[The following article appeared in the August 30 issue of La Brèche, fortnightly newspaper of the Ligue Marxiste Révolutionnaire (Revolutionary Marxist League), the Swiss organization in sympathy with the Fourth International. It deals with what is increasingly becoming a central political problem on a Europewide scale: the status and role of immigrant workers. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
In German Switzerland, the immigrant workers are called Gastarbeiter (guest workers): people who stay only a short time before returning to their own countries. Apart from the fact that the general conditions reserved for these Swiss workers makes the word guest sound somewhat paradoxical, it must be added that this picture no longer exactly corresponds to reality.
It is no longer a question of temporary labor necessitated by exceptional circumstances (accelerated growth during the postwar period); on the contrary, today many immigrant workers occupy key posts in production, to such an extent that if there is a recession, the Swiss bourgeoisie may not be able to apply its old scheme of laying off foreigners first. This is just what the employers imply in their letter to Brugger, * and the trend is backed up by the facts: In August 1972, some 40.5 percent of the immigrants involved in production held residency permits.
The corollary of this development is the entrance of the immigrant population into the Swiss political arena; the immigrants' deeper involvement in Swiss society makes them more sensitive to all kinds of socioeconomic problems that they had previously tended to ignore, since the time they spent in Switzerland was relatively short.
The Fears of the Bourgeoisie
This is making the bourgeoisie uneasy. An increase in the number of residency permits, says the abovementioned letter from the Union Centrale, "would contribute neither to political stability nor to labor harmony in our country." And even though a residency permit does not by any means grant foreigners all basic political rights, the Union Centrale is floating the idea of a still more restrictive law: "It must be borne in mind that our residency law does not differentiate sufficiently from the rights of Swiss citizens." (Letter to Brugger.)
All the measures taken in the recent period for enforcement of immigration control by the immigration police are aimed both at muzzling this section of the working class and, if possible, at separating out those who are integrating themselves into the "moral and economic structures of the country" (as the 1931 law puts it) from those who are not. Moreover, if we remember certain witch-hunting statements, like the one from the textile employers (reported in La Brèche, No. 69), we can get a good idea of the bourgeoisie's "great fear."
It may be objected that this politicization of the immigrant population has been channeled through organizations within which the Communist parties play a dominant role, and that the Swiss bourgeoisie can use these organizations to ensure more or less direct control over the immigrant section of the working class. Moreover, the bourgeoisie can undertake a continuing dialogue with these organizations, with a view toward derailing possible struggles.
This is true, but only to a point: The hegemony of these organizations is far from complete; they are themselves under pressure from a rank and file that is tending to radicalize and is a long way from adopting the completely collaborationist (not even reformist) position of the traditional organizations of the Swiss labor movement. And it is a fact that the immigrant workers' participation in political life during the past months has been qualitatively higher than in past years, when it was almost nonexistent.
1963-70: The Labor Market Tightens
But the political consequences of the presence of immigrant workers are not the Swiss employers' only worries. Let's take a quick look at some of the economic implications. After the postwar laisser-faire period, the first restrictive immigration measures taken by the Federal Council in 1963 corresponded to the desire to look after small, medium, and large companies.
The factory quotas then enacted enabled small and medium-sized firms, as well as declining sectors, to survive, but limited the expansion possibilities of the largest companies. A struggle was touched off within the bourgeoisie and was made even more acute by the Schwartzenbach offensive, which ended in 1970 in a victory for large-scale, technologically advanced industry: While general limitation on immigrants was strengthened, both in response to Schwartzenbach and in order to avoid upsetting the political situation, large-scale industry won the replacement of the factory quotas by canton [province] quotas, which was to foster the restructuring of the productive system in the interests of the big capitalist trusts.
