Word: migrant
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...their villages--or often enough, simply to survive where unemployment ranges from 20 to 50 per cent. Known in West Germany as gastarbeiter (guestworkers), and in France as hommes deracines (rootless men), these workers are concentrated in the worst paid, most arduous and most hazardous jobs. As of 1972, migrant workers made up 10 per cent of the work force in industrial western Europe, and much larger proportions in specific industries. It is migrants who man the assembly lines at Renault and Volvo, who dig the tunnels underneath Geneva, who make asbestos in the Ruhr--jobs which native workers avoid...
...migrants are allowed to enter the 'host' countries only insofar as they are needed in the labor force. Most migrants are men in their twenties and thirties, since the immigration authorities discourage them from bringing in their families. Rigorous medical examinations exclude all but the healthiest applicants. Once he has arrived, the migrant lives segregated from native workers--in barrack-like compounds in West Germany; in overcrowded shantytowns in France. Victimized by sleep merchants (housing profiteers), and endangered by unfamiliar machinery, the migrant also has no political rights to speak of--he can be deported at any time...
...organized national working class formed the entire labor reserve and suffered accordingly they might begin to demand that an end be put to the system... If, however, a large part of the labor reserve is made up of migrant workers, they can be 'imported' when needed and 'exported' (sent home) when made temporarily redundant and there need by no political repercussions...
...widespread use of migratory labor also offers economic advantages to western Europe capitalism. From the point of view of the economy as a whole rather than that of the individual capitalist, employing migrant workers lowers the social cost of reproducing the labor force. It costs between $5,000 and $10,000 to raise a worker to the age of twenty in an underdeveloped country. To produce the same worker in a developed country costs between $20,000 and $30,000. Not only does the country which uses migratory labor save substantial social costs at home, but in effect it also...
...SINCE MIGRANT workers form the healthiest and most active sector of the population in their native countries, developed countries thus avoid any involvement in the support of those who are not directly involved in the productive process. Similarly, because migrants are not allowed to bring in their families, the 'host' country saves the cost of public facilities such as housing, schooling, hospitals, and welfare benefits. Instead of supporting a whole population, western European capital is only obliged to care for those workers it needs to employ, and those only while they are employed, not before or after...