Racism, Immigration and Globalisation

Luke Ivory argues that we need to move beyond simplistic sloganeering on race and immigration and that that the left needs a much more rounded analysis of the economic exploitation inherent in the use of migrant workers.

The issue of immigration is one which has increasingly grown to dominate the political agenda at times over the last few years and is an issue that stirs emotive passions both between the ‘mainstream’ pro-capitalist parties as well as on the left. It is almost impossible to get any kind of balanced debate on the issue in the media, especially most newspapers, where the forces of reaction all too often go into overdrive in vilifying any immigrants who dare to set foot in the country.

As socialists it is imperative that we stand up for the rights of minorities and oppressed groups – and for both migrant workers and native workers. After all, economic migration has its origins with the beginning of mankind. It currently takes place on a large scale within the UK with many working class Scots seeking employment in the south of England - especially London - where the wages are higher; some of these people planting roots in their new home and others returning once they've made enough money. Even within Scotland itself, in rural areas such as parts of the Highlands many young people regularly leave home in order to find employment in Scotland's cities. Socialists should begin from the standpoint of fighting for the common rights and interests of workers, whether they are Eastern European migrants seeking a decent payday in the West, or Scottish workers concerned at their local bosses’ abusing such migrant labour to drive down local wages and conditions. To do so effectively, it is important to take a step back however, and objectively analyse why such economic migration takes place in a modern context.

When assessing immigration it is important to analyse the question of who exactly benefits economically from economic migration and how they do so, on the basis of a class based politics. Obviously, one of the beneficiaries are migrant workers themselves, who benefit from the higher wages in their host country which will then be of greater value if and when they return to their country of origin. There are many cons to counter balance the pros which these workers benefit from, however, because these financial rewards are only gained through their own gross exploitation, encapsulated in both the horrendous living and working conditions which migrant workers all too often have to endure. These cramped living conditions and the long hours, with few if any of the rights that other workers enjoy, strongly suggest that the primary winners from immigration are the bosses who enjoy even fatter profits from the exploitation of migrant labour than they already enjoy from the exploitation of the wage labour of the working class people originally based in the country.

Three years ago 23 Chinese people lost their lives as they harvested cockles, against a rising tide in Morecambe Bay.

That is not to say that economic considerations should be the only ones in any balance sheet of the issue. Immigration and emigration provide a flow of energy, genes and culture which develops the pluralist vitality and diversity of society and helps it to thrive. On the other hand, immigrants can provide handy scapegoats for capitalism, particularly in an economic downturn, and unless the left has a coherent strategy to explain the processes taking place and point the finger at the real and joint enemy of both migrant and indigenous workers, the ground can become fertile for reactionary racist and fascist organisations of the far right, such as the BNP.

Our capitalist class are two-faced on the issue of migrant workers – using their press rags to whip up racism and scapegoating against minorities while taking every opportunity to avail themselves of the relative cheapness of migrant labour. It is their beloved neo-liberal ideology – expressed through the legislation of a bosses’ EU that sees working people as a movable commodity - that is fundamentally what lies behind the current wave of migration of workers from the relatively poor east to the west of Europe. It is not an accident; it is a planned part of the international globalisation project.

In many industries the bosses claim that they cannot find enough workers to fill the positions available. Whilst this may be true in some instances, the real reason behind this is not that there is a lack of workers in this country, or even a lack of 'willing' workers - the main reason is that the bosses refuse to grant adequate pay and conditions to their workforce and will boost their profits by employing other workers on lower wages and lesser conditions if they can.

The accusation that workers from Scotland and elsewhere in the UK – of whatever creed or colour - are somehow 'lazy' or 'unwilling' is one that should be refuted by socialists whenever these arguments arise. The fact of the matter is that due to such low levels of pay being endured alongside high rates of taxation and rent many workers are no better off for working these jobs than if they are on the dole; a problem which has been further exacerbated by Brown's recent tax hike on the lowest paid, by scrapping the 10p tax rate, which was deceitfully disguised as a 1p tax cut in his last budget as Chancellor. It is actually a piece of elementary logic for someone to come to the conclusion that they are better off out of work if their financial position is no worse off than it would be if they worked a forty hour working week under poor conditions. While the reactionary politicians and media will scream that the 'benefits culture' is to blame and call for an attack on the levels of benefits, it is clear that it is low levels of pay and conditions, alongside a lack of genuinely affordable housing for rent which is to blame for any perceived lack of workers.

