Neoliberal Globalisation: Its Impacts, and the Role of Asian Migrant Workers in Deconstructing It

Note: This is an update/addendum to the report, A Year After: Surveying the Impact of the Asian Crisis on Migrant Workers, released in May 1998.

Asian crisis

• See: "Summary Table: Immediate Effects of the Crisis, 7 Sept 98"
• As expected, the Asian crisis worsened in 1998; analysts are concerned at the continued deepening and spreading of the crisis. The crisis is expected to deepen for the next 3-5 years before it bottoms out and economies start to improve. By then, the devastation of ordinary people, especially workers, women and migrants would have been tremendous.
• The "second wave" of the crisis happened as expected, with the devaluation of the yen and recession of the Japanese economy. The Asian currencies, stock markets and economies crashed through the floor in the wake of the Japanese recession; in August, Asian stock markets hit record lows.
• The Asian economies are now at economic levels worse than previously predicted; Hopes of an "early recovery" (i.e. within 2-3 years) have been dashed as more countries (Indonesia, Thailand, Korea, Hong Kong, Japan) went into recession. There seems to be no "floor support" as economic performance continue to slide. At best, economic turnaround in Asia is predicted only after 5 years.
• For the free market economists, the current developments are anticipated effects of global capitalist integration - survival of the fittest, streamlining and weeding-out of inefficient companies and mechanisms.
• Therefore, despite the crisis, APEC, WTO and governments (including in Asia) continue to adhere to their free market integration plans.
• The crisis has now spread to Russia. The next wave is expected in Latin America.
• The IMF and international institutions have run out of funds for more bailouts, as revealed by the Russian crisis.
• HK - the bastion of free market economics - was forced to intervene in the market to defend the HK dollar. It spent US$15 billion in August in defense of the peg.
• The Malaysian government instituted market, currency and investment restrictions to defend the economy. It fixed the ringgit to the US$. All these directly contradict neoliberal policies earlier pursued so aggressively by this NIC-hopeful.
• American, European and other western companies have acquired significant controlling power in banks, finance houses, utility companies, and Asian blue hip companies.

Migrants & Workers

• See: "Summary Table: Immediate Effects of the Crisis, 7 Sept 98"
• Impacts on labour are worsening, as expected. Unemployment are at record levels throughout Asia. The latest monitor of AMC indicates that there will be 27 to 29.5 million unemployed workers in 1998 from seven countries alone (21.8 million in Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia; 2.1 to 4.6 million in Hong Kong & South Korea).
• Over 4.0 million local workers lost their jobs from June 97 to May 98 due to the crisis; more than 930,000 migrant workers will be laid off/deported by the end of 1998.
• In Hong Kong, the government has instituted training schemes for local people to do domestic helper jobs.
• Migrant workers, as anticipated, have been the immediate scapegoats both by governments and local workers for the labour woes. Migrants have now been blamed for rising criminality, diseases (including HIV/AIDS), and for stealing local jobs. Tensions between local and migrant workers have already erupted to antagonism (e.g. Hong Kong).
• Discrimination against migrant workers are now more strongly racist in nature.
• The false accusations against migrants (re: stealing local jobs) has been very clearly invalidated by the dramatic back-tracking of several governments on their deportation of foreign workers:
• Malaysia - in July, the government changed its position of not renewing work permits of foreign maids and service workers after the government discovered that locals continued to refuse taking these 3D jobs.
• Korea - after small and medium companies complained about lack of workers because local workers did not take jobs left by the migrants, government softened its stance against immediate deportation of all migrants.

In general, the point we have to remember is that the economies are integrating and globalising along neoliberal direction. Capitalist production has 4 basic factors: land, capital, technology and labour. The first three have been globalised. Therefore, according to the logic of capitalism, labour has to be globalised. Whatever crisis the local workers are experiencing will have to be experienced (in greater intensity) by migrants. At the same time the globalisation of labour - i.e. through the use of migrant labour -- will be intensified even more as demanded by neoliberal globalisation. We are not only witnessing "international labour migration"; what is happening now is the "globalisation of migration".

