on food stamps and high crime rate, they are blaming everything else on immigrants, even though statistically they aren't the problem when they are blamed for crime and unemployment.

[RedWaves]

I find the focus on workers fucking disgusting. It's pretty obvious that the ordinary person's hostility to migrant workers isn't from their own thoughts but from propaganda outlets. It's why the focus is on workers in the first place and not on capitalists. All the claims that immigration needs to be restricted yet then ignore the movement of capital makes it pretty apparent.

True, the same ones screaminging about "immigrants taking our jobs" won't say a word about the massive corporations that move factories to the third world for slave labor. It's OK for the capitalists to do it. They have more sympathy for the ones oppressing them than they do their fellow man.

[Schumpeter]

Enjoy your wage being artificially lowered.
Meanwhile to immigrate to a country such as Russia you need to make an HIV test, imagine the hassle to work there with a tertiary degree in a white collar profession.

I'm sincerily tired of seeing no-border policies in EU painted in an humanitistic coat while it actually only damages worker rights and situation, and benefits big corporations in need of cheap labour.

Who are you to tell someone else which country they can and cannot live in? People own themselves and thus no-one has any right of deciding where they decide to take themselves ( unless if infringes on others right to self ownership). So yes I support mass immigration.

[barbelo]

Who are you to tell someone else which country they can and cannot live in? People own themselves and thus no-one has any right of deciding where they decide to take themselves ( unless if infringes on others right to self ownership). So yes I support mass immigration.

I'm sorry for such a late reply. Only now I'm checking this thread.

You clearly don't see the hypocrisy of your point of view, and it's the same hypocrisy of people who criticized Switzerland when they voted against immigration. Direct democracy is only good until it goes against my ideologies, uh?

Anyway, in the comparison you made, people also "own" their houses; people "own" their countries, their borders and the land that exist within them; and they are free to politically decide who enter and who not, in the same way you decide who can enter your house and who can't.

You can be anti-nationalist all you want (as I am) but you can't deny it's under a national framework that we work today and that it's your national citzenship that determines whetever you can live or work in a certain place.
You say that you support mass immigration: you also support mass immigration to African, Asian and Gulf countries? You also support foreign ownership of industries? Tax shelters and fiscal paradises for international billionaires? Outsourcing of manufactaring industires to poor countries?
If not, I ask you your same question: Who are you to tell someone else which country they can and cannot live in? If a CEO admires Monaco tax breaks, why shouldn't he live there instead of financially contributing to the country who raised, educated and qualified him?

[#FF0000]

people "own" their countries, their borders and the land that exist within them

No they don't. Borders are set by states, which themselves exist first and foremost to protect the interests of the ruling classes. People don't own their countries -- their bosses do.

And further, there are loads of groups that push down wages -- the elderly, young workers, the unemployed, temporary workers, non-union workers, etc. However, there's never any witch hunt over them, and for good reason. The biggest threat to wages is allowing xenophobic bigots to divide the labor movement with this nationalist bullshit.

[Prometeo liberado]

Is it me or is the posting of this article here a given? Maybe I was expecting something controversial? Kinda like a thread supporting the back handing of babies. Obviously if you're here you're not on the "pro" side of that one. And if you are then what in the hell are you doin here? This is RevLeft correct?

[barbelo]

Borders are set by states, which themselves exist first and foremost to protect the interests of the ruling classes. People don't own their countries -- their bosses do.

I get what you are saying but I just gave the example of a country where the people democratically, not by political representation but direct vote, decided to curtail immigration. One can argue about propaganda influencing them, which indeed existed on both sides, but in the end it was what the people wanted. It's their country and they can decide this.

Only now I realize I replied to a banned user who calls himself reactionary. These argument of "people own themselves" and "right to self ownership" reeks of classical liberalism.

And further, there are loads of groups that push down wages -- the elderly, young workers, the unemployed, temporary workers, non-union workers, etc.

I don't see any sense in comparing elderly with immigrants, at best elderly raise public expenditure without contributing to the workforce. What you meant by them lowering wages?
Are you saying that if I go to Spain now I won't see thousands of North Africans picking fruits on plantantions, without even a place to sleep and that this is on the same level as people who left the university in interships?

However, there's never any witch hunt over them, and for good reason.

Indeed, immigrants are the target of xenophobia and demonization, but on the other side, many other European politicians are globalist neo-liberals for whom immigration is only a way to make the economy grow and look good on paper. For them immigration is a necessity.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

You clearly don't see the hypocrisy of your point of view, and it's the same hypocrisy of people who criticized Switzerland when they voted against immigration. Direct democracy is only good until it goes against my ideologies, uh?

Communists aren't vulgar democrats. We don't think a decision is good or acceptable simply because it was made in a "democratic" manner (not to mention that divorcing democracy, even "direct" democracy, from the class nature of the state is ridiculous).

You say that you support mass immigration: you also support mass immigration to African, Asian and Gulf countries?

Sure. In particular, we agitate for an end to the disgusting oppression of migrant labourers by reactionary Gulf monarchies.

You also support foreign ownership of industries?

We don't support private ownership of industries - including "national" ownership under a bourgeois state - period. But as long as private ownership exists, we don't care if the owner is "native" or "foreign".

Tax shelters and fiscal paradises for international billionaires?

Ha, what's this? An "anarchist" who is concerned about the ability of the bourgeois state to collect its "rightful" taxes? What happened to "not a man and not a penny for bourgeois militarism"?

Outsourcing of manufactaring industires to poor countries?

That's part of the development of capitalism, particularly the development of imperialist capitalism. We don't support or oppose it, it's inevitable.

If not, I ask you your same question: Who are you to tell someone else which country they can and cannot live in? If a CEO admires Monaco tax breaks, why shouldn't he live there instead of financially contributing to the country who raised, educated and qualified him?

Yes of course, Mr. "anti-nationalist", people have an obligation to "contribute" to "their" state.

[Slavic]

I get what you are saying but I just gave the example of a country where the people democratically, not by political representation but direct vote, decided to curtail immigration. One can argue about propaganda influencing them, which indeed existed on both sides, but in the end it was what the people wanted. It's their country and they can decide this.

Its easy, direct democracy or not, they are wrong. It doesn't matter if the majority of the people wanted it; if a referendum was overwhelmingly supported to legislate segregating public institutions by a person's ethnicity, such law would be wrong regardless if it has popular appeal.