Workers

Dead in the Sand: Racism, Greed and Tragedy in the UK

The deaths of 19 Chinese people, aged between 25 and 42, in the treacherous waters of Morecambe Bay in the north west of England has caused outrage among trade unionists.

But the tragedy cannot be reduced to a one-off freak accident. Immigrant workers in the UK, whether legal or illegal, are falling victim to a complex set of factors that at best lead them into unregulated exploitation – and at worst to death.

Here in China, weak implementation of labour laws and the government’s refusal to allow working people to organise or bargain collectively has led to cases of employers extending working hours to the point where employees have died on the job from sheer exhaustion. Following high profile compensation cases, the phenomenon of being “worked to death” (guo lao er si) has been widely discussed in the mainland media.

Migrants in the UK can face the same levels of exploitation. Just two months ago in the town of Hartlepool, Zhang Guohua died after working a continuous 24-hour shift. Zhang was putting labels on Samsung microwaves, a Korean company “that boasts of record UK factory profits through unit cost reduction”.

Migration in the Era of Globalisation

Outgoing migration by Chinese nationals looking for work abroad has a long and often bitter history. While escape from rural poverty has been an important underlying factor over the last two hundred years, the current era of globalisation is altering the migration map.

Push Factors

The last twenty five years of economic reform have brought much praise for the Chinese government from neo liberal-inclined economists. But behind the dynamic economic growth lies unemployment, a large and widening income gap between rich and poor, a privatised healthcare system and an export-orientated manufacturing system that is notorious for appalling working conditions and low wages. To be sure, some workers in China have done well. But the privatisation of state-owned industries and the willingness of local governments to ignore labour laws in favour of attracting foreign capital have led to widespread despair and insecurity in working class districts all over the country.

It does not require much intelligence to understand why increasing numbers of people are desperate enough to hand over their savings to people smugglers for the promise of well-paid work abroad. In 2003, despite SARS, the economy grew by an impressive 9.1 per cent. In the same year, wage arrears hit US$53 billion, there were over 120,000 work-related deaths (including traffic accidents), and estimates of urban unemployment were as high as 15 per cent nationally and up to 80 per cent in some areas such as Liaoyang City in north east China.

Of course, not all economic migration from China is illegal. Over the last decade, the government has increasingly come to rely on labour export as part of its attempts to reduce unemployment. In some provinces such as Yunnan and Guangxi, labour export has become an integral part of development plans worked out by provincial-level governments.

Pull Factors

The ‘streets of gold’ myth, which holds that developed countries in the West are a haven of good jobs and high wages, remains widespread in China. The IHLO has talked to many migrants while researching the factors underlying economic migration. To be sure, money is a major driving force, but it is by no means the only reason. Migrants often speak of a chance to see other countries, some of escape from an oppressive family relationship. Others speak of earning money to pay their children’s education bills. One of a team of workers from China employed at a major airport in the Middle East told the IHLO that:

“There are two main factors that make this job OK. The money is much better than at home and the wages come on time. Our agents take a cut, but if the employer is fair-minded, we can pay them off in a year. I like to travel. I want to move on somewhere else, maybe Europe and then go home with money in my pocket and get married. My fiancée works at a fashion shop here at the airport as well. We should be alright”.

As any migrant worker will tell you, the risks of migration make luck an overriding factor. Yet no matter how many calculations a migrant makes, he or she can still find themselves in a nightmare of danger and exploitation such as the 19 cockle-pickers who died in Morecambe Bay: surrounded by deadly rising tides, three miles from dry land on a freezing night in north west England.

A Racist Reality

The hand-wringing that has followed last Friday’s tragedy begins to sound a little hollow when one looks at the record of successive governments – Conservative and Labour – on immigration and asylum. Ever since workers from the Caribbean and Asia were asked to make up a shortage of workers in post-war Britain, governments have all-too-often pandered to bigotry in unashamed attempts to ‘play the race card’. The current immigrant and asylum laws in the UK are among the most exclusive in Europe.

The result is a climate of fear that forces even legal immigrants to accept dreadful working conditions and exploitation. The scenario they face is nothing more than the logical result of generalised attacks on trade unions in general and racist immigration laws in particular. The media and politicians have rightly condemned the local British gang leaders who organise housing and work for migrants, legal and illegal. The human smuggling gangs and Chinese ‘snakeheads’ who charge huge sums of money to arrange transport for migrants from China are often guilty of criminal and evil behaviour. And the Chinese government’s blanket and violent refusal to allow workers to organise and defend their interests at home or abroad is equally at fault.

Yet the hand ringing and sound bytes have all but ignored the climate of racism and fear that stops immigrant workers from getting a fair deal. Denying migrants from China and other countries an employment permit forces workers – already in debt to snakeheads – to work illegally, and this in turn permits gang masters to drive down the wages of both legal and illegal workers. At a time when we in the trade unions are told, by governments and employers alike, that there is no alternative to globalisation and the free movement of capital and investment anywhere in the world, this is sheer hypocrisy.

There have been notable exceptions to the crocodile tears and high-minded condemnations. The editorial of the Liverpool Post – Liverpool appears to be the base of this particular gang master and smuggling operation – did not mix its words:

"No doubt those bigots who fuel the national prejudice that every asylum seeker is a sponging criminal abusing the UK welfare system will have little sympathy for those who lost their lives ... But people who are forced to work at such risk to their own lives for such a pittance deserve our compassion, not our contempt ...

"Our national hysteria against all who come here from abroad in search of a better life is such that they find themselves driven underground ... People who cannot find legitimate employment and are scared of the repercussions of officially reporting their presence in Britain to the authorities are vulnerable to the kind of sharks who care nothing for the safety or welfare of those who they press into work. This is the slavery of the 21st century. It shames us all, and it disgraces those who profit from it."