chtodelat news » migrant workers

BASTA! Special Issue: Mañana Mejor, “A View of a Construction Site”

hecksinductionhour — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 20:28:22 +0000

This is the third in a series of translations of the articles in BASTA!, a special Russian-only issue of Chto Delat that addresses such pressing issues as the fight against racism and facism, the new Russian labor movement, the resistance to runaway “development” in Petersburg, the prospects for student self-governance and revolt, the potential for critical practice amongst sociologists and contemporary artists, the attack on The European University in St. Petersburg, and Alain Badiou’s aborted visit to Moscow.

The entire issue may be downloaded as a .pdf file here. Selected texts may be accessed here.

* * * * *

I sit typing this text on my notebook. Out the window I see a sixteen-storey building under construction. The guys who work there from morning till night have never in their lives seen the Internet. They have come to this city from godforsaken villages—in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzia, and Russia itself—to earn money. Most of the guys don’t leave the construction site. To avoid taxes, their employer hasn’t given them their papers. In their free time, all that they can do is sit in the trailer and watch TV programs in a language—Russian—that most of them, especially the younger ones, understand poorly. Although it is cramped in the trailer, it is warm. A shower isn’t provided, so after a hard day’s work they have to wash themselves using a bucket and a pitcher. The guys put up with these hardships, however: they are young and full of strength. And hope?

“What are my plans? I don’t know. For the time being I’m working.”

Karim is still only twenty. He sends most of his wages, which amount to approximately 15,000 rubles (around 400 euros), to his parents, sister, and two little brothers back home.

“You’re still so young. But you’ve already shouldered such responsibility. At your age, most Petersburg kids are still cared for by their parents. What do you want in life?”

“I want to enter the university. How much money do I need to get in?”

This still isn’t a plan nor is it a hope. It’s a dream, rather. Because Karim will need a place to live, time off work, and knowledge of Russian. But his workday—the workday that gives him the minimal wage he needs to survive and support his family—doesn’t have regular hours.

“When is your next day off?”

“I don’t know. When the glue runs out!”

Karim has been in Petersburg for a year already, but he got his papers—and the chance to leave the construction site—only two months ago. He entered the thin ranks of those whose employers get permits for their workers in order to lend their operations the semblance of legality. It was thanks to this that we met. Otherwise, he’d still be working behind the wall that surrounds the site, and I’d still be walking by along my well-trodden path.

Papers mean a lot, of course, and the bureaucrats make a pretty penny off the paperwork and fees. The legal status they provide migrant workers is quite illusory, however. Everyone I managed to talk with told me about incidents in which they’d been stopped by policemen and asked to produce their papers. When the policemen saw that everything was in order, without batting an eye they declared the papers counterfeits. Then the guardians of order demanded money. If the workers refused to pay such “fines,” the policemen would began screaming about “all the riffraff who’ve flooded the cultural capital.” They would make threats and even search the men’s pockets.

“Papers don’t save you from extortion,” says Dilshod. “The only thing that saves you is a shield!” he laughs, pointing to the advertising placards on his back and chest that dangle from cords running over his shoulders. This affable forty-something man was forced to get a job as a “human sandwich” after his employers at the construction site swindled him, giving him less than two thousand rubles (approximately fifty-five euros) for a month and half’s work. We could say he that was unlucky, that he was taken for a ride by con men. But when the con men include such major, well-respected companies as Parnas-M, we have to conclude that the problem is systemic.

Several months ago, Parnas-M hired three hundred workers through a subcontractor. After two months on the job, the workers not only hadn’t seen a paycheck, they hadn’t seen their passports, either. The subcontractor vanished into thin air along with the passports, and the owners of the Northwest Region’s largest producer of meat products took its share of the ill-gotten goods. None of this was even briefly mentioned in the press. The scandal didn’t rock Petersburg because, as is the case with extortion by men in grey police uniforms, the victims were people who have no access to the mass media, people who have no voice. People with whom we, who have decided to link our lives to revolution, are still only searching for a common tongue.

I slip my tongue between his lips, and he smiles. A French kiss is something out of the ordinary for my dear comrade from the conservative Uzbek countryside. We very quickly achieve mutual understanding in the language of gestures, caresses, and emotions. But how can we share more than this? Together we look at posters decorated with hammers and sickles, the faces of Fidel and Che. After finding an English-Uzbek dictionary on the Internet, I try and tell him about the worker’s movement in the US, about how Mexican immigrants form unions and hold demonstrations. The hard thing is to show him that the struggle of workers isn’t the abstract fist and star on my Venezuelan t-shirt, but something real. Something that might become a part of his life here, in cold Petersburg. Something that should become part of my life, too. Because right now my life is little more than a t-shirt bearing the slogan, “Death to Capitalism!”

