By Manuel Raposo
January 16, 2025
The author is editor of the online periodical jornalmudardevida.net, where this article was published Jan. 9. Although the events it discusses are taking place in Portugal, its lessons can easily be applied to the United States. Translation: John Catalinotto
The Portuguese government threatens migrant workers with expulsion and frightens local Portuguese with “insecurity,” with the aim of widening the gap between workers.
The government has made police repression its trademark. Like fascists, it exploits the fears of an uninformed, backward, confused and ignorant “silent majority.” It feeds them with the sly insinuation that everyone’s safety depends on the brute force of the police, if necessary outside the law, and calls this “public order.”
It gives the impression that insecurity is increasing and that crime is a product of immigration. It starts by cracking down on immigrants, counting on the passivity of its Portuguese citizens. It tries to win the favor of the poor Portuguese by repressing the poor of other origins.
Migrant and local workers join in solidarity to protest police repression, Lisbon, Jan. 11, 2025.
Unable and unwilling to improve the lives of the workers, the government is betting that the Portuguese will put up better with poverty if they see even poorer people of other colors alongside them. In the same vein as the fascists, the government and employers are exploiting the evils of racist capitalism. They are trying to put not only the immigrants against the wall, but all workers.
The government aims its repressive efforts to divert attention away from its dismantling of the National Health Service, from the thousands of workers who have been thrown out of their jobs collectively, from the colossal fortunes the banks amass daily, from the hoarding of homes by wealthy emigrés, whom the authorities welcome cap in hand, Having health care, work and a house to live in are common causes for all workers.
[Non-Portuguese — French, German, U.S. citizens, many of them retired — come to Portugal attracted by low prices (for them) and exemption from taxes; some of them are really wealthy; others are rich compared to the Portuguese.]
The government threatens immigrants with expulsion and frightens locals with “insecurity,” with the aim of creating a rift between workers. This is the crux of the matter. The answer can only be found through building unity in the workplace, mobilizing residents of poor neighbourhoods, unionization and joint participation in struggles of common interest.
The myths created around immigration must be dismantled. The right-wingers lie, the fascists lie.
Do migrant workers take jobs away from the Portuguese?
Immigrants do the jobs that the Portuguese refuse, because they are the lowest paid. They do the riskiest jobs and work longer hours per week than the Portuguese.
Unemployment among immigrants is double that of the Portuguese. Despite this, the percentage of those who work (the rate of participation of the particular population) is higher than that of the Portuguese.
A third of immigrants live in poverty. A fifth of Portuguese live in poverty.
A recent study by the University of Porto (December 2024) shows that the inclusion of immigrants encourages investment and tends to create more jobs.
Do immigrant workers live on welfare benefits?
Immigrant contributions to Social Security reached a record 2,677 million euros in 2024, some 44% more than in 2023. Of this amount, they only benefited from 483 million euros in social benefits received. They paid into the system 5.5 times more than they received.
At the end of 2003, a quarter of companies used immigrant labor. It is estimated that by 2037, the work of immigrants will contribute to increasing Portugal’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 1.9%.
Who lives off whom?
Fascists attack poor immigrants. The right wing wants to “regulate” poor immigration. But they all bow down before rich expatriates, who don’t work and come to bask in the sun. If there are parasites, it’s these and all those who don’t work but have high incomes — and with that they drive up prices, from houses to everyday consumer goods. [It has the same impact as gentrification.]
In 2024, the social security contributions of migrant workers would pay for 17% of the country’s pensions.
Immigrants from Nepal, India and Bangladesh, who were the target of the December 19 raid in Lisbon are paid 30% less than Portuguese workers for the same work. [A massive police raid rounded up migrants en masse, with the pretext of looking for hypothetical criminals. In the end, while none of the migrants were detained, two Portuguese were.]
Who gains from the division between workers?
The bosses — supported by the government, the police, the state bureaucracy and the various Venturas [ultra-right politicians] — are interested in keeping immigrants coerced and without rights. In the same way, they want to create feelings of hostility and competition between Portuguese workers and immigrants.
This is how they manage to pay slavery wages to some, lower wages to others, rake in extraordinary profits — and keep the working class divided, with their ability to struggle diminished.
Police round up migrant workers in downtown Lisbon’s Martim Moniz Square, Dec. 19, 2024.
Who benefits from illegal immigration?
Employing immigrant labor is an extremely profitable enterprise only if it is illegal or has a large illegal component. This component allows employers to impose miserable working conditions, playing on the threat of expulsion and the abundance of available workers competing with each other.
In the mouths of the government and employers, “regulating immigration” is empty talk. Are they going to create conditions for immigrants to be transported from their countries of origin? Are they going to provide them with housing and health care on arrival? Are they going to pay them wages and recognize their rights as equal to those of Portuguese workers? Are they going to crack down on trafficking networks, and will the National Labor Authority investigate the employers? [None of this is likely.]
Illegal immigration of workers, added to the national population ready to work, forms a reserve army that capital recruits whenever it wants and however it wants. Putting an end to it or reducing it is, for the capitalists, killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. The people with the greatest interest in perfectly legal immigration are both the immigrants themselves and the Portuguese workers.
(Data for this article came from the press, the Migration Observatory, the Public Finance Council and the Ministry of Labor.)