But this victory for Sulzer, BBC, and others was soon to run into a new difficulty. The limitation on the total number of immigrant workers was to give rise — starting right during the 1969-70 recovery -to "pressures on the labor market" that created optimal conditions for winning wage raises. To be sure, during this period the employers sought to draw in new forces from the indigenous labor supply, but they rapidly discovered that they had little to hope for in this direction. Factory closures were not producing enough surplus labor: From 1966 to 1970, 6.2 percent of existing firms shut down, but 1,308 new ones, about 8.8 percent, immediately opened up. Young workers are delaying their entry into production more and more, or are taking up retraining courses after a short period of activity. The retirement age is coming down, and lastly, various obstacles (cost of setting up child care, ideological impediments, and so on) stand in the way of increased utilization of women, according to the employers, although some modifications are being made in this area.
Under these conditions, the employers, hand in glove with the Federal Council, little by little turned to a policy of fighting wage increases, opposing the tying of wages to the cost-of-living index, and opposing any reduction in the work day—a policy that now amounts to an attempt to severely restrict wage increases.
If the employers have managed to get through this "difficult" period relatively easily, in the last analysis they doubtlessly owe this to the extreme collaborationist policy of the trade-union leaders, who took no advantage of this period to extract substantial gains for the working class.
A section of the employers also protested against any easing of restrictions on immigrant workers changing their locality, occupation, or canton, seeing this as an unfavorable factor, from their point of view, with regard to wage stability. On this score, the recent federal decree does not fully satisfy them. We will come back to this question.
And in Case of Crisis?
Finally, the bourgeoisie is running into another problem: The future of the economy, as depicted in the letter to Brugger, does not look especially rosy: "Even if we have nothing to fear in the immediate future, nevertheless a crisis situation is not excluded."
Now, in the event of a crisis or a deep recession, the bourgeoisie would like to have the immigrant workers play their time-honored role as the layer that can be pushed around and laid off with no trouble.
But here the bourgeoisie runs into new problems:
1. The position of immigrant labor in the heart of the productive process makes layoffs a very risky undertaking, and Swiss workers would probably suffer the sad experience of being laid off along with the immigrants. "This," Vorort correctly comments in the letter to Brugger, "would make the social situation in our country still more explosive."
2. Competition on the European labor market is a fact, and in order to remain competitive the Swiss bourgeoisie is obliged to offer those advantages likely to attract or retain foreign workers; in the circumstances, this means liberalization in granting permanent residency and short-stay permits - which certainly runs counter to the original safety-valve role that devolved upon the immigrant proletariat. This requirement of competition on the labor market was well understood by the negotiators of the 1964 Italo-Swiss immigration agreement when they wrote:
"Since the shortage of workers, especially of skilled workers, is making itself felt more and more in all the European countries, we must see to it that our economy is able to retain those foreigners who have worked in our country for several years... In these conditions, we could not take the responsibility for postponing any longer the application of the necessary measures, as this would prevent us from remaining fully competitive in the international labor market and would be prejudicial to our economy's productivity." (Feuille Fédérale, 1964, p. 1056.)
So we can see that the bourgeoisie finds itself in a very delicate situation. It must reconcile many antagonistic factors, not the least of which is a growing xenophobia fostered by the initiatives of the far right-not the subject of this article.
The New Quotas of July 1973
This is the context in which the July 6, 1973, federal decree on the distribution of foreign labor was passed. (See Box 1.) This new decree, replacing the one of 1971, does not fully satisfy the large employers: The drop from 20,000 to 10,000 new year-round permits (only 5,000 of which can be issued immediately) is considered too heavy a restriction to allow for replacement of those workers with year-round permits who leave.
They likewise find fault with the measures relaxing the regulations on change of residence, occupation, or canton, which they describe as an "unfavorable factor from the point of view of cost increases." (Journal des Associations Patronales, July 26, 1973.)
It is clear that in taking these two measures the Federal Council finally had to take into account both the xenophobic pressures now being exerted and the pressure brought to bear on the mixed negotiating commission by the Italian trade unions.
