Defending migrant workers

When I think of migrant workers I tend, like a lot of people I know, to think of migrants to the UK. However migrant workers are often the most vulnerable workers no matter which country they're in, and it's worth being reminded of that occasionally to help get that wider perspective that it isn't just a racist immigration system, it's an immigration system that's there to benefits employers not their employees.

When browsing the viral video awards I noticed the following YouTube campaign video on the rights of migrant workers in the Middle East and think it's well worth watching (and voting for);



You can also see how migration is used to benefit the rich when you have big business challenging the government in court over the immigration cap. Those businesses clearly need both immigration and the laws that keep those migrants at a disadvantage.

The dividing line between the left and the rich is not on whether migration should be allowed but how immigrants should be treated - with big business keen to have immigration controls that work in their favour, and the left is keen to have an immigration system that ensures people are treated equally, no matter what colour their passport.

Where's this fresh new Labour Party then?

Personally I think Labour is going through a bit of an opposition bounce. They seem happier in themselves now they're not in charge of any wars or recessions, which has resulted in a detectable spring in their step in some quarters. Also some voters who had strayed from the fold seem to be tentatively returning to their old pastures.

I'm not detecting any specific Ed Miliband bounce though among party members, which is hardly surprising as he wasn't the members' choice for leader.

During the leadership election there weren't many highs or interesting points, but one of them was certainly Ed Balls' clarity over taking a new direction on the economy. I have many critical things to say about the man, as we'll come to, but I think he showed himself to be both an articulate and passionate advocate for a more left field economic strategy.

He seemed to want to put investment in public services and protecting ordinary people from these devastating cuts before this imaginary 'need' to cut the deficit right down, right now. I even developed some respect for the man. I think we can do much better, but he won a great deal of respect from former critics for his robust and brave approach which cut against the Westminster consensus.

Sadly, his virtues were seen as vices to the new leader, and having outlined an entirely different economic approach to New Labour's coy 'not quite so hard, not quite so fast' rhetoric Miliband was in a position where he either appointed Balls as shadow treasurer and adopted his position, or appointed someone entirely unBallslike in his stead in order to keep ploughing the same furrow. Miliband chose the steady option with Alan Johnson.

So where to put him?

Having refused to place the best candidate for chancellor in the shadow chancellor slot he faced a new problem - where to put Balls that was high enough that it didn't look like a purge of his rivals but where Balls could not pronounce on the economy. The Home Office.

Sadly Ed Balls is bloody awful on immigration and has a track record that would make any decent person blush on the issue. During the leadership race he raised the 'immigration problem' more than once and came up with such delightful ideas of preventing 'remittances', where immigrants send money home to their families living in poverty, which would directly result in misery in some of the poorest communities on Earth.

So now not only has Ed Miliband in one stroke refused to take a more left leaning approach to the economy he's appointed one of the most anti-immigrant Labour candidates to make pronouncements on immigration. Where's Miliband's fresh new approach?

To make matters worse Phil Woolas, who is utter scum, and has been at the forefront of Ministerial racism for some time has been appointed to hold Balls' coat while he kicks the heads of migrant workers. The man should have been expelled from the party years ago, not rewarded with a shadow cabinet post.

What a disgrace that Ed Miliband has taken a conscious choice not just to reject fresh new thinking on the economy, but has embraced two of the least deserving MPs to become his spokespersons on immigration. Not just old thinking, but some of the most backwards and rancid old thinking you can find.

Don't let the old parties divide our communities

David Cameron may think that the negative debate on immigration is new (or at least he says that, despite having a hand in the notorious Tory slogan "are you thinking what we're thinking?") but dog whistle politics on race is nothing new.

Sadly at this election we have a choice of three flavours of reactionary immigration policies, all working from the same set of assumptions. Immigration, they say, is a problem.

All these nurses and street sweepers and farm workers and plumbers who are coming over here and providing services we've been unable to provide for ourselves are, apparently, people to regarded with suspicion and monitored like hawks.

Even the Lib Dems have proposed extraordinarily illiberal measures to monitor where people are allowed to live and restrict people to specific regions - a policing measure we have not had in this country since feudalism.

All these parties lump immigration in with crime, as if somehow coming from a different place is in some way anti-social in itself. Many of the individual candidates for these parties are not out and out racists themselves but they are all happy to use the fear of immigration to further their own personal political careers.

In this country we detain children for the crime of coming from a different country. Will we hear the leaders denounce this disgusting situation? No, they'll talk of caps, of bad immigration, of how tough their record is.

In this country we deport people to countries where their lives are at risk. Many of these people end up dead, tortured, raped or jailed - all with the complicity of the UK state. You'll not hear the leaders express one note of concern about this.

When you go into the polling booth on Thursday week I'd like to ask one favour of you. Before you place your cross in one of those boxes think about which of the candidates before you has been willing to play along with the right-wing press on their vile immigration rhetoric and which of them has spoken out.

Immigration is not the only issue at this election, but the very nature of the debate has meant that those arguing for more liberal immigration controls have been crowded out by the suffocating consensus at the 'top' of politics that treats migrants as a problem to be managed rather than welcome guests who benefit our country.

Save Anselme Noumbiwa

Anselme Noumbiwa has been detained on 14 April 2010 and is in great danger of being deported on a so-called “charter flight” to Cameroon on Wednesday 21 April 2010.We cannot rely on the Icelandic ash to keep him in the relative safety of Colnbrook Detention Centre forever.

He should not be detained or deported because he is still waiting for the medico-legal report of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Torture Victims to submit as evidence for his claim for asylum. As always the government is in unseemly haste to remove someone before they have had the chance to have a proper hearing.

Anselme fled Cameroon in 2006 because on the death of his father, the village Chief, he was expected to 'marry' his father's wives. He suffered brutal treatment at the hands of the village notables when he would not adhere to tribal traditions, preferring instead to identify himself with Christian ethics.

The Home Office has accepted his story, but he was told that he could relocate within Cameroon and would be safe. This is not the case, as the influence of powerful members of his tribe reaches beyond the area where he lived. If he is sent back to Cameroon, he will be in mortal danger. He must be allowed to stay in the UK.