But the free market also demands that, in a cut-throat global competition, these factors have to be commodified - i.e. isolated, unitised, made optimally manageable, totally controllable. Therefore, the logic of neoliberal globalisation requires that workers, women and migrants be commodified and internationalised. In order to prevent them from becoming unmanageable, they have to be divided, alienated, and made to intensely compete against each other.

This is the reason why migrant workers are now at the eye of the economic storm: after using them to dampen wages and to ease out tight labour markets during boom years, they now have to be arbitrarily and summarily terminated and deported because of the crisis. Together with the contractualisation and informalisation of labour, the use of migrant labour is one of the most profitable and efficient "flexibility tools" of capitalist production.

On our responses and strategies

The following framework should therefore guide our responses and strategies on migrant workers' issues:

1. We have to recognise the fundamental basis of labour migration - the use of cheap migrant labour as part of neoliberal capitalist exploitation.

We have to see that the problem of the migrant workers is not only a problem of "bad working conditions" or "contract violations" or "cultural shock". All these happen precisely because they were hired to be exploited. If they were not more exploitable than local workers, companies would not hire them and receiving countries will not accept them.

2. We have to critically review our decades-old main strategy: the provision of "ambulance services" for migrant workers.

All through these years, the greater part of the responses, strategies and agendas for and of migrants are on charity and "ambulance services" (e.g. providing counseling, legal assistance, shelter, and other forms of crisis intervention).

Who are targeted by these services? In effect, the "unemployed" among the migrants. How about the vast majority of the employed migrants - those without court cases, and other desperate problems? What do we do for them?

If we make a parallelism to the trade union movement, the main thrust is to unionise and organise the employed workers. It's good that, due to the crisis, Asian trade union groups are now exploring and even calling for unionisation of the unemployed (e.g. Korea), and the subcontract, informal, part-time, marginalised, community workers (e.g. KMU/Philippines, Japan). But this is in addition to their basic organising of the regular workers.

Unfortunately, we barely hear calls for the unionisation of migrant workers.

Clearly, we have to go beyond counseling and ambulance services. I'm not saying that counseling and ambulance services should be stopped. They are necessary. But this must not be our central (worse, exclusive) strategy. For church groups, service for migrants could not simply be a matter of charity or compassion. These must also be for justice and liberation.

The danger of ambulance services is, they develop a new dependency between the migrants and the NGOs. These services also put the centre of power squarely on the hands of NGOs - the "big brother/sister". Worse, after more than 10 years of these kinds of services, many migrants have developed an attitude of mendicancy - always expectant or even demanding of charity services. Our more than 1 decade of support work for migrants have not developed a migrants movement, nor has it empowered them significantly.

We don't even have region-wide, basic courses for migrants - e.g. analysing the role of migrants in society, what are their unique qualities and characteristics, potentials, limitations, gender aspects; their role vis-à-vis their home country movement, and the movements in the host country; the dynamics of migration, poverty, IMF, debt, neoliberalism, etc. It is not too harsh to say that we have failed in helping empower the migrants.

What use are calls for solidarity then, if the grassroots migrant organisations are not there? Who will form the backbone of international migrant solidarity to fight against IMF and neoliberalism?

Migrants, side-by-side with the labour movement, are supposed to be at the forefront of the fight against neoliberalism, poverty, debt, IMF, etc. because they are the living results/manifestations of these.

3. We need to develop a migrant movement - necessarily cross-border, regional, international; the core of this must be grassroots migrant organisations.

Indeed, the local labour movement could not fight our battle for us. They should support and strengthen, but we have to be the motive force.

But we can only build a migrant movement - one that can stand side-by-side with the trade union and people's movement - if we help in the organising and empowerment of the grassroots migrant workers.

Therefore, the central role and work of migrant support groups and migrants themselves should be to organise, help train and educate the migrant workers. Building grassroots migrant organisations will also pave the way for the shift of the power base from the NGOs to the migrant themselves.

One of the telling failures of migrant work in the past is the fact that NGOs are the central, motive force behind migrant advocacy, not the migrants themselves.

4. In helping build up grassroots migrants' organisations and movement, support groups have a critical role - they are facilitators for organising.