It is precisely because businesses – big and small - refuse to countenance proper pay and conditions that there has been a recent drive towards the hiring of workers in the east with many companies actually holding job fairs abroad rather than basing recruitment efforts in their local area. This is all part of a drive to keep wages as low as possible with employers in many instances being ruthless in taking advantage of migrant workers - who are often more unaware of their rights - by not even paying them the legal minimum wage.

This inevitably fuels resentment among sections of the working class, who in many instances feel that not only are they being squeezed out of possible employment, but also that their pay when in employment is being undermined and kept low because of the presence of migrant workers.

To explain this reality is not to condone it, but to understand it in order to fight to change it.

Whilst socialists should (obviously!) stand shoulder to shoulder with any person or group who face abuse of a racist or xenophobic nature, this should not be counter-posed to making a serious effort to try to educate those workers who have drawn the wrong conclusions from the problems created by the present situation. Socialists should always seek to orientate their work towards all sections of the working class and try to unite different components of our class whenever tensions arise within it. This needs to be done by pointing out that there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that suggests that there is a great deal more that unites our class - both nationally and internationally - against our common exploiters than there ever will be to suggest we should allow ourselves to be divided.

We should always point out that there is a deliberate and conscious attempt by the ruling classes to 'divide and rule' the working class, whereby those in power deliberately seek to create a two tier workforce in order to deflect attention from their own social and economic role in inflicting poverty and inequality on society. It suits capitalism at home and internationally if groups of workers blame one another instead of questioning the way society is organised at a deeper level.

So what are the ways, strategically and tactically, to overcome these problems? One possible starting point would be a concerted campaign involving both migrant and native workers against low pay and for a decent living minimum wage for all workers – not just in Scotland, or the UK, but at a European wide level.

The task of achieving this would obviously be far easier if there was a higher level of unionisation in industries where low pay is widespread. Socialists need to agitate within unions and workplaces, spearheading the opposition to the blatant exploitation of migrant workers whilst also making the point in the wider working class that having so many workers on pay at or below the current minimum wage seriously undermines their own demands for a living wage, because bosses will always try to get around any concessions won by workers by simply finding new workers who will work for poorer pay and conditions. Trade unions could potentially play a crucial role in the fight against poverty and xenophobic attitudes –many trade unionists already are - but in order to do so effectively they must not only take seriously the fight to win their own policy for a proper minimum wage, but also begin to make more of a concerted effort to recruit the millions of low paid workers that are currently un-unionised, including many migrant workers. This could potentially have a galvanising effect, creating a higher level of class consciousness based on unified struggle which could win back the political agenda from right-wing inspired divisions based on fear and alienation.

Alongside the jobs and wages issue, the other main areas of debate within the mainstream media surrounds the effects of immigration on public services such as health, education and housing. Probably the most easily refutable myth of all regarding immigrants is that they place too much of a strain on the NHS. The reactionary argument that an already struggling NHS shouldn't be made even worse by having to cope with the burden of people not from the UK holds little credence amongst the public, the vast majority of whom realise that the NHS benefits much more from the contribution of the migrant workers who keep the NHS afloat, and that there would be an extremely severe strain on resources if they were to all suddenly leave. It is also frankly absurd to suggest that people who pay taxes that contribute to the financing of a service - let alone actually work for the service it self – should be denied access to these services when required.

The area of education is a little less straight forward however because there is genuine evidence that there is overcrowding in schools in some areas, as well as the more serious problem of children starting school with no English. Due to the fact there are very few teachers available who speak the language of these children either, this poses problems both to indigenous children, who suffer from overworked teachers having less time for them, but also to the children of the migrant workers who have no access to the level of teaching required for them to continue with an adequate standard of education. These problems are definitely not insurmountable, however and the onus is on the education system – and those who budget for it - to find ways of overcoming obstacles and providing the best standard of education possible. Interpreters and foreign teachers could help while pupils master the language. This is far from an easy solution however because there are often many languages spoken and education budgets are already over stretched. It is important to emphasise that the problem here is not one that is created by immigration per se, but by the anarchy of free market capitalism which doesn't care about the problems faced by migrant workers or their families, only that they come to this country in order for their labour to be ruthlessly exploited.