Please urgently fax the Home Secretary your support for Anselme to have his removal cancelled. Always quote the Home Office reference number N1126839. You can download the model letter here

Send by fax or email to: Alan Johnson MP (Home Secretary)
Fax: 020 8760 3132 (00 44 20 8760 3132 if you are faxing from outside UK)

Email:

• UKBApublicenquiries@UKBA.gsi.gov.uk
• CITTO@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
• Privateoffice.external@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

For updates you can follow him on twitter (from the detention centre) or visit the NCADC website.

Asylum seekers should be welcome here

Another tragic reminder of the human cost of our government's policy on refugees and asylum seekers. Three people dead by their own hands because of the unnecessary cruelty and bureaucratic nightmare that they were forced to go through.

I hope their deaths can go some way to moving public opinion to force the government to take a more humane approach towards those seeking shelter and a new home. It doesn't matter which side of any line on a map you were born. People are still people, unless perhaps they work for the Home Office.

You gotta laugh: immigration controls

Earlier in the week I wrote an article in the Morning Star for the end of immigration controls. Often this is called 'no borders' although I deliberately steered clear of using the jargon.

Tomorrow's edition of the Star carries a letter by Stephen Lee insisting my position is "laughable", "utopian" and that my piece is "no way to make allies". Apparently I'm not realistic.

He might be right... you decide.

Passenger protest rescues refugees from deportation

The NCADC reports that refugee Rose-Jane Wanjohi and her UK-born daughter Natale were saved from deportation after passengers on the plane they were due to be flown out of the country in refused to allow the plane to take off.

Rose-Jane and Natale were taken from detention and "escorted" onto a British Airways flight by four security guards this morning. Meanwhile, supporters were leafleting passengers about to board British Airways Flight BA65 to Nairobi.

The leaflets explained that a fellow-passenger and baby were being taken against their will into extreme danger. As Rose-Jane sat on the plane, several passengers refused to fasten their seat belts. The pilot would not take off until it was resolved, and so Rose-Jane and Natale were taken from the plane.

Speaking from the van taking her back to the detention centre, Rose-Jane told NCADC: "I don't know what to say. I am so happy. I would like to thank my friends, and thank the people on the plane, for saving my life and my daughter. Thank you so much. God bless you."

Rose-Jane and Natale are not out of danger yet but are now back in the relative safety of Yarls Wood.

It's so good to hear happy news sometimes and this points to how even in the most desperate circumstances we can win sometimes. With the dedicated work of NCADC campaigners and the support of "ordinary" members of the public it really is possible to stop the state in its tracks.

French Greens statement on Calais jungle

Yesterday there was a small but lively protest outside the French embassy in protest against the events in Calais. Below is a picture of some Greens with the embassy behind them taken by Louise who has some more here.


The French Greens have issued a statement on the events which I thought you might be interested in seeing.

Calais: hide the misery that we could not see

The dramatic evacuation of the "jungle" is an inhumane and unnecessary PR exercise that does not solve the underlying problem.

The closure of Sangatte, as we predicted, merely moved the problem. It will be the same for the sweep of Calais.

The vast majority of refugees had left before the police arrived. As for those arrested, what will become of them? Will they be returned to countries at war where they risk death, in spite of international conventions. What will happen to the children? The problem has been masked temporarily and will reappear.

The French and European governments must accept their responsibilities towards the human drama of the Kurdish and Afghan refugees and give them asylum, rather than sweeping them away with bulldozers.

We must fully restore the Geneva Convention in Europe instead of choosing the strategy of terror and despair.

This media event was highly political. As with every election, the government is quick to stir up migration issues.

Djamila Sonzogni, Jean-Louis Roumégas

From Scotland to Calais, immigration is not the problem

We're having a bout of immigrant bashing at the moment in the British Press. Baroness Scotland hired an illegal immigrant who'd forged her documents (and apparently that means Scotland has to resign) and the French authorities have been rounding up illegals in Calais which has made our Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, praise the "swift and decisive operation" which has filled him with "delight".

We push people to the margins of society, forbid them from working then harangue them for claiming benefits. We force people to live like animals then despise them for the conditions we have put them in. It's inhuman.

The camp in Calais is particularly disgusting where human beings, including kids, live in the most appalling conditions because we refuse to welcome them, despite the fact that immigrants are an overwhelming benefit to society.

We should not prevent people from becoming citizens and then use their second class status and poverty as evidence that they are less than us. We are less than them if we approve the morally squalid attitude that a person can be a non-person if they were born in a different place than us.

We're told that 278 people have been rounded up, of whom 132 are children, all of whom have been offered a once in a lifetime offer of "voluntary repatriation" back to Afghanistan, Iraq and Eritrea. Bet they can't wait.

The French immigration minister, Eric Besson, justified the misery the raids had caused saying that "The real world is not happy." Not with him in it it isn't anyway.

In the Scotland affair Labour MP Stephen Hesford, parliamentary aide to the government law officers, has resigned his minor bag carrier post because, although he has "great personal regard" for Lady Scotland, he felt she should have left her post."In my view, the facts of the case do not matter."

What a wonderful example he's setting he's setting to officers of the law - the facts do not matter. Watertight argument on display, let's make him a judge.

I'd say the facts of this case, as with any legal case, do matter. A lot. Her employee had forged documents and was settled in a long term partnership with someone she knew, and she committed no criminal offence. to hear some people talk you'd have thought she was a people trafficker. What the case does do is highlight how easily it is to turn someone who was a value for money worker (far be it from me to suggest Baroness Scotland would pay poverty wages) into a non-person.

One day she's a productive and useful member of society the next even having contact with her is a sacking offence for the great and the good. how little it took to turn her into an untouchable. As the Tories and Lib Dems use this woman as a stick to beat the government they do nothing to improve conditions for some of the most vulnerable people in this country.