Except for Parnas-M, all names in this article have been changed.

Russia Needs an Immigration Policy: A Prose Poem

hecksinductionhour — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:57:59 +0000

Sparked by a recent article published on The Worker’s Struggle: The Site of Real Trade Unions, the freewheeling debate about the condition and treatment of migrant workers in Russia and elsewhere continues on Chto Delat’s e-mail platform. Tempers have been flaring, and words have been flying. One of the most thoughtful contributions to the debate, however, has come from Vadim Lungul, a poet based in the former Soviet republic of Moldova, a poor country that supplies (along with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) many of the migrants who work in the Russian construction trade and other unregulated industries. Here is the prose poem he sent to the platform a few days ago, with an inter-stanzaic translation into English:

Вадим Лунгул / Vadim Lungul
Россия нуждается в миграционной политике / Russia Needs an Immigration Policy

Положение дел таково.
Рабочий класс практически уничтожен внутри страны
или рассеян по ближнему и дальнему зарубежью.
Как таковой класс интеллигенции
также практически уничтожен.
Вместо них народился новый класс – торгующий всем,
но с другой стороны
класс который ничем не владеет.
Это класс, состоящий из нанятых продавцов на рынке
до менеджеров в крупных магазинах и диллерских контор.

The situation is like this:
The country’s working class has practically been destroyed
Or dispersed throughout the near and far abroad.
The intelligentsia as a class
Has also practically been destroyed.
In their place a new class has been born: traders of everything.
On the other hand, however,
This class owns nothing itself.
This class consists of hired sellers in the markets
And managers in department stores and dealerships.

Произошла деполитизация классов.
В лучшем случае все выглядит примерно так:
Работник пусть работает, -
продавать будет не он.
Художник пусть работает, -
но продавать будет не он.
Продавать будут продавцы.
У работника есть менеджер.
У художника есть галлерист,
У писателя есть издатель.
И т. д..

A depoliticization of the classes has taken place.
At best, it looks something like this:
Let the worker work:
It won’t be him who does the selling
Let the artist work:
It won’t be him who does the selling.
The sellers will do the selling.
The worker has a manager.
The artist has a gallerist.
The writer has a publisher.
Et cetera.

Те, кто производит реальное,
отодвигаются на задний план,
автор реального скрывается,
на передний план выплывает товар,
за товаром стоит лицо продавца и упаковщика.
Тот, кто из реального делает товар, -
тот и получает львиную долю.

The folks who produce the real
Are pushed into the background.
The author of the real is hidden.
The commodity emerges into the foreground.
It is the seller’s and packer’s face we see behind the commodity.
It is the men who turn the real into a commodity
Who receive the lion’s share.

Они это объясняют так:
мы даем вам возможность зароботать деньги,
хоть и не большие, но сами посудите,
если бы не мы, вы бы вообще ничего
не смогли бы заработать,
а так как мы умеем правильно подать то,
что вы производите, то и прибыль
в основном должна идти нам.
Они делают деньги, используя данную
социально-экономическую ситуацию
по максимуму. Рынок диктует свои условия,
а они – удачливые игроки на рынке.

This is how they explain it:
We give you the chance to earn money.
Although the money isn’t good,
You wouldn’t earn a penny otherwise.
But since we know the right way to offer up
What you produce, the profits
Should mainly be ours.

Все остальные же получают по мелочи,
дальше по цепочке, тому кто
произвел реальное достаются крохи.
Иллюзионисты – производители иллюзорного товара,
это артисты рыночных отношений,
других артистов самому рынку и не надо.
Артисты и художники сами по себе
могут существовать, но только как
приятное развлечение
после всех дел.

Everyone else gets a pocketful of small change,
And so on down the food chain.
The folks who make the real get crumbs.
The illusionist—producers of the illusionary commodity—
Are the real performers in the theater of market relations.
The market itself has no need of other actors.
Actors and artists can exist
In their own right, but only as
A pleasant distraction
After all the real dealing is done.

Есть еще сравнительно малочисленный класс владельцев,
владеющих производством,
которые покупают на рынке труд и время,
необходимые для процесса производства товара и услуг.
Эти тяжеловесы – всегда нуждаются в иллюзионистах.
Самое главное для них – чтобы их собственность
осталась в их руках. Таким образом, рука руку моет.
Иллюзионист и собственник правят,
остальные – надрываются и подыхают.

There is also a comparatively small class of owners
Who possess the means of production.
On the market they purchase the time and labor
Needed to produce goods and services.
These heavyweights always have need of illusionists.
What’s important to them is that their property
Remain in their hands. Thus, one hand washes the other.
The illusionist and property owner rule,
While everyone else strains and struggles and kicks the bucket.