One possible demand socialists could raise is that employers whose profits have benefited from migrant labour should pay a windfall tax to local authorities, ring fenced for education budgets, to ensure these problems are overcome. Ultimately, only under a democratically planned socialist economy could proper foresight and resourcing be used to allow all the relevant services to be adequately equipped to deal with such challenges before they arise.

Quality and genuinely affordable housing for rent is another such issue where socialist ideas, such as public ownership and planning, become an essential prerequisite to solving the problems faced by all sections of the working class.

Socialists need to distinguish our own demands from those of the mainstream pro-market politicians who merely use the term 'affordable housing' as a buzzword which actually means providing slightly less expensive housing for sale to skilled workers and the lower middle classes. This differentiation is required because the problem facing less well off workers - for whom home ownership seems like a pipe dream – is that there are few council houses left and rates of private rent have reached astronomical levels. This in turn is why so many are desperate to get onto the housing ladder; it at least provides them with something to show for the extortionate levels of their weekly wage which goes towards accommodation costs.

The lack of affordable social housing creates another potential flashpoint between migrant workers and the indigenous poor. Solidarity members who have led the campaign for affordable housing have experienced – on many occasions – local people asking why they can’t get a house yet Polish immigrant workers can. It’s not clear whether or not this is a popular myth. Most Polish workers are staying in high rent multi-occupancy private tenancies. What is clear, surely, is that to dismiss these workers concerns as automatically racist or to simply throw back at them slogans about ‘no borders’ would simply play into the hands of reaction.

Instead, socialists should take the tack of patiently explaining why council house availability is so bad and how Solidarity calls for a large scale expansion of public sector housing so that everyone who needs a council home can have one. This would subsequently begin to cut across racist and xenophobic attitudes which are caused by a scarcity of resources.

One often unacknowledged problem for socialists, as internationalists, in advocating that we should attract migrant workers to the country in order to benefit our public services is that we would then be depriving other, less developed and wealthy countries of skilled workers of which they will likely have an even greater need for than ourselves. The NHS has frequently and consistently poached staff from developing countries throughout its history, in much the same way that the private sector poaches staff from the NHS. Countries such as Poland are indeed now facing their own skills gap due to so many of their workers leaving for the west. The solution found in Poland has - unsurprisingly - been to attract more poorly paid migrant workers from further east in countries such as Ukraine. It's inevitable that somewhere along the line poorer countries are suffering for the west's failure to adequately produce its own skilled workforce.

The slogan 'think globally - act locally' is one that is very relevant to socialists because while we have the greatest impact when we work within our own workplaces and communities, if we are to enjoy any prolonged success, these campaigns need to be linked with wider movements both nationally and internationally. In this respect, socialists need to argue that the best way to improve our own public services is to bring about the end of the private sector involvement in those services and democratise them, whilst also successfully educating, training and rewarding those who already work in them as well as the wider working class who would then contribute to an extended network of public services. Ending our own reliance on migrant workers in these services would in turn give poorer countries a better chance to develop public services of their own.

It is also essential to remember that many people who move to find work do so not because it is their preferred life option, but because they feel they have no alternative. Most migration is still economic migration where people feel forced by circumstances to leave their home country to find a better life, and initiatives need to be found to mitigate against these modern clearances. Most workers would always at least like to have the opportunity to find a decent well paid job in their local community.

The possibility of a campaign for a new minimum wage set across the EU nations (levelling up, not down, of course) is one such initiative which needs to be looked into further.

It is possible that such a policy could have a real benefit to low paid unskilled workers in the east, many of whom have found employment in the west to be far less fruitful than they thought as they have struggled on poverty pay just like local workers. Some of these workers who are earning around that minimum wage here have found that rather than being the pot of gold they previously envisaged, high prices of food and rent, as well as other commodities mean that they have little left of their pay packet after buying their essential goods and have therefore not managed to save nearly as much as they would have wished.

As socialists we need to be fighting for well paid skilled jobs throughout Europe and internationally and attempt to end financial gulfs that exist between geographical areas such as the north/south divides in countries like the UK and Italy and the east/west divide throughout Europe.

