... of Community And Trade Union Groups
Against Immigration Controls, London March 29th, 2008
Over 200 people attended the Trade Union and community Groups
Conference Against Immigration Controls in London on 29th of March.
The conference was hosted by the Finsbury Park local branch of the
National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT). Many
of the people attending were there as delegates of local trade union
branches, migrant community groups or political organisations.
The conference was introduced by Glenroy Watson (Branch Secretary of
the Finsbury Park RMT). Five panel speakers then made keynote
speeches. Gemma, an asylum seeker working with the All African
Women's Group at the Cross Roads Women's Centre spoke about the
precarious experience of women migrants and asylum seekers. Although
officially prohibited from working in the UK, many women asylum
seekers are forced into irregular work to support themselves. They
find themselves with no rights to demand better wages and
conditions. Employers exploit this situation to undermine the wages
of other workers. Gemma emphasised the unrecognised contribution of
women in raising their children, the next generation of workers and
said that women in her position needed the support from their fellow
workers in struggle, on the basis of self-help and mutual
accountability.
The next speaker was Alphonsus Okafor-Mefor, a Nigerian community
activist, recently grant refugee status in the UK following a
campaign largely supported by co-ordination of local Trade Union
branches. Alphonsus talked of the abject conditions of asylum
seekers in the UK and impact this has an individual's sense of self
worth. He spoke of the importance of solidarity from Trade Unionists
in his case and called on the Trade Unions to open their branch
membership to Asylum Seekers, even though they are officially
prohibited to work.
John McDonnell (left Labour Party Member of Parliament, in whose
area are two of the largest detention centres in Britain,
Hamondsworth and Colnbrook) spoke next. He talked of how the
institutional left marginalised and excluded the voices of groups
campaigning for migrants and asylum seekers and the unacknowledged
populations of migrants and asylum seekers living in his area. He
denounced the increasing co-ordination between British and European
migration control policies, giving the example of the recent summit
between the British and French premiers and their plans for joint
deportation flights. He emphasised that the tightening of migration
controls were an expression of the capitalist drive to maximise
workers exploitation. He called on the conference to support those
groups calling for an amnesty for migrants, but also to go further
and argue for a world with no borders. He called for freedom of
movement for all and for solidarity from the workers movement to
achieve this aim.
Then 'Robinson' an undocumented Ecuadorian worker and activist with
the Transport & General Workers Union Justice for Cleaners Campaign
spoke. Robinson (not his real name) left Ecuador in 1999, where he
had been an academic. Today he is a cleaner in the University where
the conference was taking place. Robinson talked of the role of neo-
liberal, capitalist globalisation in undermining the economic and
social conditions workers of the global south and how mass migration
is a response to these conditions. He spoke of the struggle in the
UK for better pay and conditions and for political rights. He
emphasised the ongoing role of transnational migrant communities in
the global north in supporting the struggle of progressive movements
in their counties of origin.
A speaker from London NoBorders then spoke about the transnational
chain of migrant related events, explaining each stage in the chain
from Amsterdam, Sevilla, Torino, Bamako, London, Athens, Warsaw,
Hamburg, Malmoe, and Ceuta and illustrating my talk with the banners
that hug around the hall. He emphasised the importance of building
transnational solidarity in the face of increasing co-ordination of
global capitalism and immigration controls, and called for
solidarity and with the protests against Frontex in Warsaw and
support for the migration-related axis in Malmoe.
There was then an open microphone with many passionate contributions
and proposals from the conference floor. This was followed by
workshops on Anti-Deportation Campaigns, Low Pay and Conditions,
Resisting immigration Controls in the Workplace, Access to Public
Services, Domestic Work, sex Work, Regularisation. Food was provided
by the London Food Not Bombs Collective.
There was then a final plenary, where these workshops reported back
and their proposals were endorsed. These included supporting the
demonstration by the Chinese community against Immigration Raids on
the 21 April. Campaigning for unions to allow asylum seeker to join
and expand their support of workplace migrant struggles and anti-
deportation campaigns. To pressure the public services unions into
supporting workers who refuse to carry out immigration checks before
providing services. To convene regular meeting to advance and
develop the aims of the conference.
All in all it was felt to be good days work and look forward to
forward developing this project in Trade union and community group
co-ordination.
Greg London NoBorders