Strangers into Citizens

I’m not going to waste time blogging about yet another announcement from Blair that he is leaving (I wish he’d gone when Lambeth UNISON proposed a motion calling for his resignation back in 2004, but wiser counsel within UNISON prevailed and we preserved our influence with New Labour by not asking him to go…)

Instead I want to urge readers to join UNISON in supporting Monday’s “Strangers into Citizens” event in London. Full details (at over 1MB) are here.

There are those in the Labour movement who worry that, by increasing the supply of labour in some parts of our segmented labour market, migration is depressing wages. There is no doubt that as long as so many migrants are “illegal” then employers can exploit them to hold down wages and conditions – but the socialist answer is never hostility to migrants, nor is it any sort of immigration control.

UNISON policy favours an amnesty for illegal migrants – this policy has been developed in the direction of “sustainable regularisation” (although the policy of our Conference remains unchanged). On a personal note, on international workers day, as an internationalist I believe that all workers have the right to travel to and work in any part of our world.

I hope to attend on Monday – and I hope that the UNISON London Regional Committee tomorrow will be doing some real work to maximise attendance from the Region. Each UNISON branch should at least match the attendance it delivered at the Regional Council AGM – there’s a target for us!