“British jobs for British workers” is a racist slogan
Thousands upon thousands of words have been written
about the dispute that started at the Lindsey oil refinery and spread across
the nation from Plymouth to Fife. From the revisionist Morning Star through
the Guardian and other broadsheets, to the murky recesses of the Daily
Mail and the race-hate sheets of Britain’s ultra-racist BNP this dispute
has had extensive coverage. Most of those written words are supporting racist
and xenophobic ideas. Others try to claim that no racism or xenophobia exists
at all in the ranks of the organised working class. The writers of both views
are guilty of wilfully wasting ink and paper and the time of their readers.
The underlying cause of this dispute, like so many
others around the world at present, is the world crisis of overproduction
within capitalism and the aim of all national bourgeoisies is to make the
workers pay the cost of this crisis.
Lindsey refinery is operated by Total Oil. The
tender for one of its contracts for building work was won by an Italian
company, IREM, which, in line with EU law, brought in their own Italian and
Portuguese workforce to do the work. EU law does encourage this practice
because, under that law, the contractors who bring in their own workforce,
rather than employ locally, are not then bound by any local or national
agreements on wages or conditions that have been negotiated by unions for that
site. At the moment, it has to be said, there seem to be more British workers
employed around the EU on these contracts than there are other EU members’
workers working in Britain. The idea behind this law is not to make sure that
workers get to travel to new places to broaden their horizons or to learn new
cultures and languages; it is simply an attack on all workers’ wages and
conditions by circumventing trade union organisation and collective
bargaining. Of course this law must be opposed! However, it would be better
opposed by uniting with all workers and raising the slogan of ‘work for all at
local trade union rates throughout the EU!’ As opposed to the racist and
xenophobic slogan of “British jobs for British workers” which is an attack on
any and all foreign workers.
That the workers at Lindsey were angry is only to
be expected but it is not at all clear even now at just who their anger was
mostly aimed. Some have claimed it was aimed at the EU which made the law,
others say it was primarily at the British Government who supported the law,
while others maintain it was directed at the two companies that used the law.
Most of the apologist commentators who take one or all of these views – and
either ignore or deny any suggestion of racism when confronted by the placards
stating “British jobs for British workers” – still insist that this was just a
poorly chosen slogan which had been designed to embarrass the Prime Minister by
quoting his own words back at him. However, what was plain was that the
protesters/strikers were not complaining at the slogan – they were just
complaining that he had not delivered. Also that was not the only slogan on
the placards being held aloft: another which was seen in equal numbers stated
“put British workers first”. There is only one logic emanating from either of
these slogans and that is that foreign workers should be denied jobs or sacked
if they have the temerity to secure one to make way for British workers.
Whatever the apologists may say about the positive aspects of this action,
these slogans are both racist and xenophobic and reflect the fact that these
faults do exist to a considerable extent in the British working class
movement. To deny this is to bury one’s head in the sand and ignore reality.
We have a job to do in this country – the same as workers in every country –
and that is to overthrow our bourgeoisie and replace it as the ruling class so
that socialist planning can take the place of the anarchy of production that
now exists and is threatening the livelihoods of all workers. We can only do
that job properly when we accept foreign workers as our brothers and sisters
alongside whom we will rule one day, and alongside whom in the meantime we will
fight against the encroachments of capital. We must enlighten our follow
workers so that when we are squeezed even harder than at present we all
recognise who our real enemies are and who are our friends and comrades in our
struggle. We do not need to see any more spectacles of British workers doing
their masters’ bidding and turning on foreign workers as happened when crowds
gathered at the barges, where the Portuguese and Italian workers of Lindsey
were being housed, and shouted racist and threatening abuse.
This is not to say there were no
positive aspects to the strikes. These included (1): British workers not only
going on strike but doing it in defiance of the anti-trade union laws. And (2):
A deal finally being struck that did not see any job losses among the Italian
and Portuguese workers while creating many extra ones. The pressure by capital
to minimise working-class living standards will, however, become heavier and
heavier as the current economic crisis drags on. For the fight back, workers
need maximum unity, while the class enemy needs us to be divided among
ourselves – on grounds of race, nationality, creed – anything that the enemy
can use to capture the popular imagination in order to defeat working-class
actions. Let us adopt slogans that unite us, not slogans that divide us.