Государство – совмещает в себе черты класса иллюзионистов
и класса владельцев.
Сейчас уже не принято говорить народное достояние,
собственность народа, а принято говорить -
государственная собственность.
То есть средневековье на новом уровне.
Феодалы и государство как главный феодал.

The state incorporates the traits of the illusionist class
And the class of owners.
Nowadays it’s no longer kosher to speak of the people’s property.
We now speak of state property.
That is, the Middle Ages have returned on a new level.
The feudal lords are back, with the state as the overlord.

А посему вот что с мигрантами вырисовывается.
Рынку не важно кто вкалывает, для него не важно
где вкалывают. Для рынка вообще работник
не является работником, он для рынка -
лишь вечный спутник процесса, вечный его раб.

And hence this is what happens with migrants:
The market could care less who does the heavy lifting.
It could care less where that lifting happens.
From the market’s point of view, the worker
Isn’t a worker; from the market’s point of view he
Is always a mere satellite of the process, forever its slave.

А так как государство – точно такой же феодал
на рынке как и частный собственник (только крупный
и более ловкий), то и для него граждане – это
бесконечный процесс пополнения его бюджета.
Государство делает все, чтобы укреплять и укрупнять
свой бизнесс. Государство может заботиться о рождаемости,
но опять же в этом ключе расширения своего бизнеса.

And since the state is the same sort of feudal lord
On the market as the private owner (only bigger
And more cunning), from its point of view citizens
Are the means to the endless process of padding its budget.
The state does everything it does to secure and enlarge
Its business. The state can tinker with the birthrate,
But again this is done only to expand its business.

На самом деле нами правят законы рынка,
а государственные законы, которые ему противоречат -
не соблюдаются или соблюдаются с нарушениями.
А лучше всего будет государству – совсем без законов.
Когда останутся только законы неписанные – то бишь
законы рынка. И на этих законах строится новая мораль
и новая жизнь.

In fact, we are ruled by the laws of the market.
Laws of the state that contradict these laws
Are not enforced or are observed in the breach.
The best thing for the state would to be free of laws.
Then all that remained would be the unwritten laws;
That is, the laws of the market. It is on these laws
That the new morality and the new life are built.

Мигранты сейчас вне закона.
С ними государство может
обращаться как ему вздумается.
И это обращение порой бывает
много хуже чем с преступниками,
так как с преступником оно должно
обращаться в рамках закона.
Потому государство в тайне приветствует миграцию,
особенно нелегальную.
Потому что мигранты – это идеальные “граждане”
капиталистического государства.
“Граждане”, которые подспудно отказались от закона
и согласны играть в игры с государством
по правилам рынка.
Вместо того, чтобы устраивать акции протеста
и добиваться лучшей доли у себя на родине
(иногда это дело сложное – согласен, но не безнадежное),
они ведут эту опасную игру с капиталистическим шулером,
у которого пытаются отыграться.

Immigrants are now outside the law.
The state can dispense with them
As it wishes.
And sometimes it treats them
Much worse than criminals,
Because it has to treat criminals
In accordance with the laws.
And so the state secretly welcomes immigration,
Especially illegal immigration.
Because immigrants are the ideal “citizens”
Of the capitalist state.
These are “citizens” who have implicitly refused the law’s protection
And agreed to play the state’s game,
With the rules laid down by the market.
Instead of organizing demonstrations
And fighting for a better lot in their homelands
(A complicated thing, for sure, but not hopeless),
They play this dangerous game with the capitalist con man
And try to beat him at his own game.

Защитить мигрантов можно, если заставить государство
принять закон о миграции, так чтобы мигрант
оказался в юридическом поле, а не просто в поле.
Мигранта должен защитить прежде всего закон.
Такой закон, чтобы
мигрант не боялся государства.
Допустим, закон по которому,
мигрант, получивший работу,
считается уже гражданином
а не нежеланным гостем,
со всеми вытекающими последствиями.
Ну например, сроком на год.
Если у гражданина нет никаких
проблем с правопорядком и законностью,
то через год он получает право на гражданство,
скажем, уже в течение 5 лет, и т. д..
А вот гражданин, убивший другого гражданина,
карается лишением гражданства.

We can defend immigrants by forcing the state
To pass a law on immigration, so that the immigrant
Finds himself in the field of the law, not simply out in the field.
It is the law that should protect the immigrant first and foremost.
The law should be such
That the immigrant doesn’t fear the state.
For example, the law should be such
That when the immigrant gets work
He is automatically considered a citizen,
Not an unwanted guest,
With all the ensuing consequences.
For example, he would be given a one-year trial period.
If the citizen has no run-ins with the law,
Then after a year he gets the right to apply for citizenship,
Say, after another five years, etc.
But the citizen who has murdered another citizen
Will be punished by the revocation of his citizenship.