I was very pleased to see Caroline Lucas launch a stinging attack on the way the authorities have treated those in the Calais camp and I think we should take this further. When Caroline states that "It is disgusting that vulnerable people from some of the world's most troubled countries are treated so inhumanely on European soil" for me that's not just about those in Calais it includes Scotland's housekeeper.

Only stupid immigrants need apply

So anti-immigration Minister Phil Woolas has announced his new points system for migrant workers.

No surprises to see that the new system is intended to make the life of migrant workers more difficult and essentially legitimises the propaganda of the racists. "Qualifying for citizenship will become harder, and applicants will be judged by various factors, including their ability to speak English."

When interviewed on Radio Four the Minister said that;

"We think it's right to say if we are asking the new citizen, as incidentally other countries around the world do, to have an oath of allegiance to that country, that it's right to try to define in some objective terms what that means. And clearly an acceptance of the democratic rule of law and the principle behind that we think is important and we think it's fair to ask that."

But, when it was pointed out that demonstrating was not illegal, Woolas suggested that an applicant could also lose points not just for breaking the law – but also for engaging in certain activities that were legal.

Sarah Montague, the presenter, asked: "Are you effectively saying to people who want to have a British passport, 'You can have one, and when you've got one you can demonstrate as much as you like, but until then don't'?"

Woolas replied: "In essence, yes. In essence we are saying that the test that applies to the citizen should be broader than the test that applies to the person who wants to be a citizen. I think that's a fair point of view, to say that if you want to come to our country and settle, you should show that adherence."

You see he knows protesting is meant to be illegal, but he'd forgotten it wasn't actually against the law. As an aside I can't help reading the words "show that adherence" without assuming he said it in a Dalek voice. <> I could be wrong of course.

So it appears that if you want our freedoms you must not rock the boat, like going on political protests, because protesting against the government is anti-British and does not accept the "democratic rule of law". Leaving aside the fact that chilling phrase I think Mr Woolas is making two very basic errors here.

First of all it is not anti-British to oppose foreign policy disasters. Protest is one of the reasons why democracies are more effective than dictatorships, because the people can assist the government by letting them know when they're being wankers. It's helpful and gives the government an opportunity to correct their mistakes rather than repeating them over and over again.

I'm not saying they'll take that opportunity but it creates that possibility.

Secondly, he confuses the government with the people, which is possibly connected to his understanding of democracy as a place where everyone does what the government tells them to do.

More British people protested against the Iraq invasion than protested against anything else in the entirety of human history. If there's one sort of demonstration that definitely *is* British, it's an anti-war one. We should be giving immigrants extra points for dissent not taking them away.

Signing a petition - that's one point.
Going on a demo - that's two.
Go on strike - that's twenty.
Occupy Phil Woolas' office and you're made a member of the Royal family.

After all, how else are we to instill British values in those guests new to our country? They might not know that you're *supposed* to oppose the government, they might not know it's the *duty* of every citizen to speak out for what they believe in.

Phil Woolas is trying to undermine the British way of life by making us all good little boys and girls who just do what they're told without making a fuss. That's not our way and never has been. Woolas wants deference but frankly the age is more suited to defiance.

Sink the BNP

Nick Griffin is a very horrible man. There I've said it! Just call me an iconoclast why don't you?

Tonight he told the BBC that we should sink boats with refugees coming from Africa. BBC Correspondent Shirin Wheeler replied: "I don't think the EU is in the business of murdering people at sea."

But Shirin need not have worried, Griffin still has a generous heart because once we've holed their craft we're then to "Throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya". Ah, what a sweetie, he doesn't even want to arbitrarily massacre them.

Forgive the nit picking if you will but I do think this plan to sink someone's raft and then give them a raft - thus "preventing" them reaching Europe - may not be as watertight as Griffin believes, but that's by the by.

Griffin would like to see us link up with the Italians (whose current government contains many of Griffin's co-thinkers) and "set up a force which actually blocks the Mediterranean". I think it's fair to say I'm not in favour of this. Mainly because it's petty minded knee jerk nonsense that wont solve a single social problem we face today whilst introducing a whole new swath of violent injustices making the world a more foul smelling place.

Anyway, we can expect Nick "I'm not a racist but" Griffin to be popping up in the news time and again over the next few years and there's no doubt he will be attempting to convert the currently existing racism in society into support for his organisation.

Unite Against Fascism have produced an analysis document on how to combat the fascists in this new period. It's a bit self serving in places but I think it's worth reading. In general I think this is a useful piece much of which I'd agree with. I do think the left in general has some rethinking to do, the old truisms don't fit anymore.

For instance at one point UAF say "Fascist parties such as the BNP stand in elections in order to gain a “respectable” cover for their street activity." I just don't think this fits right now.

BNP street activity is almost zero and they have been courting 'respectability' for many years now. We are not seeing is the resurgence of the kind of 'street activity' we saw with the National Front in the seventies.

That is not to say that the BNP's presence does not stoke racist attacks, it does, but party organised street activities just aren't part of the BNP's current strategy, nor have they been for many years. They are unlikely to change that approach at the very time when they have seen their most successful national election ever.

It's an important point because it determines the kind of response the anti-fascist movement has to prioritise. If the BNP is shifting its focus to demonstrations and the like then we might start making bulk orders of farm fresh, free range double yolkers. If that's not how they are trying to build support then the tactics of physical confrontation can only be the smallest part of our response.

As the UAF state "The danger today is that the BNP breaks through the “cordon sanitaire” to become a regular fixture in our media." That's the danger we're facing right now it seems to me. That the BNP are grasping for platforms and respectability for their vile opinions and after the disastrous elections the media will provide that.

How we shift tactics to deal with this new stage is a really important question and one that will be discussed at the UAF national conference on Saturday 18 July in Manchester: details (pdf). An alternative view worth reading on this subject is Nick Lowles of Searchlight here.

LSE: immigration is good for you

The London School of Economics has brought out a report saying that an amnesty for illegal immigrants would benefit the economy to the tune of three billion pounds. It's not often you'd get a financial reward for doing the right thing, but in this case apparently it is so.

