En Passant

The problem is not foreign workers, argues Paddy Gibson in Solidarity. It is the bosses. Paddy rebuts the idea that foreign workers cause unemployment. He says, among other things:

‘Abbott government cuts and corporate profiteering are to blame for job losses, not foreign workers. But sadly, unions have done little to fight these very real attacks. Union-wide mobilisations against Abbott’s budget have been abandoned. There has also been no industrial campaign against the mass sackings at Holden, BP or Australia Post. Grandstanding against “foreign workers” is a far easier option, but it only sets back the fight for jobs.’

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The ramifications of the collapse in class struggle are clear for all to see – growing inequality, more wealth being shovelled to the wealthy, long working hours, high levels of disguised unemployment and politically a cowered trade union movement meek in its mildness and terrifying in its timidity, with a Labor Party whose raison d’etre appears almost indistinguishable from the Tories.

Instead of attacking Chinese and other ‘foreign’ workers we should welcome them and fight for them. In doing that can we begin rebuilding our capacity as a movement to defend all jobs and help keep at bay the nationalist flag of racism.