Walking a fine line
The Currency Lad urges Laborite bloggers to discuss the AWU’s criticism of employers who use Chinese guest workers. No worries. As Mark Bahnisch points out, the racist overtones of the AWU’s comments are undeniable and unacceptable.
However, it is important to note that they are criticising the use of guest workers. The Chinese are not immigrants, they will be flown in to work and flown out again. This is a band-aid approach to a labour shortage that should not be supported. The Government should either make genuine efforts to train people, or allow the Chinese workers to stay as permanent residents.
Currency Lad says:
Ominously, Mr Shorten also said it would be hard to ensure the Chinese workers would be ‘treated fairly.’ Oh he was officially referring to terrible capitalist middlemen who would allegedly exploit the Chinese. The visitors might, for example, be forced to pay for accommodation or other compulsory financial commitments, the national secretary said. Pretty much like everyone else in Australia in fact. Really, of course, Mr Shorten was speaking in AWU code. What he meant was that his union and some of its members might make life, er, interesting for the Chinese. Just like the old days.
CL’s unfounded allegation of union-sponsored violence against the Chinese is not only defamatory, but it’s utterly pathetic.
So is his dismissal of concerns about exploitation. Guest workers sign agreements before they enter Australia. The terms of those agreements are not “like everyone else in Australia”; they are loan-shark style deals designed to effectively indenture the worker.
For example, a group of boilermakers who recently came to work in Western Australia were forced to take out $5000 loans to pay for the paperwork. The interest rate on the loans was 144%. They were also told their wives and children could join them in Australia, but after they arrived discovered that wasn’t the case. They were paid about $13/hour for a job that an Australian would be paid $44/hour.
Interestingly, the company later admitted that it “only entered into this area on the invitation of the CCIWA,” who received a substantial payment as part of the scheme. These “terrible capitalist middlement” are the peak employer body in WA!
The AMWU supported the guest workers who went on strike, pursued the company for the workers’ legal entitlements, and helped them find alternative sponsors so that they could stay for the full time allowed under their visas. At the same time, the union called for changes to the regulatory framework, so that similar exploitation could not happen in future.
There is a risk that activism against particular visa arrangements can slip into racism. However the AMWU demonstrates that an effective campaign against the exploitation of guest workers need not rely on racism and blanket anti-immigration statements.
Labo(u)r Bells and Whistles
The Currency Lad challenges “Laborite bloggers and columnists” to discuss the AWU’s opposition to Chinese workers as guest workers in the fruit picking industry. I’m happy to take him up on it. The Labor Party was rightly condemned for some…
Not racism but “…activism against particular visa arrangements…”
The Specific Solution.
A red herring, Rob. Loan sharks operate in all immigrant communities. Always have. So why aren’t you and the AWU advocating the cessation of immigration (or the issuing of guest worker visas) generally?
The AWU has always been an organisation of knuckle-dragging thugs and, historically, massively racist.
Not so, CL. I don’t support “guest worker” visas being used on a large scale (such as the 10 000 workers we’re discussing), but have no problem with an expansion of our immigration intake if necessary. And I don’t care whether those migrants are from China, Indonesia, England or, like me, Ireland. If you want to call that “The Specific Solution” (who knows why) and imply that it’s racist, feel free. I’ll congratulate you on knocking down another straw man.
I have no sympathy for the AWU’s approach in this instance, or for many of the positions they adopted historically. They were one of the most vocal proponents of the White Australia Policy, and should be condemned for it. But if you’re going to accuse Mr Shorten of making threats of violence, it might be worth backing them up with… oh, I don’t know — actual evidence?
Oh, and this is not just a “loan shark”. This is the CCI and their associates — paragons of capitalist virtue!
“The Government should either make genuine efforts to train people, or allow the Chinese workers to stay as permanent residents.”
People should be training themselves. Or do they expect to be handed everything on a plate?
There’s no labour shortage at all. Just a shortage of people who are prepared to get off their khybers and work for a living instead of relying on handouts.
I am prepared to accept that there are a small number of people that for whatever legitimate reason may find it hard to gain employment but there is about 400,000 people out there who don’t give a damn about furthering themselves by gaining some meaningful qualifications or workplace experience in order to make themselves more attractive to a prospective employer.
As one of many examples, farmers in the Riverina region of NSW are sick and tired of hiring bludgers to harvest their citrus orchards only to have them say “it’s to hard, I’m going back to the comfort of my taxpayer funded lounge chair in Sydney or Melbourne.” And these people openly admit to this on the leading current affairs programmes. The farmers want to hire third world labour because they will do anything for the money and stay for the duration of the job, it’s not a case of employers wanting to pay less.
