Steve

[poliphilo]

Steve is an engineer and he can't get work. "It's all these Poles," he said. "Eh up," I thought, "Here we go- the Daily Mail editorial." But I didn't jump down his throat and I'm glad I didn't because he went on to explain how he'd gone  to an interview and been up against all these Eastern European kids and the Eastern European kids had been hired- well some of them- and he hadn't. So he wasn't parroting something he'd heard down the pub, he was reporting his own experience. 

Middleclass, leftwing intellectuals like myself are wired to go off like alarm bells at the merest hint of racism. Which means we tiptoe round the subject, which means we can be blind to the facts. Steve isn't a racist- he lives in an Asian area and seems happy enough with his neighbours- but economic migration is something that impacts on his life. The Polish kids will work longer hours for less, so the native-born workman can't get a job and hangs around the house all day, drawing benefit and feeling worthless. 

The mass migration of labour is one of the spin-offs of globalisation and globalisation is unstoppable. It's a great leap forward- like the industrial revolution- and when the dust has settled we'll probably all agree that it was a very good thing. In the short term it's certainly a very good thing for the money men who can now pick and choose their workforces. But for the poor, bloody, English working class- for blokes like Steve- it's a disaster.   And ain't that always the case?

Comments

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

How old is Steve? I'd suspect ageism before reverse racism.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't know exactly- 30 perhaps?

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

Spain is turning into a nation of Steves. This has never been
a racist country really, but immigration, mostly illegal, has forced wages downward, not to mention taken many jobs off the market. And the jobs gone to these immigrants are mostly in unskilled labour, construction etc: so we're not talking highly skilled as in engineers just yet. But a huge majority of jobs in Spain are precisely for the trades and unskilled so we are hearing comments like Steve's many times a day but aimed at the South Americans, Africans and Moroccans who come to Spain in droves. It's hard to see hints of racism creeping in. But what's the solution to this now global problem?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't suppose there is a solution. We have open borders, a global economy- and this is the result. I'm thinking we'll shuffle around and adapt to it in time- just as we've adapted to other huge social changes.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

You're probably right. I just hope it's as peacefully as possible. But given human nature I'm not so sure.

[msjann65.livejournal.com]

It happens here, too - a lot. But the general opinion seems to be that, "Those are jobs that Americans dont want, anyway". Which is NOT true. Since we dont have the Dole in this country, there are unemployed Americans who would love to have "those" jobs. When I was sixty years old and unemployed I was one of them, too young to retire and too old to be hired (even to sweep floors?).
My Dad drove a taxi for over forty years; today it's foreigners who are working for the taxi companies. My mother made custom slipcovers and draperies; today the work is either being sent out of the country, or it is being done by underpaid foreigners in sweatshop situations. We would have starved in today's job market.
Welcome back to the 1890's, courtesy of our Republican party - beginning with Ronald Reagan (who wasnt such a "great" president).

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure the politicians can do much about it. Ours are huffing and puffing- Gordon Brown made a speech the other day about "British jobs for British workers"- but they don't have any real answers, just slogans. This is social change on a global scale- and I think we're all just going to have to adapt.

[algabal.livejournal.com]

Don't forget it was Bill Clinton that brought us NAFTA, and neither party is serious about ending illegal immigration.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

Exactly right. The Democrats certainly, but the Republicans just as much. It amuses me no end when people here seem genuinely surprised that the Republicans, for all their bluster about securing the borders, have offered little beyond work visa and general amnesty programs as a solution to the problem. Does it not occur to these people that businesses might actually WANT a workforce that labors for small wages and no benefits? No way does the GOP bite the hand that feeds them by taking that away.

[msjann65.livejournal.com]

Republicans have never been famous for being friends to the working class. That's the Democrats' thing, and that is why I and my whole family and most of my friends are Democrats.

[red-girl-42.livejournal.com]

I'm a Democrat myself, but I don't really believe that ANY politicians today are friends to the working class. The Democrats just talk it up more.

Wal*Mart Model

[pop-o-pie.livejournal.com]

Look at the trade deficit between the US & China. Many of the menial jobs have been outsourced there and to India. Take a look at the weakness of the dollar against other world currencies. Note that huge retailers like Wal*Mart can make or break a manufacturer of goods in the US and then ride into town and save the day by employing people who used to make a union wage with benefits for $8.00 and hour. This would be the global economy as it affects the US. Closing the borders will do nothing to change any of this.

[msjann65.livejournal.com]

But it was Ronald Reagan who busted the unions, which were the only thing that gave us "children of the fifties" decent wages and decent working conditions.

RE: NAFTA

[pop-o-pie.livejournal.com]

In general, the Clintons left us in fairly good shape at the end of their tenure, however, NAFTA was ill-conceived as it deflated Mexican currency and sent Mexicans running for the border looking for ways to survive. Bill Clinton is universally hated in Mexico.

I live near the border with Mexico in Arizona and it saddens me that the border cities like Nogales used to function as one community on both sides. More and more they are divided much like East & West Berlin were. This actually serves to increase drug trafficking and human smuggling.

[fickleasever.livejournal.com]

There are so many Poles here in Wales that in some parts of the country (and we're living in a tiny, tiny little hamlet and it's happening here too) leaflets are in Welsh, English and Polish! (There is one benefit: delicatessens springing up in the most unusual - and welcome - places).

I'm in two minds about this subject. One is that if the world were all equal then people could and should go about wherever they want on it and find work wherever. The other is of course the reality: those who will work for less money, will always get the most work, and if it's Poles, then that's who's going to get it.

However, I don't know about this guy Steve not being able to get any work... I've not come across many (any, come to think of it) builders or other manual workers who can't get some sort of employement... most just don't declare it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's happened so quickly. Suddenly there are Polish shops everywhere- and the clientele to go with them.

I don't know Steve well enough to know how adaptable he is. We suggested he might consider driving a delivery van for Tescos (they're always looking for staff) and he said he'd look into it.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

The white working class are the thorn in the side of liberals!

I genuinely worry about Poland, there are areas where all the young people of my age have left to go to Britain. In Romania there is a massive labour shortage because so many people have gone to work abroad.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's all slightly mad, isn't it?

I'm assuming the young Polish and Romanian emigrants will mostly return home after they've made their pile.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

We can but hope so, but as long as there is awful corruption in this country people will want out (Now Poland has elected a semi sane government I trust the situation will improve a bit).
But then educated people can always get decent white collar jobs, and then there is always the issue of relationships.

[msjann65.livejournal.com]

"The white working class are the thorn in the side of the liberals"???????
Speaking as a member of the "white working class" and as a Liberal, I dispute that statement. The white working class ARE among the liberals today, and WERE the liberals yesterday.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

Correction, many middle class liberals.

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

You should check out my friend's book on this stuff, it's very interesting: Nobodies. He talks about how globalization is affecting everything about society and touches on a lot of how this sort of migratory exploitation is contributing to the "race to the bottom".

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

I'll look for it at the library (see next post).

The enlargement of the EU has brought hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans into the country, looking for (what is to them) well paid work. The cultural impact has been sudden and startling. Even quite small towns now have Polish grocery stores on their high streets.

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

Yes! Ask for it at your library! He would be so stoked if he knew he was getting out and about outside the US. The problem you speak of sounds much like what we have been dealing with here in the US with Central Americans and out in Oceania with Asians. Globalization is a wonderful idea but the impact on existing local economies is really something that no one really saw coming and it is upsetting the balance in a lot of places. It's certainly made me question my naive unbridled free market way of thinking.