by Owen Jones
It was the sort of thing we were told belonged tothe 1970s. In defiance of some of the most stringent anti-union laws in the Western world, workers at the Lindsey oil refinery downed tools in a spontaneous walkout at the end of january 2009. Media commentators were dumbfounded as sympathy strikes spread to towns such as Grangemouth, Sellafield, Wilton, Stay thorpe and Didcot, among others. This was not supposed to happen in twenty-first-century Britain.
But there was a twist to this apparent renewed union militancy. The media spin was that these were semi-racist, anti-immigrant strikes in protest at foreign workers. There were close-up shots of placards being waved on picket lines demanding 'British jobs for British workers', repeating a disastrous promise by the then prime minister Gordon Brown at the 2007 Labour Party Conference. Even to some on the left this looked uncomfortably like chauvinism, reminiscent of the dockers who marched to support Enoch Powell's infamous anti-immigration 'rivers of blood' speech in 1968.
Media coverage went out of its way to confirm this interpretation. In one BBC bulletin, a worker was filmed saying: 'These Portuguese and Eyeties--we can't work alongside of them.' But this turned out to be a gross distortion, and the BBC was forced to apologize for missing Out the next sentence: 'We're segregated from them.' The worker meant that they physically could not work with foreign workers, because they were prevented from doing so.
The real reasons for the strike, carefully obscured by the mainstream media, shed light on some of the complexities underlying the workingclass anti-immigration backlash in modem Britain. The Lindsey refinery's employer, IREM, had hired cheap, non-unionized workers from abroad. Not only did this threaten to break the workers' union, italso meant everyone else's wages and conditions would be pushed down in a 'race to the bottom'.
'We've got more in common with people around this world than with the employers who are doing this to us,' said Keith Gibson, one of the leaders of the strike and a member of the Trotskyist Socialist Party. BNP figures who tried to jump on the bandwagon were barred from the picket line. The demands of the strike committee included the unionization of immigrant labour, trade union assistance for immigrant workers and the building of links with construction workers on the continent. This was the opposite of a racist strike.]
However, the Lindsey strike was the exception rather than the norm. In an age of weak unions, the resentments behind the working-class backlash against immigration have lacked this sort of commendable leadership. The fear among large numbers of working-class people is that British jobs are being lost and wages are being forced down because of mass immigration.
A glance at the figures might seem to support the conclusion that a majority of jobs are indeed going to immigrants. Between New Labour's victory in 1997 and its defeat in 2010, the number of jobs went up by 2.12 million. While the number of employed UK-born people has increased by 385,000, the number of workers born abroad has risen by 1.72 million. That means that more than four out of every five jobs created in Britain since 1997 have gone to foreign-born workers.
But this fails to take into account the fact that the British population is actually growing very slowly. There are problems with the figures available, not least because some foreign-born workers will now be British citizens, but they do give us a general picture. The British-born population of working age has only gone up by 348,000 since 1997, while the non-British born working-age population has risen by 2.4 million. Nearly a million Britons have left the country since then, and there are a staggering 5.6 million Britons living abroad: it is often for- gotten that migration is a two-way process. The bottom line is that the number of jobs going to British-born workers has gone up more than the British-born working population has increased. Less than three quarters of non-Britons have had any luck getting a job--at least, a job that found its way into the official statistics.' It is, statistically, not true that immigrants are taking people's jobs.
In any case, many of our essential services depend on foreign workers. The National Health Service would have collapsed long ago were it not for the thousands of doctors and nurses from other countries who have sustained it almost since its creation. Nearly a third of health profes- sionals such as doctors and dentists are immigrants. However unfounded the fear of immigrants taking scarce jobs from natives, it has been allowed to take root in the popular imagination because of the contin- ued decline of traditional, skilled jobs. There has been no mainstream political voice to put this in the context of globalization and a lack of government support for manufacturing. Instead we are bombarded on a daily basis by distorted propaganda from right-wing journalists and politicians. When Gordon Brown made the spectacular misjudgementof pledging 'British jobs for British workers', he only seemed to confirm the view that the jobs had hitherto been going elsewhere.
When it comes to wages, the impact ofimmigration gets a lot more complicated. It might be expected that because immigrants would be willing to work for less, other workers would be forced to compete with them, thereby pushing everybody's pay down. A 2009 study by a leading Oxford economist and a senior Bank of England economist, Stephen Nickell and [umana Saleheen, found that wages were, overall, only slightly depressed by immigration. Their key finding was that the impact was not the same for everyone. It was those workers in the semiskilled and unskilled service sector who suffered most. A 10 per cent rise in the proportion of immigrants would cause a 5 per cent reduction in pay for these groups.
Another paper, for the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), also found that the overall impact of immigration on wages was small. Ironically, it discovered that those most affected were likely to be former immigrants, because they would be competing for jobs that did not require 'language fluency, cultural knowledge or local experience'. Even so, it found that all workers in manual jobs could see their wages reduced because an employer could easily replace them with a foreign worker willing to accept less. The same was true for workers who were 'marginal to the labour market', those 'most likely to drop out or become discouraged workers', those 'who work in part-time, low-skilled jobs (such as single mothers and young people)', and those who faced barriers to finding work, such as an inability to travel.