Therefore whilst it is essential that socialists support and campaign for the fundamental right of a person's freedom of movement - whether for safety, economic or any other reason - we should always distinguish between these campaigns and joining in the promotion of economic migration on a neo-liberal basis where the whole process is driven by a desire for greater exploitation of workers and subsequent profits for the bosses. Because of the importance of distinguishing between these two positions, and avoiding being seen to be in the same camp as the government and bosses who are publicly the most vociferous cheerleaders of the introduction of migrant workers, it is of crucial importance how socialists take up these issues.

The simplistic use of slogans such as 'no borders', without a proper critique of the capitalist drive towards mass economic migration, is one such tactic that becomes counter productive – simply pandering to a stereotype of the left as being more concerned with minorities than majorities and dangerously leaving workers who are confused on these issues open to explanations based on reactionary prejudice.

In reality we already have a system of open borders operating within the EU, with workers free to move between EU countries in pursuit of employment. Many working class people are acutely aware of this and the subsequent impact this has had on maintaining wages at a low level. We should take care not to isolate ourselves from a crucial layer of workers who are looking for alternatives by proposing demands that run too far ahead of their consciousness.

With the impending economic crisis now widely predicted to be the worst for decades, a quick glance at history tells us that there is going to be a possibly sizeable section of the working class looking for answers to the reasons behind the turmoil who will be open to recruitment to either progressive socialist parties or to the far right. Incorrect tactics and a failure to orientate towards all sections of the working class could have possibly devastating consequences.

Nonetheless, it is equally critical that we don’t seek to avoid difficult issues in an unprincipled manner. It is important to put forward a vision of how freedom of movement would work in practice in a socialist society. Key to this is that we take a principled internationalist position in stressing the need – ultimately - for a federation of socialist states in order to be able to successfully accommodate full freedom of movement of persons and at the same time provide a high standard and quality of living for all.

While an independent socialist Scotland could achieve many advances, even in isolation without socialist allies, it would still have at least one arm tied behind its back by the constraints of operating in a capitalist world. It would be folly to suggest such a small country could substantially alleviate the problems of the world's poor by providing everyone on Earth who wants one a job on an £8.50 minimum wage as well as high quality and affordable accommodation and public services. To argue otherwise would lead to us being seen as instantly losing the debate in the public eye and so a more transitional approach is needed on the question. A more appropriate series of demands would be that an independent socialist Scotland could guarantee to be a safe point of refuge for all those fleeing persecution from tyrannical regimes across the world, that we would end the disgraces that are the Dungavel detention centre and dawn raids, and allow all immigrants, migrant workers and asylum seekers coming to Scotland the right to work and participate fully in civil society. At the same time an independent socialist Scotland would end the gangster-capitalist exploitation of the two tier workforce and campaign for a decent minimum wage across Europe.

Should we label all asylum and immigration laws as being inherently racist? Such an approach lacks a class analysis which should be at the forefront of a socialist viewpoint on any topic. That immigration and asylum laws are still used and interpreted in a racist manner and that we need to drive racism both out of the system and out of the public debate is not in doubt, but the fundamental form of discrimination that lies behind our immigration system is that of elitism. The government's points based system makes no distinction on grounds of race but differentiates on grounds of qualifications. It is far more likely that a highly skilled black professional from an African country would be admitted entry to the UK under this system before somebody from a non EU European country who left school with no qualifications and has not worked since. The most striking contrast between who will and who will not be granted entry into countries around the world is that of the amount of material wealth one possesses. Poorer people will always find it more difficult to travel internationally, whereas the rich are free to travel the world unopposed as freely as they wish.

At the moment it is difficult to tell whether immigration from Eastern Europe will continue at current levels. Some evidence suggests that rates of people moving from countries such as Poland are slowing down, with increasing numbers moving home. Less low paid workers could come in future after learning of the hardships of those which have gone before them. The likelihood though is that the addition of Romanian and Bulgarian workers will keep up the trend of migration for a few years to come.

These years are likely to present great opportunities for socialists, but as previously stated also our opponents - who will increasingly scapegoat immigrants as the main reason for the decline in living conditions caused by the global economic downturn. At all times over the coming years we must become bolder in our criticisms of capitalism as an international economic system that is rotten to the core and handcuffed by its own contradictions. At the same time we must skilfully project an image of what an alternative socialist society and democratically planned economy would look like.

The same appeal must be made to all workers irrespective of nationality or colour: our common problems will only ever be finally overcome when we unite to consign capitalism as a social power to its transitory place in history, to be replaced with a federation of democratic socialist states.