Society
The right to sell labour
Published 15 November 2007
There can be a coherent strategy for immigration
There is no longer, I think it is fair to say, a coherent left position on immigration. In principle, the left ought to favour it. Millions of people across the world - in Africa, eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent - own nothing of marketable value except their labour. Why should they be prohibited from selling it freely?
No matter how much we give to Oxfam, the most effective way of helping poor people in developing countries is to welcome them here. The life expectancy of a Ugandan baby who moves to London rises instantly by some 45 years. Remittances from migrant workers are worth far more to many developing countries than foreign aid or investment, with the bonus that the money reaches ordinary families rather than corrupt rulers. In Moldova, remittances account for 38 per cent of the economy.
But what of social justice in our own country? Employers demanding cheap and pliable labour are the biggest beneficiaries of inward migration. As the Labour MP and former Blair aide Jon Cruddas puts it, migration has become "a key driver in tacitly de-regulating the labour market" and creating a "flexible", low-wage economy. It's poor Britons who have to adjust to migrants, facing not only competition for jobs and houses but also pressure on public services, such as state schools, which are vital to disadvantaged families. All this has led to liberal fears, most cogently expressed by David Goodhart, editor of Prospect, that migration will damage the social solidarity and cohesion on which support for the welfare state depends.
The left pressure group Compass, with Migrants' Rights Network, has just published an attempt to grapple with these dilemmas (Towards a Progressive Immigration Policy, edited by Don Flynn and Zoe Williams). The contributors reach two broad conclusions. First, most attempts to restrict immigration lead only to further injustices. Second, most "problems" attributed to immigration are created by an anxious, insecure, unequal society. As Neal Lawson, the Compass chair, puts it, they will be cured "when we replace the market state with the social state".
The second point perhaps appears utopian; Cruddas's Dagenham constituents might observe they're not going to be living in a social state any time soon. The first point, however, is crucial. What no politician admits is that, in the 21st century, migration is nigh impossible to stop. It was difficult 20 years ago when east European states had armed guards and barbed wire to stop people leaving - and the west joyously welcomed asylum seekers as vindication for its way of life. Now there is too much legitimate movement of people and goods across borders for any state to have much hope of restricting what is deemed to be illegitimate. Poor people want work, rich employers want labour. One finds its way to the other as surely as the river finds its way to the sea. And if our welfare is the draw, why does America find it so hard to keep out Mexicans?
So trying to control borders leads to more illegal or undocumented migrants. They are unlikely to contact the authorities to complain about wages below the minimum, illegal working conditions, arbitrary dismissal or any of the things British workers wouldn't tolerate. They become a labour reserve that undercuts indigenous labour. Nor are they likely to pay taxes.
Controls and other measures to discourage immigration, far from protecting UK workers, compound the injustices done to them as well as to migrants themselves. As Bernard Ryan, a law lecturer at Kent University and a contributor to the Compass publication, points out, work permits inhibit a migrant's right to resign and seek alternative jobs while restrictions on access to social benefits leave migrants facing destitution if they don't accept whatever work is offered. No wonder employers prefer migrants to British workers.
Most proposals for controlling immigration are based on keeping out the riff-raff, but exempting those with valuable skills in, say, medicine. This leaves poorer countries with the expense of educating professionals but none of the benefits. According to the World Bank, Grenada has to train 22 doctors to keep just one. This policy, if successful, would trap the global poor in countries that would become more economically and socially impoverished than ever.
Regulated immigration - which nearly all politicians say they favour - is fine, as long as it doesn't mean heavily restricted immigration, which simply leads to more unregulated immigration. The best place for regulation is in the workplace. Migrants would not be so attractive to employers if minimum wages and conditions were enforced. Nor would migrants be so keen to come here if working conditions in their countries, often determined by multinationals and their suppliers, were improved. It is on those principles that the left should make its stand.
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