Why doesn’t the union movement and Labor crack the whip and get the bludgers back into the workforce? The reason is because the union movement want Labor to return Australia to the ‘welfare state’ attitude and that will drive the nation straight back into resession, just like it did last time – yet another case where the Captain of Labor’s ship is the ACTU president instead of the leader of the Opposition.
Until Australia faces up to a problem which has been with us for three decades now, namely encouraging a feeling among many[whether conciously or otherwise doesn't matterr] that they can rely on handouts of one form or another, this problem won’t go away. If, however, we decide that it’s an acceptable attitude, then it’s unreasonable on our part to criticise those who take advantage of the hand outs available to them.
Since all sides of politics are aware of the effects of this approach, but don’t feel able to act, we have to accept that we’re causing large numbers of Australians to become “socially challenged”, and the best short term solution is to bring in workers from overseas. Whether, of course, this is a sound long term approach is another matter; but who worries about long term consequences?
[[It's appreciated, Rob, that unlike "Troppo Armadillo", my contrary perspectives may not be approved of, but they're still permitted.]]
CL’s unfounded allegation of union-sponsored violence against the Chinese is not only defamatory, but it’s utterly pathetic.
I asked in the comment section whether CL was alleging violence, and he answered that he was not. You could call it an unfounded allegation of an unfounded allegation.
I don’t know what Norman means. His comments are welcome at Troppo.
When CL says that “his union and some of its members might make life, er, interesting for the Chinese”, it doesn’t take a genius to work out what he means. He doesn’t mean they’ll make it interesting by, say, taking them to see a movie. When he goes on to call the union a group of “knuckle-dragging thugs”, is it not unreasonable to assume he was referring to violence, whatever he is now saying he meant.
“I don’t know what Norman means.”
A common complaint. I wouldn’t worry too much.
Wha… A union resort to violence in Australia? That could never happen. Norm Gallagher and John Coombs would testifiy to this, no doubt.
Fascinating stuff. a Kiwi posting here
I don’t know what Norman means. His comments are welcome at Troppo.
You could go to the comments section of his post to find out.
Nope, Andjam, still puzzled. As far as I know, nobody has ever been banned from commenting at Troppo. Norman may not have found that everyone agreed with him, or that anyone responded to every one of his comments but he’s free to have his say.
Mark, for some time at Troppo, when I tried to comment I received a “Comment not permitted”. I’ll try again next time I’m on line.
Robert, you should worry, as your inability to understand goes beyond my comments. Your apparently genuine unawareness of how union opposition helped lead to unpleasant treatment of non-caucasians is but one example. And although your’re right about “genius” status not being needed to understand CL’s post, you do seem a tad confused re what he was saying.
Norman, that may be because of a word you inadvertently entered in a comment that’s been blocked by MT Blacklist. It might also be a general problem people have been having with comments in Internet Explorer. I’d give it a go, and if it doesn’t work, I’d suggest emailing Scott Wickstein – he’s the domain’s resident technical guru.
I’ve just logged on using IE and worked out Norman’s issue with Troppo. Some time ago, something went wrong and if you click on the comments link in IE it doesn’t work. You can still read and comment in IE if you click on the date stamp or the link under “most recent comments”. It seems to work fine in every other browser.
It’s obviously a bug in MT, but if anyone knows how to get around this, give Scott a hoy. You can find him at http://www.ubersportingpundit.com
Thanks, Mark; but when using your supplied link above] I went to his site, once again I was told “acess forbidden”. I’ll try Troppo again, using the date stamp and/or most recent comments.
Tried various routes, Mark, but all —- “access denied”. Help?
Norman, another reader had a similar problem. What’s probably happened is that something you wrote in one comment has contained a string that MT Blacklist has found dodgy and blocked your email address or IP. Unfortunately, I know nothing about the technical side of things.
Email Scott – he’s the owner of the domain – you can find his address at http://www.ubersportingpundit.com
Norman, please see this thread for a possible fix, courtesy of Evil Pundit:
http://troppoarmadillo.ubersportingpundit.com/archives/008171.html
Thanks, Mark, I’m trying.
But once again it didn’t work. Still, Thanks.
Norman, there is a post up now from Scott with more detailed instructions.
http://troppoarmadillo.ubersportingpundit.com/archives/008178.html