Unlike local workers, migrant workers have objective constraints in the foreign land, especially in regard to organising, unionisation, education, collective action and other labour activities. Local support groups can provide the necessary physical space and elbow room for the migrants to meet and discuss, and therefore build their grassroots organisations.

This will also put NGOs and support groups in their proper place: not the backbone of the migrant advocacy - movement - but the supporting forces to enable migrants to build their own power.

5. We have to acknowledge the fundamental limitation of a migrant workers' movement: it cannot stand by itself, especially in isolation from the labour movement.

Since migrants straddle two countries, a migrant workers' movement has to have two essential linkages:

If only the first, the migrant movement can antagonise and be mistaken as threatening the interests of local workers and the labour movement. The migrant movement has to develop class unity with the local labour movement.

If only the second, the migrant movement will be directionless and self-serving: working for the subjective interests of the migrants, even colluding with the host countries' agendas, because it is divorced from the home country movement.

6. In the era of globalisation, one of the weakest points in the labour sector is the relationship between migrants and local workers.

If the migrants are like beggars waiting for mercy and help from churches, the people and the trade unions, they will only stoke antagonism, racial discrimination, and hatred by the local people/workers against their mendicancy.

Unless the migrants are unionised and organised, they are not in the position to work hand-in-hand with the local labour movement to process the tension, shatter the myths against migrants, and develop class unity.

In the end, this is the critical point: for the workers - local, migrants, women - to develop class unity and not fall victim to the divisive pressures of neoliberal competition.

7. The main agenda of the migrant community should not only be to build solidarity, but develop regional/international alliances and cooperation.

The first barrier we have to break are the barriers among us - political and ideological.

One of the important reasons why the migrant community in Asia is weak is because of false divisions within the migrant community itself:

True, there are political and ideological differences. But this must not be made the basis of our relationship. The differences and distinctions must be recognised, respected; we have to delink ourselves from those who seek to divide the migrants/workers and serve the interests of neoliberalism.

However, we also have to honestly and objectively recognise varying views/positions, and despite these, forge principled unities, mutual respect, and working alliances. We must accept the reality that those not within our circle are not necessarily enemies; that despite these objective differences, we can create principled linkages.

If we are calling for international solidarity in international fora and conferences (despite the greater difference and diversity of political persuasions here), why can't we build stronger alliances within the migrant community itself?

8. Migrant reintegration is a necessary and key aspect of grassroots migrant organising and education.

Above anything else, the migrant workers' main agenda is economic. Also, migrant workers are transient - they have to go back sooner than later. "Political power arises from economic power". Therefore, our failure to mobilise and translate migrants' economic power into political power is a big loss.

It is difficult to do this with local workers, because their income is not even sufficient for their needs. But migrants' income immediately make them the new middle class in their home countries (while they are working abroad, at least). Our failure to organise, mobilise and give direction to this economic power of migrants are exploited by the neoliberal system by absorbing these resource (remittances of Filipino migrants are 2x the total foreign investments in the Philippines); creating false needs, materialistic, consumerist, luxurious and over-consumptive behaviour of migrants and their families - all characteristics of capitalist, free market society.

Therefore, it is incumbent upon migrants and advocates to integrate economic concerns and migrant reintegration in the overall organising, training and empowerment of grassroots migrants.

Conclusion

Neoliberalism seeks to destroy, unitise, isolate, commodify -- because this is the only way it can exploit and control workers and people.

Our challenge and response must be:

To fight neoliberalism, we have to attack it at all fronts, especially economically. Because unless we regain control of economic production, neoliberal forces will only magnify and multiply their own power.

Therefore, migrant workers have to be empowered for economic production. They have to build organisations which can create economic alternatives - new logic, channel, modes, patterns of relationship of economic production and social relations; new distribution systems; new consumption patterns, mores and behaviour based on sustainable and non-exploitative framework.

We must both oppose and propose. Because we can only defeat neoliberalism if we deconstruct it. And construct, in its place, the alternatives that we want.

Migrant workers are NOT the leading or decisive force in this process. But, they have a unique and significant role, especially in constructing new economic and social alternatives. [AMC/rmv 10 Sept 98]