After pushing from the Greens Mayor Boris Johnson commissioned the study and he has welcomed it's findings. According to the BBC Mr Johnson said:

"This new report has introduced some long overdue facts, hard evidence and academic rigour into a debate which has far too often been dominated by myth, anecdote and hearsay.

"So, far from a financial burden, as some suggest, this new research has found an amnesty could be worth up to £3bn a year to the country's economy.

"The study also demolishes the argument that an amnesty would inevitably lead to increased migration to the UK and identifies effective border controls as the vital factor in controlling and deterring illegal immigration."

Which is so far beyond what I would have expected the Tory Mayor to say I think it would be churlish to do anything but approve. Sadly the Labour government has responded by saying an amnesty is simply out of the question.

It certainly comes to something when a Conservative Mayor is more progressive on immigration of all things than the Labour Party. What we need to hear now is strong Labour voices, particularly in London, supporting the proposal and demanding action from their government before Cameron gets in and that's the end of their influence for a generation.

SOAS occupation: chaos the better virtue

Just got back from SOAS where around thirty people are occupying the director's office in support of those cleaners who were arrested by immigration police on Friday.

The cleaners, who work for private company ISS, were called into a dawn meeting by management on Friday morning. The police, who were laying in wait for them, swooped out and seized nine cleaners - my understanding is that six have now been deported and three others are under threat of deportation, including a woman who is six month's pregnant and a sick woman in her sixties who had a heart attack whilst in custody.

The company who is in a struggle to break the union had previously sacked the grassroots trade unionist Stalin Bermudez who had been waging a very effective campaign for a decent living wage for cleaners at SOAS and elsewhere. This move is clearly part of finishing the union off by deporting trouble makers and cowing the others.

Immigration controls are often used to divide and rule with migrant workers being among the most vulnerable and most poorly paid. The answer is not to demand British Jobs for British Workers but to throw an arm around migrant workers and ensure they get paid the same, are welcomed into the unions and that any attempt to use immigration laws against trade unionists is resisted tooth and nail.

The management was clearly complicit in the arrests at best and helped organise them at worst. The university was informed that the police were coming and they gave permission for the raid to take place and, to some unknown extent, assisted in the ambush that had been laid for their staff.

The demonstration that was called for this morning heard from various excellent speakers one of whom compared these cleaners to the tolpuddle martyrs. Of course the comparison is not exactly direct - after all the martyrs were given a trial before they were deported.

At this point the SOAS workers attending the demo announced they were to hold a union meeting and someone else suggested we put our demands to the management direct, so around thirty to forty of us marched up to the director's office and had a bit of a business meeting with him.

We discussed his role in the arrests, his support for farming out cleaning to a private company, what he could have done to prevent the arrests and what he was willing to do to repair the damage that had been done. It was an emotional meeting on both sides, the director was clearly unhappy with having his office occupied and a bunch of plebs talking to him like an equal and we were unhappy that trade unionists had been deported to Latin American countries including Colombia.

We also put it to him that Stalin Bermudez should be reinstated. He disagreed. Read the full list of demands here.

Now I have a confession. Even as we marched into office I was thinking 'oh, I really need the loo' and eventually I couldn't take it anymore and nipped out to get some relief. It's not the most heroic episode of the day I grant you but wetting myself might have been misinterpreted and certainly a little anti-social for those who'd have to share a cramped space with me so I think it was for the best.

By the time I came back the door was locked and there was a guard posted there not allowing anyone back into the occupied zone. It was all non-violent direct action so it just wouldn't have been appropriate to karate chop the guard down and kick open the door, although if Hollywood ever make a big screen version they might like to write that bit in.

Instead I hung about outside the door and told people who were thinking of leaving that they wouldn't be able to get back in, which meant a couple of people didn't come a cropper at least. Eventually the occupation asked the director to leave as they had things to be getting on with and after a bit of toing and froing that's what happened.

Banners were hung up out the windows and it looked like the occupation was settling down nicely for the duration by the time I left. The fact of the matter is these are serious issues and time is very short indeed. When management collude with the police to victimise migrant workers we don't have the time to observe certain niceties as in some cases this is literally life and death.

At one point the director objected to the idea that he should not have assisted the immigration police because it would have "caused chaos". One woman replied from the crowd said "In this case chaos would have been the better virtue" and I could not agree more.

The anarchic nature of the forcible meeting with the director (where one woman suggested to the director's face that the French had a good idea when they kidnapped their bosses) and the occupation were at times a little, cough, ad hoc, but where it occasionally lacked sharpness this was more than made up for in energy and direction of purpose.

If we are to gain justice for migrant workers we have to act. SOAS management have it within their power to protect their workforce from victimisation, sadly it does not seem that this is something to which they will willingly agree.

Links:

Simple acts campaign, strangers into citizens, no one is illegal, national coalition of anti-deportation campaigns, Justice for SOAS cleaners.

Twitter updates. (Thanks to Tami for the photo of the inside of the occupation)
Please also sign the petition.
Some video footage.

SOAS workers arrested

Earlier today nine cleaners at SOAS were arrested. The staff, mainly of Ecuadorian and possibly Colombian origin, have been arrested and are being processed for deportation as part of an anti-union campaign at the school.

A demonstration had been organised at SOAS this morning in support of Stalin Bermudez, the SOAS Unison branch chair, who was sacked earlier this year after a highly controversial disciplinary process. A Unison representative arrived at the college, just off Russell Square, at 7am this morning to discover a number of immigration control officers who had detained and were processing cleaning staff, and interrogating them about their status. The union received no prior warning.

The Green Party has pledged its full support for the staff, and Jean Lambert MEP is already in contact with the union, who are arranging legal representation. Unison and UCU were holding an emergency meeting to decide on subsequent action.

Jean Lambert, London’s newly re-elected Green Party MEP, said:

“The circumstances and aims of this raid are utterly deplorable. These cleaning staff have been treated like criminals, and the timing of the raid is particularly reprehensible – first thing in the morning at the end of the university term, with fewer people around to intervene. Luckily, the union has been on hand to help arrange legal assistance for those arrested, and it is also fortunate that the demonstration – ironically called to highlight existing concerns about the treatment of SOAS staff – meant that this raid was noticed and immediate steps could be taken.

