Open%20borders%20The%20case%20against%20immigration%20controls%20-%20Teresa%20Hayter

xiv Open Borders
Over Here: Migrant Workers in Britain, which says that the lack of legal
protection for migrant workers is ‘giving the green light to unscrupulous gangmasters,
agencies and employers to exploit foreign workers on a massive
scale’, and shows that the problem applies to both illegal and legal migrants;
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber was quoted in a press release to launch
the report as saying that: ‘If every illegal worker was removed from the UK,
parts of the economy would collapse overnight … Everyone working in the
UK deserves basic rights at work …’ In France the sans-papiers (see pp. 142ff)
are now arguing that the sudden deprivation of rights for long-term immigrant
residents and workers has created a new form of slavery, and argue for
solidarity from other workers not out of pity, but to prevent the contagion
spreading in European countries which have up to now had relatively strong
employment rights. In their joint declaration to the European Social Forum
in November 2003, calling for a European day of action in support of migrants
on 31 January 2004, the sans-papiers argued for ‘citizenship rights for all, based
on residence’, since ‘the undocumented are only the visible tip of an iceberg
of job insecurity and casualisation spreading to other migrants and then to
workers in general’, and because of ‘the special position held by the undocumented
in the process of restructuring the work environment through
generalised casualisation’, and the resulting ‘centrality of the struggles of the
undocumented’.
At the same time as promoting an increase in the number of insecure or
‘managed’ immigrants, the government appears intent on making it harder
for others to work without legal permission. This too appears contradictory,
since illegal workers, as the sans-papiers recognise, are the ultimately exploitable
workforce. It is presumably based on political rather than economic calculations.
The government believes, probably correctly, that the fact that it has
up to now been relatively easy to get work in Britain without papers is one
reason why some refugees are desperate to cross the Channel. It also wishes
to curry favour with the racists by showing that Britain is not a ‘soft touch’
and is not an attractive destination for asylum seekers or other migrants, but
is, on the contrary, as the home secretary David Blunkett has put it, ‘tough
as old boots’. The 2002 Act introduced provisions designed to make it harder
for new immigrants, including refugees, to obtain British citizenship, including
the requirement that they should speak English, and have more knowledge
about, and allegiance to, British institutions than most of the rest of us. It also
introduced severer penalties and checks on employers. In July 2002, the
government removed the ‘concession’ which in theory allowed asylum
seekers to work if their claims were not determined within six months (see
p. 106). Asylum seekers have been issued with ‘smart’ cards which carry their
photograph, finger-prints, and a statement on whether or not they are
allowed to work. Identity cards, on whose absence in Britain politicians have
long prided themselves, are to be introduced, at first, in 2005, for foreigners.
As the Guardian of 12 November 2003 reported, David Blunkett stated that: