Rodney Atkinson
DATELINE 9th February 2009
The justified strikes by British workers about transported foreign labour were predictable as soon as the European Union saw as its mission the “free movement of people” across the European Union. This all stems from the Maastricht Treaty “on economic and monetary union” signed by the Conservative Ministers Francis Maude and Douglas Hurd in 1992. Shortly after they had signed the Treaty Hurd said “I suppose we had now better go away and read what we have signed up to”.
Shortly after that constitutional outrage (for the details of which see the book by myself and Norris McWhirter “Treason at Maastricht” www.freenations.freeuk.com/publications.html) I met Hurd at a cocktail party and pointed out to him that the whole purpose of free market capitalism was that free trade and the free movement of capital made the movement of labour unnecessary. He confessed he had not thought of it that way! When communist powers like the Soviet Union or corporatist powers like the European Union restrict trade and set up barriers they are faced with mass migrations from those countries whose trade they restrict (poorer countries in the Caucuses, Asia and Africa for instance).
But the European Union never believed in democratic capitalism and prosperity for nation states. It believed in State organised corporatism and forcing workers to go to other countries so that the borders of EU member states would become irrelevant. Their aim was not economic prosperity but imperial politics – which is why Lord Mandelson wants British workers to travel to other European countries when they lose their jobs to workers who have come from other European countries!
International trade and capital movements on the other hand allow poorer countries to take advantage of their lower labour costs by accepting investment capital from richer countries to employ workers locally and then export the goods or services produced by them. The workers remain within their cultural and linguistic home but effectively earn money in a richer country – without the need for emigration. Developing countries cannot afford to lose their skilled workers or professionals and rich countries cannot afford the immigration of culturally alienated peoples who come in such large numbers that their peaceful integration is impossible. Indeed the new immigrant communities bring their “pre packed” countries with them and effectively colonise the host country. With ludicrous “free movement” economic policies like the EU’s such migrants can hardly be blamed since they are effectively forced to migrate.
The hypocrisy of Mandelson and other euro-federalists is in their claim that this is all “voluntary” and they are merely offering “freedoms”. This was exactly their claim about Sunday trading. It was all voluntary they said – but the commercial pressures their laws unleashed eventually made Sunday working effectively compulsory.
Helmut Kohl made a similar disastrous move when he rigged the exchange rate between the old German Ostmark and the Deutschmark when East and West Germany re-united. The East Germans had their “freedom” and millions left, denuding East Germany of the young, the professional, the skilled and indeed destroying its industrial base which could not compete within the Deutschmark.
Replacing the movement of workers with the free movement of capital, goods and services is the decent, democratic and capitalist method of solving this very serious humanitarian problem. But the problem was created by corporatists and socialist legislation. Under present EU rules all workers must get the same minimum legal rights to pay and conditions as locals in the countries where they work but European Court of Justice rulings say employers do not have to obey collective bargaining agreements – which means they can offer lower pay (so long as it is above the minimum wage level!)
As a result the trafficking of labour between countries by contractors who win work outside their own country can be very profitable. The workers employed by the Italian contractor at the Lindsey Oil Refinery for instance are housed in cheap collective accommodation and do not have the same costs of living in Britain as the British workers they replace.
The Euro-corporatists’ solution is of course to fiddle with the symptoms. The former Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen said: “Workers should be employed at the agreed wage levels negotiated between unions and employers in the country of work.” The Labour Euro-MP Richard Corbett added: “An obvious solution is to give collective agreements legal recognition in UK law.” The obvious solution is of course to forbid the trafficking of labour and force all contractors to employ the labour in the country where the contract is based.
No worker of any nationality wants to travel thousands of miles to a foreign culture just to get a job and the capitalist market economy does not require them to do so. But the European Union’s State manipulated Corporatism does. That is one of the many reasons why Britain must leave the EU – taking with us as many European countries which understand democratic sovereignty and the prosperity which comes from free trade and cross border investment.
Rodney Atkinson is the author of 3 books on political economy (The Failure of the State, Government against the People and The Emancipated Society) and three books on Britain and the European Union (Treason at Maastricht, Europe’s Full Circle and Fascist Europe Rising). His latest publications are two cds “The Nazis and Fascists who founded the European Union” and “The British Declaration of Independence”). Details are at freenations.net/blog/