“I reiterate and reinforce the support already pledged by the Green Party, and I will be monitoring this case and its outcomes closely. Today’s events highlight the need to find ways for people to regularise their status so that their vital contribution to London and society in general is recognised. It also makes the Strangers Into Citizens campaign, organised by London Citizens, still more urgent.”

Graham Dyer, Lecturer in Economics of Developing Countries and SOAS UCU Chair said:

“It is no co-incidence that there is an immigration raid at a time when the UCU, Unison and the NUS are fighting against the victimisation of a migrant worker who has been at the heart of a fight that has improved the pay and conditions of workers here at SOAS. It is also not coincidental that ISS had only just signed a union recognition agreement with UNISON last week. Our fight has united lecturers, staff and students and has rocked SOAS management. Those managers are now lashing out. It is a disgrace that SOAS management saw fit to use a seat of learning to intimidate migrant workers. This is their underhand revenge and we will do all we can to stop migrant workers paying the price.”

The film director Ken Loach said:

"This raid is the action of a bully. Migrant workers are amongst the most vulnerable - poorly paid and far from home. Recent action by Unison to secure better wages and conditions at SOAS was good news. Now we wonder if the SOAS cleaners are being targeted because they dared to organise as trade unionists. We should all stand with them in solidarity in the face of this victimisation."

Support the Strangers into citizens campaign for a migrant workers' amnesty.

Follow developments at Solomon's Minefield.

Strangers into citizens

Went to the Strangers into Citizens rally today and a very worthwhile use of a bank holiday Monday it was too. I'm useless at counting numbers but Trafalgar Square was teaming with people and the demonstration itself (or themselves, there were a load of feeder demos) was extremely lively. I'll leave it to someone else to guess how many tens of thousands were there.

The event was to call for a one off amnesty for illegal immigrants (or irregular migrants if you're that way inclined) recognising the economic and cultural contribution that these workers make to this country. They put it like this; "Out of degradation into dignity. Out of the shadows into the light. Let’s turn strangers into citizens." Wonderful.

Carnival atmosphere

At the assembly point for my feeder demo I hung out with the Zimbabwe MDC for a bit - they really showed how people should behave on demos and essentially danced and sang their way through the whole thing. And I mean proper singing and dancing, not "Here we go".

I saw a number of Latin American contingents who were dressed up to the nines and were marching in step using traditional dance. There was a genuine carnival atmosphere - particularly lovely was when I got to the rally point and the Asian Dub Foundation were in the full swing of Fortress Europe - ooh that made my heart beat faster!

Flag waving for justice

A couple of interesting things. My bit of the demo had huge numbers of people waving Union Jacks, which was slightly disconcerting. I saw one banner for Algerian Refugees that was one huge Union Flag and frankly I'm not going to be the one to say that's wrong. Context is everything and if people want to use national symbols to help them press for being treated as equal citizens, well that makes sense to me even if I'm not used to it.

Although when a rousing chorus of God Save the Queen went up I did find myself rocking back and forth muttering to myself "It's alright, it's alright, they don't really mean it" although probably quite a few did. At least the BNP would would be squirming at the sight - oh they are!

Kudos to the organisers

Slight feelings of alienation aside I thought it was a fantastic event and one of the few demonstrations I actually enjoy going on. Mainly organised through religious groups and London Citizens (who are often spoken of in glowing terms) with refugee groups and anti-deportations thrown in for good measure you get a real feeling of what a progressive movement feels like.

Not that all Church goers are progressive of course but the power of civil society organisations to build movements can't be underestimated or disregarded because of their lack of full and perfect political programme.

Apologies to Jean Lambert and Darren Johnson who were both on the bill to speak but I shot off to visit the Tamils demonstrating outside the House of Commons so I didn't get to hear them speak. Just this once it was worth it to witness the joy that is Tamil kids racing round, singing, chanting and putting the older folk (you know over sixteens) to shame with the revolutionary zeal.

Photo selection here. Liam also has a report you should read here.

Academics to become immigration snoops?

There's an excellent letter in the Guardian today on the latest government wheeze to get lecturers to monitor their students. Signed by 37 academics it reads;

As academics involved in research on the uses and abuses of state power, it is becoming increasingly apparent that members of staff in universities and colleges are being drawn into a role of policing immigration (Universities weigh up new fraud unit to thwart bogus applications, 11 April). For example, academic and administrative staff are being asked to monitor the attendance of students at lectures and classes (whether compulsory or not), and we are being asked to check the ID of students and colleagues, while external examiners and visiting lecturers are also now being asked to provide passport details.

We strongly oppose the imposition of such changes in the way that academic institutions are run. We believe these practices are discriminatory and distort academic freedoms. The implementation of UK immigration policies is not part of our contractual duties and we will play no part in practices which discriminate against students and staff in this way. We support our administrative colleagues in their refusal to engage in such practices. Thus we pledge to refuse to co-operate with university requests for us to provide details on our students or participate in investigations of those students.

As a first, and highly practical, step, we pledge not to supply any personal details - such as passport or driving licence details - in our role as external examiners, and urge all of our colleagues across higher and further education to join this boycott. We will also forward motions to our respective union branches in support of this position. A boycott would undermine immediately the system of external examining at all levels, which operates almost exclusively on the basis of goodwill, and thus strike a significant blow against both the pernicious drift of government policy, and university managements' acquiescence to this.

The "terrorist threat" is the stated reason for this crack down although it seems to me that it would do precious little to prevent attacks but rather simply serve to make the education system an arm of the immigration service. That's not what it's for and, unless we actually want a police state where everyone is snooping on everyone else, I don't think it's a direction we should be taking.

If we got an official to punch every student from Pakistan in this country we might well hit some terrorist sympathisers, but to what purpose? We could guarantee that we would increase the pool of discontent that such people feed upon, but little else.