Clearly, then, attitudes towards immigration are liable to depend on the class of the person who holds them. Indeed, prospective employers stand to gain from cheaper foreign workers. 'The effect of immigration at the bottom of the labour market is different than it is on the people who are so pleased they can get a nice cheap nanny, or someone cheap to do the plumbing,' observes former Labour secretary of state for international development Clare Short.
When looking at the impact ofimmigration on jobs and wages, it has been increasingly fashionable among politicians and the media tocontrast the hard-working immigrant to the layabout Brit. But it's not, of course, a fair comparison. After all, immigrants will have travelled hundreds or thousands of miles from poorer countries with the express intention of finding work. It is this that endows them with the qualities that employers find so desirable. As the EHRC report put it:
Immigrants are willing to work hard in jobs with no dear potential for upward mobility (such as most seasonal agricultural work): because they see this 'low-status' work as temporary; because they are gaining non-financial benefits such as learning English; or because their wage does not seem low in comparison with earnings in their home country. To a certain extent, therefore, it is inevitable that immigrants will be more productive than native workers in certain roles.'
The impact of immigration has led the prominent Labour backbencher Jon Cruddas to describe it as a 'wages policy' -that is, a device used to control the levels of pay. Crucially, former New Labour Cabinet minister Hazel Blears says: 'There was actually an economic driver tokeep the numbers coming because that kept wages down, in a way, and made us more competitive as an economy, and I think what wasn't fully appreciated was the human impact on families of doing that.' Was immigration deliberately used as a 'wages policy', I asked? 'No, I don't t
hink it was a deliberate instrument of socialpolicy, I don't. But I think that some of the effects were of that kind. But I don't think people sat in a room and said: "Ha ha, let's let millions of people in and then we can grind the faces of the poor, of the working class!" I don't think Labour Government is about that.'
When a number of Eastern European countries joined the European Union in 2004, Britain allowed their workers to immediately enter and freely seek work. None of New Labour's immigration policies caused as much controversy, especially when only Ireland followed suit. Critics claimed that the decision led to a wave of cheap labour entering Britain, particularly from Poland. 'It clearly was madness for the government to allow the situation where Britain and Ireland were the only countries that allowed the accession states in before the two-year gap,' says Ken Livingstone. 'So they all came here. Now, it didn't have an impact in London because we're used to absorbing waves of immigrants. But in a whole range of the country where they never had to absorb immigrants, in rural areas, a load of people tum up from Eastern Europe. The wages are depressed, they work harder, they get the jobs. It was devastating.'
To the extent that immigration does have an impact on wages, the tabloid-driven campaign has aimed at the wrong targets. If employers have used immigration as a means topush down people's pay, then it is they who should face public opprobrium. 'My take on it is that you can't blame workers who've come over here to better their standard of living,' reasons miners' leader Chris Kitchen. 'Blame the employers who prefer to pay them, because they can pay them less=-these firms and agencies that specialize in bringing them over. It's not the migrant workers at fault for coming here to better themselves.'
Following Labour's defeat at the 2010 general election and Gordon Brown's resignation as party leader, the candidates to replace him fell over one another to deplore the effects of immigration. As Ed Balls, an erstwhile close ally of Gordon Brown, argued, immigration had had 'a direct impact on the wages, terms and conditions of too many people across our country-in communities ill-prepared to deal with the reality of globalization, including the one I represent.' His stance inspired Tory leader David Cameron tocompare him to the racist comic caricature, Alf Garnett. But the reality is that the scrutiny has been directed at immigration, precisely inorder to avoid dealing with issues that have a far greater impact on jobs and wages. We have seen that the effect on wages is small-and indeed it can be corrected without clamping down on immigration by, for example, increasing the minimum wage and preventing foreign workers being hired on lower wages or in worse conditions than other workers.
Wages have been stagnating or declining for millions of workers, even before the recession hit. Immigration is a long way down the list of reasons why. The huge pool of cheap labour available in the Majority World and the crippled state of British trade unions are far more important factors. After all, company profits are booming: but employers are hoarding these billions, and there is no pressure on them to share. But the 'race to the bottom' at the heart of modern globalization and the lack of trade union rights are not issues that politicians have any interest in addressing. Jobs are being lost because of an economic crisis caused by bankers' greed and the subsequent disastrous policies of the political establishment. Yet today's mainstream politicians do not want to ask any questions that would challenge some of the most basic assumptions of the modern economic system. Instead, they have focused attention on a secondary issue that enjoys the advantage of appealing to people's prejudices, as well as the vociferous backing of the right-wing media.
This backlash against immigration has led many to conclude that the 'white working class' is racist. In reality, the working class is far more ethnically mixed than the rest of the population. This is a point that can be overstated: after all, nine-tenths of Britons are white. Once you leave big urban areas like London, Manchester and Birmingham, you could easily travel for miles without coming across a single nonwhite face.