On the other hand, the introduction of quotas by canton for seasonal workers too strengthens the position that large-scale industry won with the introduction of the March 1970 measures (allocation of year-round workers by canton). The former allocation of seasonal workers by sector benefited exclusively the traditional seasonal industries (hotels and construction): The new system introduces greater flexibility into the exploitation of seasonal labor by the various sectors of Swiss capitalism, while also tightening the bonds of this type of labor.
Seasonal Workers: The April 1 Gimmick
In fact, the federal decree confirms a scandalous measure aimed at perpetuating the seasonal worker's status and at preventing him from obtaining year-round status (which nonetheless is provided for in the agreements with Italy, for example).
What is involved here? In theory, seasonal workers who have completed nine full months in Switzerland five times (a total of forty-five months) can get a year-round permit. In reality, the immigration police had already stipulated - and this has been confirmed by this decree - that seasonal construction workers cannot enter Switzerland before April 1 and must leave on the last Saturday before Christmas, which prevents them from completing nine full months. Considering that some 70 percent of seasonal workers are employed in the construction industry, it is obvious that this measure is aimed at keeping the large majority of seasonal workers in their present status, excepting only those working in other branches of industry and those who have had an earlier entry authorized by the OFIAMT [Office Fédérale de l'Industrie des Arts et Métiers — Federal Office of Industrial Arts and Skills] or the cantons. (See Box 2.)
In the circumstances, the Federal Council indirectly is trying to give a new content to the concept of seasonal worker. Until 1950, the seasonal workers' arrival date was fixed at March 15 and their departure at November 30. But from 1957-58, in response to the technical modifications that enabled them increasingly to extend their working time into the colder months, the time limits were extended. At this point it became completely artificial to make any distinction between a seasonal worker symbolically interrupting his activity in Switzerland and a year-round worker going to spend his holidays in his own country. And this situation placed the bourgeoisie in a weak position relative to the Italian negotiating team in 1964, which, under pressure from the Italian trade unions, demanded at least a modification, if not the abolition, of the seasonal worker status.
Seasonal Workers Status: A Scandal
For the bourgeoisie, it is essential to maintain the seasonal workers status in a way that puts at its disposal a labor force with no rights at all, which can be cut back or made to work as required. In fact, the seasonal worker can neither change his place of residence nor bring his family in. He cannot rent an apartment and has to make do with barracks provided by his employer.
If disabled, he is entitled neither to the national health insurance job-training program nor to partial disability payments under the national disability insurance system. Neither is he entitled to special social security benefits. As soon as his contract is terminated, he loses his right to sick pay and to compensation for lost wages. To be sure, he gets benefits from health insurance in his native country, but these are woefully inadequate and include neither a per diem nor a hospital allowance.
Furthermore, he does not receive unemployment insurance during the compulsory seasonal break, even though he pays taxes like anyone else, including contributions to the funds for paying Swiss soldiers for loss of earnings.
Strangely enough, seasonal workers' tax contributions are worked out on the basis of their monthly income multiplied by twelve (!), and although the 1964 Italo-Swiss agreement provided for a more "accurate" calculation (maximum duration of eleven months, that is, 2,300 hours), it seems that this "recommendation" has remained a dead letter. Finally, during the first two season, only twenty-four hours notice of dismissal is given!
The policy of the bourgeoisie, which is trying to avoid various dangers, can be finally reduced to two major aims:
1. Primarily, to maintain the status of seasonal worker, while at the same time making this mass of workers more broadly available to industry;
2. Then, to carry out the training of skilled workers only on the basis of strict criteria of selection, which can be used very precisely through the strengthening of the immigration police. These criteria would be both occupational (quality of work) and political (the immigrant's "behavior"). (See Box 3.)
And the Swiss Trade Union Movement?
The trade-union leadership has fully sanctioned this policy. In our pamphlet Capitalisme suisse et travailleurs étrangers [Swiss Capitalism and Foreign Workers] we quoted trade-union statements, for example, that were favorable to this selection policy. In 1963, the FOMH [Fédération Suisse des Ouvriers sur Métaux et Horlogers -Swiss Federation of Metalworkers and Watchmakers] stated: "In its own best interests, management in all branches of industry, while systematically limiting the employment of foreign workers, must eliminate progressively all those whose job and personal qualifications are inadequate."