Likewise, if we clamp down on student visas it is quite possible that we may temporarily prevent a terrorist entering the country and force them to get in in a different way, an inconvenience for sure - at the cost of unjustly denying a whole load of completely innocent people entry, making our education system and our country all the poorer (both culturally and financially).

Part of the problem is the rank dishonesty of a government that uses every news story (in this case one they generated themselves) to further their already existing agenda no matter what relation that story might actually have to their goals. When they get away with it it is because we let them, not because it's a clever strategy because it isn't. It's a blunt tool, but a powerful one.

Almost always the government finds itself using fear as a lever to crack down on someone or other. Today it's students from Pakistan, tomorrow it will be travellers or trade unionists or political protesters. Or maybe that's today as well.

Immigration attitudes

A few days ago a survey came out proclaiming that voters thought the number one priority for any incoming Tory government should be to cut immigration. You can read the stats (pdf) direct or, if you just want to refer to the numbers I'm about to talk about I've created a smaller jpg just for those. Even without the Telegraph mediating the figures it doesn't make for happy reading, not for me anyway.

Mind you, according to the Telegraph, even Jesus flirted with racism although I'm not sure if they meant that showed bigotry was alright or that we should be picketing harvest festival - typical lack of clarity.

I want to pull apart some of these stats for a moment to have a closer look at the demographic Phil Woolas wants to pander to with his immigration clampdown propaganda. Specifically I want to compare it with the numbers who thought tackling climate change should be a priority, sadly a far smaller proportion of society at large.

If we look at the figures broken down by region the most striking fact is that there is little difference across the country. Scotland is the most welcoming to immigrants and the region with the lowest figure on climate change is the region that also wants to cut immigration the most - the Midlands and Wales.

It's not a massive surprise that the two areas in England that return members of the European Parliament for the Green Party score well on climate change attitudes. So this may seem like an unexciting statistic - but personally I think the absence of difference between areas is quite surprising considering that these areas do have quite significantly different attitudes to politics more generally.

Next if we look at attitudes by age we can confirm an old adage that as people age they move to the right. Alternative we might be looking at social shifts with the young more integrated and more aware of the risks to the climate that we currently face.

Whichever is the case it's clear that there is both an inverse correlation between caring about the climate and fretting over the level of immigration. It's a correlation we see in the regional breakdown - but far more clearly in the case of age.

Perhaps it would be best expressed by saying that the more you care about global issues the more welcoming you are likely to be to those from other places around the world.

History, or rather YouGov, does not record what the 2% of people who intend to vote Green thought of immigration. However, they do have a breakdown for the voters of the three main political parties. Again we can see another suspicion confirmed, that the old idea that you had Tories to the right, Labour to the left and the Liberals in the middle is simply no longer true.

Whilst Tory voters were the least concerned about climate change and the most concerned about foreigners coming in and moving things about with their sticky foreign fingers it was the Lib Dem voters who were roughly three times as concerned about the climate and half as worried about migrants as Tory voters. It's the Labour voters who sit in between the two parties, at least on these issues.

All mildly interesting I think.

The most interesting set of figures I'd like to see, which unfortunately do not as yet exist, is the the correlation between how much people want to cut immigration and how many immigrants they think are actually living in the country now. My completely unevidence based assertion would be that those who think there are more immigrants than there really are will be more likely to think there should be less of them. YouGov - get to it!

Immigration and the rights of migrants is clearly an issue that the left is going to have to address in a very muscular way over the coming couple of years seeking not just to combat the far right but shift ordinary opinion on the merits of our brothers and sisters who were born in other lands.

As a small piece of evidence to show that racism is a growing trend in the most unexpected places this video of a recent demonstration is instructive where we are treated to workers shouting "foreigners out" as part of their dispute (hat tip Lenin). On the other side of it here is Billy Bragg talking about the tension between economic struggle and nationalism drawing his own particualr conclusions.

For me the main danger is not organisations like the BNP but that we might neglect the battle of ideas in wider society. It isn't the BNP creating a pool of racism, this would be giving that small and incompetent organisation far too much credit. It simply feeds off of a pool of pre-existing bigotries. It's that pool that we must seek to drain.

Wildcat strikes: some gathered thoughts and opinions

As part of my ongoing research I've been asking "migrant workers" that I know what they think about the current wave of wildcat strikes. There are one and a half million migrant workers in the UK from the EU alone, plus something like a million more from further afield, and I think it's worth considering what they might have to say about these events.

Now, whilst I think what they had to say was interesting I'm not drawing general conclusions out of it because a) they're my friends which basically skews the sample towards cool, right on dudes and b) the sample is pretty small, although it spans four mighty continents and, accidentally, is a sample of three men and four women.

I've tried to give a representative sample of what was said and was careful when collecting this small sample of opinions not to argue with, correct or guide what they were saying - at least until they'd expressed themselves properly. There's a lot of good stuff in here I think and it's also clear they all had different approaches and thoughts about the actions. For the purposes of this exercise I'm removing names and identifying features.

Person A:

It is a legitimate protest under the grounds of discrimination, I don't like the slogan "British jobs for British workers", I saw some slogans saying that it is a case of discrimination, if we leave aside their nationalities a group of people had been sacked to give those jobs to other group. Why? Probably are cheaper? Can you imagine if the Italian workers joining to the strike? That would be wonderful. Also the strike is against the wishes of the trade union officials, that is something, is it not?

Person B:

I think it's a question of unorganised migrant workers vs organised migrant workers.

By and large, what the UK experienced, after Poland/Latvia/Lithuania et. al joined the EU was a mass migration of unorganised migrant workers trying to "live the dream" in the UK. Temp agencies (legal gangmasters) tried to cope as the intermediaries between them and light assembly factory work/agricultural work. Criminal gangs (illegal gangmasters) took advantage of the more illegal shades of migrant workers, leading to things like Morecambe Bay.

What's going on with the Total/Lincolnshire situation is a multinational company giving work to organised migrant workers (the Italians/Portuguese living on this barge).

