The rebellion in the United States against the Bush administration's essentially xenophobic reform of the immigration laws has attracted some interest in Europe at a time when mass east-west migration from the new member states is coming to the fore as an issue in the politics of most EU countries.

These issues have proved difficult for the left, which is caught on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, most of us have, and with good reason, a long history of standing out for open immigration policies. In Britain, for instance, migration from the Caribbean, the Indian sub-continent and other former imperial possessions was actively encouraged by both Labour and Conservative governments in the years of labour shortage which followed the Second World War. When this policy changed as jobs became scarcer, the attitude of the left generally developed into one of solidarity with the migrant communities. In Britain, at least, these migrants and their children were full citizens. This does not, of course, negate racism, or the fact that people of colour continue to find themselves, in addition to suffering other forms of discrimination, in the worst jobs, on the lowest income levels. It did, however, mean that the trade union movement and Labour Party were able, over time, to embrace the idea that the way to prevent people of foreign origin from being used, to the detriment of all workers, as cheap labourer, was to take action against racist practices. As for the left, the general view was that it was racism that was the problem, and not immigration. Again, this is not to say that the white left was not sometimes guilty of inadvertent racist practices, or of exhibiting some aspects of the consciousness produced by imperialism. Openly, however, on the policy level, the left was anti-racist and committed to civil and social equality. Being in favour of a more-or-less open immigration policy went along with this. In thirty-five years of reading British left writings and talking to people in the movement I cannot recall a single instance of anyone suggesting that, as people from low wage economies might be willing to undercut indigenous workers' wages, their entry should be restricted. Until, that is, very recently.

Personally, as an Englishman who has lived abroad since the early 1990's - first in Belgium and now in France - and who has in the past come close to accepting a job in the US, I have always argued that people ought to be allowed the simple freedom of living wherever the hell they liked. Until the events of the last couple of years, I would have been unreservedly sympathetic to anyone arguing more or less that position, as I have seen some on the US left do in response to Bush's racist approach to immigration. For example, New Jersey labour lawyer Bennet Zurofsky wrote a passionate piece in reply to accusations that he was "supporting illegal aliens" who came to the US "to take jobs at low wages." He admitted, in fact, to doing just that, and on the ground that they were "human beings who have a right at natural law to earn a living and because, for the most part, they have little choice but to accept the work they do." Zurofsky argued, forcefully and correctly, that an "employee who finds him or herself forced to work for substandard pay under substandard conditions should not be declared a felon for doing so" as Bush's bill would require. It was not these "undocumented immigrants" who were "responsible for lowering the wages and benefits of unionized labour", but "the employers who decide to pay low wages and benefits... Nothing forces an employer to place profits over what I believe should be its duty to pay at least a living wage, including family health and retirement benefits, to all of its employees."

Zurofsky's statement that "There are minimum standards of decency, call them human rights if you will, that every person should be entitled to and those include the right to live a decent life, with a family that you can afford to educate, food on the table, health care, a bed and a roof, support enabling the disabled who cannot work to live a decent life, and a retirement that is not characterized by need" accords with a socialist 'minimum program' for which, short of social revolution, we should surely all be fighting, whether in the world's richest country or its poorest. And, as he added, "If these things are not provided by the government through taxation of corporations and the wealthy then they should be provided by employment. Every employee should be paid at least enough to provide all of those things to him and herself and to his or her entire family."
Unfortunately it is precisely this truth which is making the effects on labour migration of the accession of the former Soviet bloc countries of central and eastern Europe so difficult for the labour movement, including the left, in what have now become the host economies of the west. That it occurs at a time of rising racism and far right political activity adds to the problem. The contradictions are stark: to the south, people attempting to migrate to Europe from the ravaged economies of west Africa are met by barbed wire, surveillance towers and machine gun-toting guards. At the same time, the European Commission, the EU's unelected executive, pressurizes the member states into dropping any requirement for work permits for people from Poland and its neighbours.
In the last few years, African migrants have become scapegoats for the problems of the EU's mismanaged and increasingly deregulated economies. Like the United States, Spain in particular has become dependent on migrant labour to work in its tomato plantations, orchards and market gardens. Migrant labour is essential to European capitalism. Yet just as in the US, the migrant labour force in Europe is constantly harassed, threatened, and criminalized. Those who employ them on illegally low wages, or house them in death traps such as the three which burnt down in quick succession in the Paris area at the end of last year, go unpunished.