At the moment, they still stand by this position, urging a reduction in the number of foreign workers admitted on year-round permits. (The Swiss Union Federation had proposed a ban on the admission of any more year-round workers, and a 5 percent reduction in the upper limit on seasonal workers.)
In addition, they address themselves neither to the problem of basic democratic rights for the established workers, nor to the necessity of completely abolishing the seasonal workers status, nor, lastly, to the problem of a common struggle of the Swiss and foreign workers. Quite the contrary; by stating, as did the union federation, "that the Federal Council has not paid sufficient attention to the internal political situation in its new regulations on foreign labor" (the communiqué Lutte Syndicale [Trade-Union Struggle], August 1, 1973), the trade-union leaders have adopted the nationalist concept of überfremdung [foreign penetration].
Swiss and Immigrants: Same Fight!
Revolutionary tradition has always opposed all limitation, restriction, and selection of immigrant workers. All such measures institutionalize the divisions among workers and can only weaken them relative to the employers.
The argument that the entry of immigrant workers brings downward pressure on wages is valid only to the extent that the workers are not organized in instruments of struggle, which is what the unions are supposed to be, and to the extent that the policy of "labor peace" leaves the employers free to use against the workers any softening of the labor market.
But the limitations and restrictions, with the divisions that this creates within the working class, weaken the whole working class in the medium and long term in such a way that it will be paralyzed when faced by the employers. This weakening is unquestionably more "dangerous" than all the pressures on wages that an open-door policy might cause. As we stated in May 1970 at the time of the Schwartzenbach initiative, "only a position based not on 'foreign penetration' but on the struggle for the defense of the common interests of the working class as a class would be capable of changing this reality."
In order to smash one of the main instruments of class division used by the bourgeois class, it seems to us essential to struggle for the complete abolition of the seasonal worker status. This means not only struggling for this category of workers to win its basic democratic rights, but also struggling to limit the bourgeoisie's maneuvering room by depriving it of the artificial flexibility on the labor market that it has sought to maintain through the seasonal workers. This is contained within the framework of a more general demand that can be formulated as follows:
"The same political and trade-union rights for all who work in Switzerland."
But going beyond this basic demand is a whole series of other demands that, while posing certain problems, lay the basis of the revolutionists' fight to unite the working class in Switzerland.
[Box] The July 6, 1973 Decree
• Establishes a maximum number of year-round workers (B permit) and seasonal workers (A permit) for cantons.
• Sets total number of B permits at 10,000; 5,000 of these to be issued immediately.
• Sets total number of seasonal workers at 192,000.
• No reduction in the number of permits for border workers, but permits to be granted only where there is six months previous residence in the border area.
• Effective December 31, 1973, year-round workers to be able to change occupation and canton after two years instead of three.
[Table: Immigrant Workers by Status (End of April 1973), change from 1972 and total number by permit, not reproduced; see the scan]
[Box] Terms of the Permits
• A permit (seasonal): See text of article.
• B permit (year-round): renewable from year to year; can be refused. After one year, possibility of changing place of residence, but not occupation or canton. Freedom of movement after five years (two years since the July 6, 1973, decree, and one year beginning in 1976). After eighteen months, possibility of bringing family in (fifteen months for Spanish and Italian workers). These limits do not apply to skilled and professional workers. No unemployment insurance.
• C permit (permanent): authorizes an unlimited stay, with no restriction on movement. Granted to those who have held a B permit for ten consecutive years (five years for French, Belgian and Dutch workers). Permit includes recipient's family.
• Border permit: a work permit only, issued as a rule for one year. Worker is required to live in the border area; no possibility of changing occupation; no unemployment benefit.
Notes
* Letter of the Union Centrale des Associations Patronales Suisses [Central Union of Swiss Employers' Associations] to the head of the Federal Department of Public Economy, February 26, 1972, published in the June 1973 issue of Focus.