The key European Court judgements (Laval, Rüffert, Luxembourg, and Viking) were in December 2007 and April 2008. Laval and Viking, for example, stem from corporate actions as far back as 2003 and 2004.

In 2003, Viking, which is a Finnish company that runs ferries, employed an Estonian crew and cut its wages by 60%. Laval, which is Latvian, sent workers to Sweden to build schools in 2004. A Swedish construction union asked Laval to honour the existing collective agreement for the building sector. Laval refused, keeping to Latvian pay conditions that undercut the Swedish workers.

In both of these cases, the European Court of Justice ruled in favour of Viking and Laval. The court "effectively outlawed industrial action where unions are trying to win equal pay for migrant workers and banned public bodies from requiring foreign contractors to pay such workers local rates."

Has Labour been lobbying Europe on this since then? No. Is Mandelson already standing up for Total? Yes. Over the last 10 years, we haven't heard Labour talk about union conditions coming second to a more corporate vision of Europe.

We haven't heard about the negative aspects of an economy dependent on more agency work, on an increase in short-term contracts, subcontracting, and the corporate sector using more people who are "self-employed". That's because Labour were fine with it.

80% of new jobs (from 1997 to 2007) went to immigrants, both EU and non-EU. This, combined with answers to Tory written questions on youth who are not in education, employment or training, paints a picture of an entire generation who didn't benefit from the economic "boom". Labour has been very complacent about all of these trends, not just relatively obscure European Court judgements. This generation of youth will now pay a high price during a steep economic downturn ... and will be rather susceptible to this kind of nationalistic sloganeering.

As Jon Cruddas pointed out in the Guardian on the weekend:

"Exploitation, precarious jobs and exploitative levels of pay could be offset by cheap credit and then hidden behind the sparkle of consumerism. Those times are over. With social insurance in short supply, people's key source of economic security was the rising asset value of their homes. That's gone. There is no cheap credit to make up for falling or stagnant wages."

Person C:

I like both migrant workers and wildcat strikes. Mandy's in favour of open Europe for free market purposes, I'm in favour of it because people should work where they can, and want to, weighing up survival with the fact that Italians probably don't prefer to live in the UK.

Person D:

I don't have a hard and fast position on this but I'm nervous about some of the rhetoric. In the circumstances I can see why people are upset, but Italians are in the same general category as British workers so I'm not sure about issues around disparity or undercutting conditions in this case.

It's not something that cries out to me as terribly wrong although there should always be jobs available in your area. It's not the same as when British companies operate in Nigeria.

I feel strongly that people should be able to live where they want to live and work where they want to work.

Person E:

I was tempted to give you a one-line answer to this along the lines of "protect the pay and working conditions not the individual people", but that's a bit glib.

If you take localism to where many take it, you should have small, immovable communities, people staying in the same place with local jobs, and the mess of London today, with so many commuters unable to make it [JJ: due to snow], shows some of the advantages.

But as someone who has worked on three continents and has absolutely no desire at all to go back to where she came from, I'm very uncomfortable with that - can't see how you don't very quickly end up in a stolid, stultifying, unchanging medieval village.

Movement, change, variety is good - what you've got to do perhaps is ensure that so far as is possible, everyone has the same opportunity to move (education, languages, sufficient initial financial resources etc).

But what you do with the people who were born in [some village], population 1,000, and who wants to stay there all of their lives, I really don't know. (After a few drinks I'd suggest it should be compulsory to move....)

Person F:

This does feel a bit too much like the German antagonism to Turkish migrant workers which distressed me a lot when we lived there. And with an [African] background, I'm not too keen on nationalism of any sort, or any kind of us and them. Rather like the idea that we're all Europeans and ought to be able to move/ live/ work freely anywhere in Europe. But if the migrants are undercutting the minimum wage or working under different T&Cs then that's a problem. (Except I'd rather that was established first, before anyone starts shouting 'foreigners out'.)

Person G:

I think it all depends on what are the reasons why they are out on strike. If we're to believe the media, it seems that they are demanding British jobs for British workers. However I had the opportunity to read about their demands and if all true they have a pledge that is not racist or nationalist but reasonable.

Also there are other points to consider and the media hasn't asked at all: Are the Italian workers unionised? What does the Italian Union think? How would Italian workers feel if it was the other way round?

It seems that the construction sector is highly vulnerable and workers who try to organize face blacklists and workers can easily be replaced.

As an immigrant worker myself and trying to organize among immigrants the biggest obstacle we find is distaste, resistance and rejection from bosses, regardless their nationality or ethnicity, the bosses attitude is the same even if you change their nationality: South American, African or European (Managers in London). The second biggest problem is language. Many times workers are saying exactly the same thing but cannot explain this to their co worker. In other words trying to unite and overcome the bosses tactics is difficult and takes most of our energy and time.

I hope the LOR can make their demands clear, so more workers can come out in their support. For immigrants it is important to send the message to bosses that no matter our nationalities or ethnicity we will unite and support each other, so we can put an end being used as pawns.

More thoughts from what we're supposed to call migrant workers are more than welcome.

What's a British job anyway?

I know bloggers are meant to come out with instant opinions on any issue that pops up but frankly I've been torn over the recent wildcat strikes and wanted to read up on what people had to say before sticking my oar in. There I've said it, I don't know everything! What the hell am I doing on the interwebs?

The dispute originated when a contract to extend the diesel refining capacity at a refinery in Lincolnshire was awarded to IREM who intended to bring its own existing labour force in (from Italy and Portugal) rather than hire local workers. Although the move will not produce lay offs and should not undermine existing agreements (although in reality it might) many workers were concerned that there were British workers who had the skills necessary for these jobs who would not get a chance to apply for these jobs.

A Shopfloor meeting in one workplace fed into concerns about the use of overseas workers in other areas and solidarity mass meetings began, in impressive time, to breakout into wildcat (and therefore illegal) strike action right across the country. The dynamism and audacity of these strikes is a joyous thing.

However, whilst concerns about conditions and jobs are legitimate, the core demand of the strikers - British jobs for British workers - is without any shadow of a doubt a reactionary one. It's also a demand that is guaranteed to ensure that it will be impossible to unite the "imported" workers with the local workers - something that should be central to any trade union action.