In this context, interpreting a demand that western EU member states abandon any attempt to control entry to their labour markets as one based on internationalist solidarity would be a serious error. The scale of what is occurring beggars belief. Over 300,000 Polish and Latvian workers have arrived in Ireland in a very short space of time, for example - and this in a country with a population of a little over ten times that figure. In one spectacular case, Irish Ferries announced a plan to replace 600 employees with cheaper labour from eastern Europe. In Britain, airport caterers Gate Gourmet, most of whose employees were women of South Asian origin, did the same. Poland is losing so much labour that they have applied to the European Commission to be allowed to admit workers from outside the EU - mostly from the Ukraine - to replace it. The missing Poles are in the main young people with at least a high school education and often training in a skill or profession. They can make higher wages competing for unskilled work in the west, however, so while wages are being driven down in 'Old Europe', the new member states are suffering from labour shortages in key sectors. From Latvia, for example, over 50,000 of a population of under two million have decamped.
Cynical displacement of workers by new recruits on lower rates of pay has become commonplace in Britain and Ireland, where labour protection is notoriously weak, but is also occurring in countries with strong social-democratic traditions. A Swedish case currently before the EU's European Court of Justice (ECJ) provides an example. Latvian company Laval has been refurbishing a school in Vaxholm, near Stockholm, using its own workers. The Swedish Building Workers Union demanded that the collective agreement which covers all building workers in Sweden be applied. Laval refused, referring to a Latvian collective agreement under which workers were paid about a third of the Swedish wage and lacked adequate insurance. The EU's internal market Commissioner, Charlie McCreevy has said that the Commission fully backs the Latvian company, warning that "if member states continue to shield themselves from foreign... competition, then I fear that the internal market will begin to dissolve." In other words, In McCreevy's view, the controversial Directive on Services in the Internal Market, which is yet to be approved, will merely consolidate a company's right to pay its workers what it would have paid them back home. As Americans you may think that you live in the world's most liberalized economy. Yet even if Mexican firms were building office blocks in downtown Chicago using imported Mexican workers on Mexican rates of pay under Mexican standards of health and safety, good old Europe could compete.

As the leader of Sweden's biggest trade union confederation has said, were these norms to be accepted, "What until now have been regarded as fundamental rights of workers in all democratic states would be undermined in the name of free movement."

One of the countries which has been subject to a mass influx of labour is the Netherlands. A proposal to remove all remaining restrictions on May 1 has now been deferred, but work permits will no longer be required from the beginning of next year. The most left-wing party in the Dutch Parliament, the Socialist Party (SP) is calling for the permits to be retained until action is taken to prevent displacement and exploitation. The SP's leader in the Senate, where it has five members (from a total of 100) explains that the party's "position in relation to open borders is that we only want to admit workers from the new member states if and when the government can give guarantees that they will be treated equally, enjoying the same rights, wages and conditions as workers here. It isn't a matter of their nationality. It's a question of whether they are being brought in in order to bypass collective work agreements which in our country are negotiated nationally and cover entire industries or trades. This is at present happening on a very large scale, and amongst the first to suffer are Dutch people from Turkish or Moroccan backgrounds who are being forced from the labour market, along with workers in the building industry and truckers. The importation of underpaid workers from eastern Europe is also a direct threat to the least educated Dutch youth, many of whom are themselves the sons and daughters of immigrants."

All EU member states now have minimum wages, though these are in some cases poorly policed. Even enforcement of such minima, however, would not solve the problem. Higher rates of pay fixed by collective work agreements, even where these may be backed by law, are notoriously difficult to enforce, as workers can simply be falsely categorized or classed, bogusly, as "self-employed", a problem which has long plagued the building industry in western Europe. Wages of $10 an hour are now widespread in countries where properly organised building workers can expect to earn a good living wage, with other benefits on top. In other sectors, notoriously the harvesting of vegetables and fruit, rates can be as low as $4 p.h.

The solution is to recognise that what seems as if it ought to be a fundamental right, to move freely around the world and, at the very least, to sell your labour to the highest bidder, is in our capitalist reality transformed into a cynical manipulation by a European elite determined to destroy the gains of two centuries of social and economic struggle, and to do it in time-honoured fashion, by pitting worker against worker. The response must be for labour unionists to get together across borders and across national and cultural barriers to decide how, together, we can fight back. In Ireland and the Netherlands progressive labour unionists have helped migrant workers to understand and enforce their rights under national law, organizing joint demonstrations and meetings. There should of course be no question of any worker being subject to punitive measures: those who should be punished are the employers who pay below the going rate. The SP's proposal is that the labour inspectorate step up enforcement of collective work agreements and force any employer who is not paying the going rate to compensate the worker who has been underpaid directly, whatever his or her nationality or legal status in the country.
Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington, DC, commenting on Bush's proposed anti-immigrant law, said, "Immigration is a bilateral issue very much involving Mexico, and must be addressed as such, with comprehensive strategies that treat not just the symptoms (illegal workers in the U.S.) but the illness as well (Latin America's lack of inclusive economic growth)." In Europe, the same applies, but we cannot wait for governments to take such action. The new member states have been admitted in order to lock them into a role as Europe's very own Mexico. It is the responsibility of the left, and labour, to make sure this does not succeed.
Steve McGiffen is spectrezine's editor. This article was written for the Chicago Socialists' webzine Strike

See also

http://www.spectrezine.org/europe/hayes.htm