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The socialist union, international labour migration
and 'guest workers':
internationalism versus national defense
KATHUJN PITTOMVILS
SUMMARY
This article studies the stance and the position of the socialist union in relation
to the migration of foreign labor in the period 1960-1974. During the 60s the
socialist union (ABW) was the proponent of a regulated, controlled immigration
in function of the needs of the national labor market. The union radicalized
their standpoint under the influence of the deteriorated economic climate
at the beginning of the 70s as evidenced by an appeal for a drastic curb on
immigration. In this way the ABW essentially also brought about the division
between the labor markets for indigenous workers and workers of foreign
origin. This segmentation was then also necessary to expand and maintain
postwar social relations. Furthermore, the ABW, in a certain sense, even
employed the employer's logic through the legitimization of the immigration
policy pursued by the employers and the government, and in this way in fact
also guaranteed the requirements for the functional mobilization of foreign
manpower in the capitalist mode of production. At the same time a remarkable
discrepancy was found between the discourse of the socialist union, on the
one hand, in which the union showed solidarity and demanded complete
equality for 'guest workers' and Belgian workers, and its concrete interventions
which supported a number of fundamentally discriminating measures.
Concerning the union's concrete service and training initiatives for 'guest
workers' also here the integration of foreign workers in the labor movement
was not systematically put first and foremost, they were usually conceptualized
from a 'Belgian' standpoint and did not consistently take into consideration
the demands and the needs of the migrants themselves. Only with
the realization that 'guest workers' were an integral part of the 'Belgian' working
class and when this group became significant during the social elections was
it attempted to realize their interests.
[472] BTNG I RBHC, XXVII, 1997,3-4