Stephen Timms, Clueless On Free Movement

Yesterday, on Sky's “All Out Politics”, Labour MP, Stephen Timms, in arguing that it was vital for the UK to stay in the single market and customs union, for a transitional period, made the case that had he been negotiating with the EU, he would have argued for a reform of free movement, so that, for example, workers had to have the offer of a job, before they could move to some other EU country. It illustrates what is wrong with the thinking behind much of Labour's policy on the EU, and particularly what is wrong with that strand of conservative social-democratic thinking that places the interests of capital first, and the interests of workers second. But, it also demonstrates the kind of absurd unthought out policies you get when you have politicians who are removed from the realities of the lives of ordinary workers.

First things first. Such a policy does not amount to free movement for workers. It simply amounts to an added freedom for capital not only to move to wherever it can make the biggest profits, but also to be able to move labour around on a whim, again simply to meet its immediate requirements. It is an extension of the casualisation of labour, and introduction of things like zero hours contracts that have arisen within national economies, particularly in Britain, over the last 30 years. That casualisation of labour and zero hours contracts, put workers in the same kind of situation that they faced in the 1930's, when they had to hang around on street corners, waiting for a truck to come along, sent by gangmasters, and various employers, to pick up a lucky few, who might be granted a few hours work for the day. It is a return to those same practices that continued to operate on Britain's docks until after the second world war, where dockers again would have to turn up to the docks, only then to find out if they would get work for the day.

Those practices back then were thought to be barbaric, and they were. It took repeated action by dock workers, led by people like Jack Dash, and a Labour government under Clement Attlee, that introduced the National Dock Labour Scheme, in 1947, to abolish those practices. The National Dock Labour Scheme was abolished by Thatcher in 1989, and a series of other such attacks on workers, taking conditions back to those of the 1930's, were introduced, which Blair inherited, and maintained. Marcon is attempting to introduce similar measures in France today. The 1 million people on zero hours contracts today, and the millions more, in similar casualised employment, is the consequence. The Tories point to the extent of employment, and low level of unemployment, but of course, in systems of slavery there is always full employment. Those who benefit most from that employment are not the slaves, who barely make enough to survive, but the slave owners who sit back and soak up the huge surplus product that the slaves produce. And so it is today; high levels of employment, but low levels of wages, desperate conditions, and high levels of profits soaked up by the employers, and huge amounts of dividends paid out to the parasitic coupon clippers.

That is the economic environment that Timms, and his ilk, see as desirable, and workers only benefit from those conditions, by having a larger volume of crumbs, dropping from the table in their direction, if they are allowed to move towards them by the restrictions on free movement that the capitalist state imposes.

But, as a policy it is absurd and ill thought-out. What about all those EU citizens, for example, who have retired? Does Timms think that all those UK pensioners that have retired to the Spanish, French and Italian sunshine, and who thereby reduce the burden on the UK health and social care system, have no right to be there? After all, by definition, they are not working. Then let's think of the way such a policy would confront an actual worker, and their family.

In the 1980's, as Thatcher's depression dragged on, and unemployment climbed inexorably to over six million, the condition of some British workers, who took Norman Tebbitt's advice to get on their bike to look for work, was illustrated in the comedy series Auf Wiedersehen Pet. Imagine today, a Geordie bricklayer, who having spent months without work in Britain looks for work in Dusseldorf. According to Timms, he would only be able to go there, if he already had the offer of a job in Germany. Let's assume that happens, what then? Does his wife, also have to have a job offer in Germany, for the family to be able to move? If so, then, in fact, he will be turned into simply a migrant worker, flotsam and jetsam to be pulled into and pushed out not only of work, but out of anywhere to live, simply at the whim of capital, at that moment. He would be in a worse position than were the dock workers before 1947, because at least they had a home to return to.

But, suppose our Geordie bricklayer, on the promise of this job, is allowed to take his wife and kids. They sell their home in the UK, they take their kids out of school, and they take out a mortgage on a new home in Dusseldorf. And then the job offer fails to materialise, or after a few months, the company they are working for goes bust, and they are left without work. What then? Does our Geordie bricklayer have to up sticks and move back to Tyneside?

For many of these politicians like Timms, they live in a rarefied atmosphere, where the professions they may, at best, have occupied, before going to Parliament, frequently enable them to move from one country to another, with some degree of certainty for them and their families. The high salaries that they obtain as barristers and so on, or like with David Miliband, running large organisations, enable them to buy or rent properties in desirable parts of any country they are living in; their jobs either provide them with private healthcare insurance, or their salaries are high enough to be able to cover it, and they can send their kids to private schools, and so on. They, like capital, take free movement for granted, as they move from one high flyer job to another.

It simply is not like that for ordinary workers, who have to worry about the security of the employment they might have, the possibility of their spouses obtaining employment, the problems that might arise, if they are sick, or their kids are sick and so on. That is why workers need the right of free movement, not simply the right of capital to move them at its own whim. It is why workers in whatever country they reside need to have security, on an equal basis with every other worker in that country, whatever their origin. It is one reason we need a United States of Europe that provides those rights for workers across the continent.