BY SAM WAINWRIGHT
On September 9, five suspected illegal-immigrant workers at the De Lorenzo ceramics factory in Sydney's west were detained following a raid by immigration department officials. The NSW branch of the construction & general division of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) welcomed the raid.
The union branch had supplied information about this employer to the anti-union Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry three months earlier.
Reporting possible "illegals" to the authorities has been the consistent policy of the CFMEU's NSW branch one of its chief complaints to the royal commission has been that the commission and government agencies have failed to follow up its tip-offs.
The CFMEU's approach has angered many anti-racist and refugee-rights activists, who have condemned it for racist collaboration with the government against fellow workers. Responding to such accusations on an email discussion list, CFMEU organiser Phil Davey sarcastically suggested that one of the union's critics, University of Technology, Sydney employee Sergio Fiedler, should resign immediately so that his job might be filled by an immigrant worker on half his pay.
Davey claimed: "The Koreans arrested yesterday were brought to this country by organised crime, the Korean triad to be specific. They were used earlier this year to break a strike by other (legal) Korean Australian workers. This is in fact what you are defending; organised crime syndicates bringing workers into this country to break strikes and undercut unionised workers ... The real world is sometimes a little more complicated than it appears from the UTS tower building."
According to the CFMEU, the workers at De Lorenzo worked for 50% less than industry rates of pay. So the question is posed, do "illegal" workers threaten Australian job conditions, and if so, what should we do about it?
Employer savings
Green Left Weekly spoke to NSW CFMEU secretary Andrew Ferguson in July about this issue. He explained that by paying "illegals" cash-in-hand, employers saved on workers' compensation premiums (10% of labour costs), state payroll tax (6%) and the portion of the worker's wage that would normally be remitted to the Australian Taxation Office (around 35%).
Ferguson added: "On top of the 50% labour cost saving, you've got workers that are illegal and subject to exploitation that will work for less than a worker that is familiar with their rights. So you end up with a work force that costs 40% of legal union labour.
"The reality is that contractors employing illegals are dramatically undercutting wage standards in the building industry... I've seen for example in the tiling trade, the whole industry, a traditionally non-English speaking work force predominantly Italian, Greek and Spanish, being completely driven from the industry. It's now being supplied by illegal workers, predominantly from Korea. We've now got a massive influx of workers from China going into the gyprock trade."
This problem of undocumented workers is not unique to Australia. There is nothing new about migrant workers facing greater exploitation than workers born in the country. This super-exploitation, which occurs in all First World countries, is felt most acutely by "Illegals" who could be deported if caught.
For example, according to David Bacon writing in 1997 in the eighth edition of the Links journal, California is home to more than 40% of the roughly three million undocumented immigrants living in the USA. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, US politicians have no serious plan to deport the majority of these "illegals". The Californian economy would collapse without them. They are especially dominant in the agriculture, tourism, light industry, retail trade and garment manufacturing industries. The laws which persecute them, like the whipped-up anti-illegal-worker sentiment, just preserve their low-paid status.
"We're not talking about political refugees here", Ferguson argued, talking about undocumented migrants in the building trade. "We're talking about people who are brought into the country or who come individually as tourists or students, but who really come as a compliant labour force."
Ferguson's attempt to distinguish between "deserving" political refugees and "undeserving" economic refugees sets up a false division. Rich countries get rich by ripping off poor countries, often enforcing economic dominance through military repression. Inevitably, this results in poverty, environmental destruction, corruption, social breakdown and violent conflict.
First World governments sanction the freedom of the big corporations to go wherever and do whatever they choose, but deny poor people free movement. Should it make any difference whether people coming to Australia are escaping political repression or just destitution? Most Koreans coming to Australia illegally may not be immediately threatened with starvation, but what is wrong with them wanting a reasonable life for their kids?
Unions fuelling racism
It is a grave mistake for Australian unions to attack undocumented workers. By supporting the imperialist system which divides the world between rich and poor countries, it undermines working-class unity. After all, immigration barriers in the rich countries are all about keeping out the black, brown and yellow hordes.
Ferguson admits the current situation is fuelling racism in the industry. But encouraging one group of workers to dob in another will only make this worse. It promotes the idea that the enemy is not the boss, but some worker in an even weaker position than you.
Unions should be seeking to draw in our undocumented brothers and sisters: fighting for better pay, better conditions and full citizenship rights. This approach strengthens the position of all Australian workers.
Davey is wrong to think that critics of the NSW CFMEU do not see how bosses exploit undocumented labour to the detriment of all of us. On the contrary, what we are saying is that his union's approach to the problem will only make things worse.
Ferguson suggested that while he would like to see the situation of undocumented workers improved, there was not much the union could do about it. The immediate priority of the union, he argued, was to defend the jobs of its existing members. He went on to explain that there have been cases in which the union won undocumented workers back pay, but the workers gave it back to the boss for fear of losing their job.
Ferguson concluded, "We just can't solve the issue. If there was an amnesty that would give workers more legal power, then we could better organise them. But the way they are now we can't organise them."
Union responsibility
There have always been sectors of the work force that have been less unionised or harder to organise. Bosses have always attempted to use such workers to undermine the wages and conditions of all workers. Such manipulation does not absolve us of the responsibility to unionise them and help them fight for a better deal. What other choices are there? Hoping that the government whether run by Labor or Liberal will make our job easier by granting an amnesty to undocumented workers is about as futile as believing it might voluntarily repeal the Workplace Relations Act. Neither will happen without a determined struggle on the job and in the streets.
The experience of the Victorian CFMEU branch indicates that it is not impossible to fight for the rights of undocumented workers. Victorian CFMEU secretary Martin Kingham told GLW: "In Victoria we simply say that to work in our industry, all you've got to do is be a member of the union, acknowledge the industry agreement and do your bit. If the immigration authorities have got any concerns with [a worker], they can sort it out anywhere bar the work site. That's been ... the way the world's gone around in Victoria and whilst there have been a couple of isolated instances, in which the immigration department has sought to politicise a couple of sites by trying to intervene on some allegations, it's seen the error of its ways and hasn't sought to repeat it.
"I don't think people need to be looking over their shoulders wondering if they're going to get carted off by immigration for all sorts of allegations. Half of our membership, or more, at one stage or other has come in as migrants, illegal or otherwise, and we reckon most of them are loyal members of the union and we don't see any reason why that ought to change."
The Victorian CFMEU is one of the country's leading unions in industrial strength and pay and conditions won for its members. It is no coincidence that a strong union has this approach to undocumented workers. When it comes to fighting workplace racism, the best medicine is united struggle for pay and conditions. Many Victorian building workers know that their best interests lie in all sticking together. In September, a motion condemning the approach in NSW was passed unanimously by the Victorian branch. It read, in part:
"Our union should not be giving the green light for police to come on site to arrest workers, especially in this period. If workers are not unionised and if they are undercutting wages and conditions, they need to be organised into the union on the appropriate rates of pay and their grubby bosses forced to do the right thing. If the NSW branch needs help to do this, they should ask for it from other branches of the union. However turning to the police is wrong and we oppose it."
[Sam Wainwright is a member of the Maritime Union of Australia and is the Socialist Alliance candidate for the NSW seat of Bankstown.]
From Green Left Weekly, October 23, 2002.
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