Far from refusing to allow employers to play the "divide and rule" game this strike action deepens the divisions between the workforces. Whilst French workers have been busy focusing their demands on the forces of capital, who have generated this recession, this dispute centers its opposition to employers over who they employ and its opposition to the government over immigration.

As many on the left have pointed out working class people have legitimate concerns and that we should not dismiss those very real problems because the slogan makes us uncomfortable. I agree with that, but I'd add that we can't just say some of those concerns are legitimate without detailing exactly which ones are legitimate and which ones are not.

There has been some good pieces on this that have suffered from an attempt to pretend that nationalism is not a very real dynamic in this situation. It's really the press, or the government or the employers, or even where workers are clearly playing the nationalist card that's not really what they mean. Well I'm sorry but these workers are quite capable of speaking for themselves and whilst some of their leaders have spun it quite well when given the chance to speak they're clear that the dispute is about foreign labour, not the employers.

Not that the BNP will significantly benefit from this among those taking part in the actions, it's notoriously difficult to make any lasting political capital out of "intervening" on picket lines if you don't have people there from the beginning, but they may well benefit from the direction this pushes the wider political debate. They will make capital out of it on the estates even if these workers are almost impregnable.

It is not about whether individual workers involved are racists - some will be, some wont, most people will be a mixture of good and bad - but it is about whether the demands themselves are going to lead to driving a wedge between indigenous and migrant labour that would inadvertently undermine the rights of migrant labour and play into the hands of certain employers.

We can't afford to turn a blind eye to the nationalist DNA of the strikes and it is to the good that there are some well placed leftists on the strike committees who, if they choose to do so, will be able to lessen the impact that this dynamic has. I hope they will be able to argue for a strategy that can unite with the foreign workers who are living in a "heavily fortified ghetto that is not of their own choosing" (Independent) on a way to unite working people to protect conditions for everyone.

Gill George, who is on the union Unite's NEC, puts it this way;

"It frightens me that so many socialists and trade unionists are giving uncritical support to this dispute. The slogan at the heart of the strikes is ‘British jobs for British workers’. Since when has this been a progressive demand?... There’s a problem here that can’t be ducked...

"There are principled class demands to be put in this dispute - defence of the NAECI agreement, unionised labour at every site, an end to sub-contracting, the rate for the job for every worker irrespective of their country of origin. These are the issues we should be organising around."

Anyone who thinks this dispute will lead to increased workers rights without attacking the rights of migrant workers I suspect is just seeing what they want to see. The goals of the strike are a problem, because they allow the press, the government and the employers to play us off against each other. There is no such thing as a British job and those who believe that the colour of your passport should give you privileges are not our friends.

I was sent an appeal from the Campaign Against Immigration Controls earlier (below) and I hope that the two actions they are calling against UNITE take on board the importance of concerns around the undermining of workers' rights whilst raising the important issue of unity across national boundaries.

There will be two pickets against the strike for "British Jobs for British Workers" tomorrow morning called by CAIC at the UNITE OFFICES, 128 THEOBALDS ROAD - 5 minutes from Holborn Tube Station.

One is in the morning at 7am. This will coincide with a mass meeting at Sellafield where workers are deciding whether to join the strike.

The other is in the evening - from 5pm onwards.

It is unusual for the likes of us to oppose a strike and we certainly support constructive militant actions to defend jobs, action that has not, in the recent past, been encouraged by the trades union movement. But we believe that, despite protestations to the contrary from the union leaders who are now supporting this strike, that it is driven by and in turn drives hostility to 'foreigners'.

If you attend this I'd be interested to know how it goes.

Others on this subject are mainly more supportive of the strikes (in no particular order); John's union blog, The Guardian, Charlie Pottins, Jon Rogers, HarpyMarx, Jon Cruddas, Lenin, Vicky, Pickled Politics, FT, Mersey Mike, George Galloway, SWP statement, Workers Power, The Commune, Dave Osler, Journeyman, Chris Dillow, Madame Miaow, Liberal Conspiracy, Duncan, AVPS 1, AVPS 2, Charlie Marks, Liam, Jerry Hicks, The Socialist Party, The Independent, Serge's Fist, Susan Press, Gill George, SSP, The Morning Star, the list goes on... I may post some more up as the mood takes me.

A few more; Socialist Resistance, Channel Four on BNP, Permanent Revolution, strikers demands (SP), Morning Star (2), Dave Osler (2).

Are Immigrants The New Black?

It looks like Boris Johnson is thinking about an earned amnesty for London's illegal immigrants. I'm not sure he's even allowed to do that - but either way maybe there really is a "New Conservatism" in the air. I'm not sure whether to smile or tut.

It's true he's just thinking about it and currently is talking about all kinds of unworkable proofs that they are committed to the economy (huh?), and that they have been here some years (which I'd have thought might be quite hard for an illegal to do), but let's face it, we've never had one before, not even after eleven years of Labour government, so even if he'd wanted to he'd never have been able to demand a zero borders approach.

Iain Dale carries the entirety of his statement which Johnson has rather defensively overladen with caveats - but then if I'd been him I might have been tempted to do the same. But compare and contrast his approach with that of Phil Woolas - who's only goal in life seems to be to import the BNP's manifesto into government policy.

There is plenty of evidence from excellent bloggers like Tory Troll and Boris Watch that the Mayor is, well, less than satisfactory much of the time. However, right here, right now, I'm going to say possibly the most controversial thing I've ever said at The Daily (Maybe)... well done Boris. For a front line politician in this country to even hint that we could loosen up on immigration controls is such a rare occurrence that it's worth acknowledging, especially when the source is unexpected.

It wont boost his standing in the Tory Party, it will give the Labour right loads of ammunition to attack him, not to mention the newspapers, he may well even retract the proposal after the flak he'll inevitably get, and he's unlikely to win many progressive votes either... but for one moment in his mop headed life Boris Johnson did a good thing. Thanks.