In public discourse on migration, the magic word " integration" usually refer to the worlds estratoféricos of "cultures "or" civilizations "imaginary realms where we project, distorted, the contradictions of our social relationships. And they are the "cultures" as well, reified , which in our imaginary "integrated" or "integrated" Appreciation ally or fight in epic battles for control of the universe. I told you other times, for me, the battle of integration, our entire society, not just migrants-must be fought in real life rather than on their proyeccones. Where migrant workers, with whom and in what position? What do schools go? What neighborhoods and homes they live? What is their access to consumer goods and services? What is the position on the markets? That is the real integration. "Culture" is nothing more than the entire space of signification and communication that build to articulate and reproduce our social world. To the extent that it is possible to build relationships " face to face", overcoming barriers of exclusion and subordination of ethnic boundaries may generate a real area of \u200b\u200b"multiculturalism." It turns out that our migrants have come to Spain to work basically in the midst of a global process of mobilization of the workforce. And, as with the English, the migrants spend much of their daily lives, if not most of it-in the slit. Thus, efforts for social integration depends largely on what happens in the workplace and sometimes it seems that we forget about them or at least do not give them importance, because the debate ends continually deviating toward-Raca Raca the compatibility or incompatibility, coexistence or clash of "cultures." I do not think, however, that this "forgotten" or this "undervaluation" of the labor aspects of integration are completely innocent. They are not, precisely because the presence of migrants is due to a structural process that lies immediately in a subordinate position, because it has preferred to look in directions that do not question too real distribution of power. We have already mentioned once that the ideology of assimilation "hidden interest in actually turning people in crude labor force, which ideally" not noticed "and do not bother, in practice, the ideology of assimilation remains the segregation between ethnic groups, which remains to feed the machine of production, but wrapped in the mists of mythology free individuals acting freely in the free market.
English For workers this is a dangerous illusion. It is true that during the economic boom really have benefited from slave labor utopia butchers, directly and indirectly (for example, by cheap domestic service), but ethnic segregation can be, and in fact, has always been - a mechanism of division, and even fracture strength of the workers as a class. I have not seen data, but the crisis may be showing a more pronounced this feature. Recently we drew from Marx's beard text on the division between the English and Irish workers in England and I asked the fellow members of what could be done to avoid the rhyme history. Well, I think in this context, our unions have much to say and do. It is a responsibility, but also a necessity, even a union's organizational needs, deal with this situation.
Indeed, at this point is a topic well-known that trade unionism has been constructed in a context of relative homogeneity working on a particular worker archetype and that at least some decades, this situation is changing in a rush. While not yet distinguish this new world "postmodern" but seems to be implying a prgresiva intensification of social division of labor (cycle of production / reproduction / consumption), thus multiplying the heterogeneity of the working classes. The workers did not necessarily live in the same place, or necessarily have the same lifestyle or the same needs or the same problems or even, from the analytical tools of traditional unionism, the same interests. This dynamic is causing a breakdown of the traditional "class consciousness" and a progressive ineffectiveness of the traditional tools of articulation of collective interests, in fact, there seems to be a general trend to lower membership rates worldwide. Or the union is adapted to this diversity (or get to reach women, youth, ethnic minorities, the precarious, the "self-dependent" workers of auxiliary enterprises), or is doomed to extinction or decay.
As regards migrants, the fact that the union meets reality involves several things, all interrelated: first, should be able to respond to the specific problems of workers migrants and ethnic diversity in the company, secondly, should get attract migrants as members, thirdly, it should really incorporate migrants into its organizational structure (both between the positions of the union as the unitary representation formally non-union).
And, well, what are you doing? A month ago, during my work at the Observatory collective bargaining, I was able to interview some unionists CCCO de Catalunya (Ghassan Saliba, Juan Manuel Tapia and Antonio Córcoles), who told me, among many other things Some conclusions reached by the union (CONC) from 2000: 1) Immigration is a structural phenomenon that has to be assumed as normal, 2) The integration work is an extremely important factor for social cohesion and the union must prioritize and focus on workplaces (as also in other areas there are other social organizations), 3) The union must continuously regenerate its ability to represent and incorporate migrants among members and representative bodies, 4) It makes no derived solely from motives "caring" from the perspective of local workers as the interests of migrants and nationals are common: the quality of working conditions of migrants is also important to ensure the conditions of the English.
As I think is clear from the above considerations, I very much agree with this line of trade union action. I think the approach is correct and appropriate from a theoretical point of view. This is very important, but of course not everything, as he said the bearded, is in practice that demonstrates the power of thought. The practice, though, is always a spot to work. Mentioned, yes, some data on immigrant membership growth and integration of migrants in representative bodies that allow us cautious optimism. There were some interesting projects, such as promotion, in Catalonia, the agreements diversity management, the thread of personalization efforts by -not "individualization" - labor relations. Some guidance
these lines we can offer theoretical and practical these paths with this difficult task of articulating the interests of labor in these interesting times. I hope there will be many other interesting trade union experiences in other organizations, if not the story here is because so far I have not known, but I love to do, so if anyone has news of them, I find it interesting that comment to us.
Of course, we also know that the area of \u200b\u200bimplementation and influence of unions in our country is currently low, not only in regard to immigrant workers. Joint networks of hard labor interests come to certain places: micro and small enterprises, casual workers, the underground economy ... In particular, in the field of domestic service, the configuration of an area of \u200b\u200bprotection afforded by an organized representation of workers seem today, a utopian fantasy. In any case, this reflection does more than reaffirm our conviction that the problems of migrants are also those of local workers and we will have to learn to face them together.