Nonetheless, as trade union leader Billy Hayes puts it: 'As ethnic minorities almost invariably suffer more social disadvantage, we can assume that over 10 per cent of the working class are not white.' Ethnic minorities are disproportionately engaged in working-class jobs-s-and, in many urban areas, they are far more likely to dominate the most lowstatus, low-paid jobs. Take the retail sector in London. Ethnic minorities make up 35 per cent of its workforce, and yet they represent a far lower 27 per cent of the capital's population.' Fourteen per cent of English bus and coach drivers are from an ethnic minority group, and non-whites are also disproportionately represented in catering, security and hotels and restaurants. Half of Bangladeshi and Pakistani workers in the country are injobs that pay less than £7 an hour, compared to less than 30 per cent of whites. 6
At the top of the social hierarchy, the contrast could not be greater. Only 3.5 per cent of partners in the UK's top one hundred law firms come from an ethnic minority background.I There is just one ethnic minority CEO among Britain's top one hundred companies. In the financial sector, just 5 per cent of men working in insurance pensions are from an ethnic minoriry." If you are working class, you are far more likely to rub shoulders with people from different backgrounds than those in elite professions or the corporate world.
The same goes for residential patterns. In London, the most diverse communities are overwhelmingly working class, like Tower Hamlets, Newham and Hackney. Middle-class suburbs like Richmond, Kingston and Bromley, on the other hand, have small ethnic minority populations. According to the last census, there were over 100,000 children of mixed Asian and white origin, and 158,000 who were mixed Caribbean and white. Nearly half of British-born black men, a third of Britishborn black women, and a fifth of Indian and African men, have white partners." Given that ethnic minorities are far more likely to be in working-class jobs and live in working-class communities, it is safe to presume that this mixing is disproportionately happening in the working class.
Clare Short used to represent the poor, working-class constituency of Birmingham Ladywood, where most people hail from minority backgrounds. She agrees that working-class people mix with people from different ethnic backgrounds more than those higher up the social scale. 'You know, by and large in a place like Ladywood, it's fabulous in the richness of the diversity of the people and the relationships they form, and the understanding of each other's religions and histories. There's something very rich that goes on there. The kids in school always say: "We're very lucky because we have the festivals of everybody." The working class is still largely white; but less white, in reality, than everybody else.
It cannot be said that the privileged elite is always a bastion of tolerance. Middle-class or upper-class racism can often be more pernicious, while lacking the same economic drivers. Let us not forget Prince Harry, who was caught on camera describing an Asian soldier as a 'Paki'. Anti-Semitism has long been the elite's racism of choice. I know of a public schoolboy whose father refused to buy him an expensive gold watch from Harrods, 'because it looked too Jewish'. A lecturer tells me that when he mentioned to a public school-educated student that working-class people were more likely to have a relationship with someone from an ethnic minority, the student paused for a moment before asking: 'Because they can't find anything better?'
We should beware of going along with a superficial reading of the great twenty-first-century backlash against immigration among working-class people. Anti-immigration rhetoric has gained traction for far more complex reasons than mere culture or race. Indeed, many ethnic minority working-class people share the popular hostility to immigration. But at a time of growing insecurity about jobs and wages, immigration has provided a convenient scapegoat as well as an excuse to dodge questions that are far more relevant-but far more threatening to the status quo. Those responsible are playing with fire.
Right-wing populism is on the rise-s-and itis shamelessly courting working-class people. The BNP is unlikely ever to establish itself as a credible party, but itis an ominous portent of what could com
e. The populist right can also boast the presence of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which came fourth in the 2010 general election with nearly a million votes, and second in the 2009 European elections. Opposition to immigration and its supposed impact on wages and jobs is at the heart of the UKIP programme. More recently, a new far-right formation named the English Defence League has been orchestrating aggressive anti-Muslim demonstrations in cities across England. More mainstream right-wing forces have also jumped on the bandwagon: the Conservative-backing Daily Telegraph has described the white working class as 'Britain's betrayed tribe', allegedly marginalized by the advent of multiculturalism and mass immigration.
The danger is of a savvy new populist right emerging, one that is comfortable talking about class and that offers reactionary solutions to working class and the trashing of its identity. It could claim that the tra- ditional party of working-class people, the Labour Party, has turned its back on them. Rather than focusing on the deep-seated economic issues that really underpin the grievances of working-class people, it could train its populist guns on immigration and cultural issues. Immigrants could be blamed for economic woes; multiculturalism could be blasted for undermining 'white' working-class identity.
The reason this could happen-and why the populist right has already made inroads into working-class communities-c-is because the Labour Party ceased providing answers to a whole range of working- class problems, especially housing, low wages and job insecurity. It no longer offers an overarching narrative that working-class people can relate to. To many former natural Labour supporters, it seems to be on the side of the rich and big business. No wonder so many working-class people have concluded that Labour is no longer a party for 'people like us'. To be fair, this phenomenon isn't exclusive to Britain. The dra- matic shift to the right of traditional left parties has opened the door to the far right across Western Europe, with groupings like the National Front in France's former 'Red Belt' and the demagogic Northern Alliance in Italy.
