The last few years has seen neo liberalism ( the bosses the rich the spivs and the cowboys) , in the UK, faced with an inability to carry on its project of restructuring and pushing down wages first started in 1979 under Thatcher, by a refusal of w/c people to accept jobs at the rates of pay and level of exploitation wanted by capital/the bosses, has moved to whole scale encouragement / importation of cheap labour from abroad, the ability to do this being something that was part and parcel of the exapansion of the EU.
It appears that while cheap labour migration, in a Thatcherite way, DOES increase overall GDP, it has negative affacts on the w/c, as whole but particularly affects negatively the poorer w/c
At the same time we have over 3 million unemployed in this country, a part of the w/c that have been abandonned by the system and by trade union leaderships complicit in neo liberalism, and a w/c generally that is seeing its conditions and rates continuosly eroded and youth unemployment steadily rising, and in many places at over 50%
This migration for cheap labour ( as pointed out by Marx) also enables the state to divide us a class, and has been used in the helping the BNP secure the highest ever votes for a fascist party in the UK
A progressive w/c movement has to confront a process like this front on. The process is simply reactionary and anti working class. It is designed simply to benefit the system/the bosses/the rich.
However a progressive w/c movement has to balance the desire to increase the freedoms of w/c people and the power of w/c workforces and communities and the w/c as a class. While it supports the rights of individuals to seek to move freely it equally supports w/c communities having the right to control where they work and live.
A progressive w/c movement understands that we can not rebuild resistance to capital/neo liberalism/ the bosses if we do not start rebuilding from the very base and support people in their day to day struggles over housing and jobs (and life itself) and if we do not start to create power again in the communities and the workplaces
A progressive w/c movement ;
1) needs to analyse how large this migration has been and what affect it has had on, not just jobs and housing of w/c people, but our ability to orgainse as a class, in communities and in workplaces
2) it needs to clearly state how, why and for whos benefit this process is happenning
3) it must emphasise that the solution to peoples problems does not lie in legislation either to increase border security or to physically limit migration but in workers direct activity, at the base, to stop explotation and cheap labour, by organising and unionising
4) it must prioritise the defence of jobs and housing for those who currently live here ( of whatever background) as opposed to the jobs and housing of those who the system wishes to use for cheap labour
5) needs to emphaise the importance and rights of political refuge and note the differrence between asylum seekers/refugees fleeing political oppression and war and those migrating for economic reasons
6) it needs to scupper attempts of the bosses to use migration and racism to divde workers and divert attention from the system
.
It appears that while cheap labour migration, in a Thatcherite way, DOES increase overall GDP, it has negative affacts on the w/c, as whole but particularly affects negatively the poorer w/c
At the same time we have over 3 million unemployed in this country, a part of the w/c that have been abandonned by the system and by trade union leaderships complicit in neo liberalism, and a w/c generally that is seeing its conditions and rates continuosly eroded and youth unemployment steadily rising, and in many places at over 50%
This migration for cheap labour ( as pointed out by Marx) also enables the state to divide us a class, and has been used in the helping the BNP secure the highest ever votes for a fascist party in the UK
A progressive w/c movement has to confront a process like this front on. The process is simply reactionary and anti working class. It is designed simply to benefit the system/the bosses/the rich.
However a progressive w/c movement has to balance the desire to increase the freedoms of w/c people and the power of w/c workforces and communities and the w/c as a class. While it supports the rights of individuals to seek to move freely it equally supports w/c communities having the right to control where they work and live.
A progressive w/c movement understands that we can not rebuild resistance to capital/neo liberalism/ the bosses if we do not start rebuilding from the very base and support people in their day to day struggles over housing and jobs (and life itself) and if we do not start to create power again in the communities and the workplaces
A progressive w/c movement ;
1) needs to analyse how large this migration has been and what affect it has had on, not just jobs and housing of w/c people, but our ability to orgainse as a class, in communities and in workplaces
2) it needs to clearly state how, why and for whos benefit this process is happenning
3) it must emphasise that the solution to peoples problems does not lie in legislation either to increase border security or to physically limit migration but in workers direct activity, at the base, to stop explotation and cheap labour, by organising and unionising
4) it must prioritise the defence of jobs and housing for those who currently live here ( of whatever background) as opposed to the jobs and housing of those who the system wishes to use for cheap labour
5) needs to emphaise the importance and rights of political refuge and note the differrence between asylum seekers/refugees fleeing political oppression and war and those migrating for economic reasons
6) it needs to scupper attempts of the bosses to use migration and racism to divde workers and divert attention from the system
.
