In the 1950s and 1960s, black Americans moved into the middle classes at a rate not experienced before or since. When seen though the lens of 1967, it would have been logical to foresee the American black future as a middle-class one, as represented by The Cosby Show, Toni Morrison and Condoleezza Rice. Yet it did not turn out like that.
At some time in the 1980s, the mass upward social mobility of blacks stopped.
Why was this? Why did the self-confident black civil rights movement, characterised by intelligent, peaceful protest and justified moral superiority, spawn the nihilism, boorishness and misogyny of 50 Cent?
One of the many reasons advanced to explain this development has been immigration. There appears to be a direct correlation between immigration and black social advancement. When US immigration is low, black people do well economically; the converse is true when immigration is high.
Black Americans did very well in the 1950s and early 1960s when immigrants accounted for just 8 per cent of the increase in the US labour force – an historically low figure. Contrast this with immigrants accounting for 55 per cent of the growth in the labour force in the first decade of the century and more than 27 per cent in the 1990s.
By the 1980s and 1990s, competition for blue-collar jobs had increased dramatically as new immigrants flooded into the US again. Two things happened: blacks disproportionately lost out to the new immigrants, and blue-collar wages fell, while professional incomes rose.
While there is little argument that immigration has been beneficial for the US economy and society as a whole, it is clear that the middle class has done better than the working class. Is there anything we can learn in Ireland from this experience?
Will the same happen here?
The history of immigration is the history of social fluidity. In a fascinating book entitled How the Irish Became White, author Noel Ignatiev traces the evolution of the Irish in America and how we eventually changed colour in the eyes of the Anglo Saxon establishment.
Initially, the Irish were seen as untermensch by the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant (Wasp) establishment, but that changed in the late 19th century. Going back to the famine, Ignatiev explains how waves of immigrants from Ireland displaced the American black labourers with alarming speed, by undercutting them in a classic example of 19th century outsourcing.
As is the case today, outsourcing created much discussion in the editorial pages. Here is an extract from a letter in the Philadelphia Daily Sun newspaper in 1849:
�There is direct competition between the blacks and the Irish as we all know.
�The wharfs and new building attest to this fact; when a few years ago we saw none but blacks, we now see nothing but Irish.�
Not only did the Irish replace the blacks but, having replaced them, we set up a powerful trade union movement based on race to make sure that we kept them out. Economic history is replete with other examples of the dislocating nature of immigration.
This brings us to the issue of Irish Ferries. The overriding lesson from this tawdry tale is that immigration will hurt some of us and enrich others. Junior Cert economics tells us immigration will ultimately drive down the wages of Irish workers in areas where they have to compete with Polish, Lithuanian or Slovakian immigrants.
This process will benefit professional Irish people who will profit greatly from the fall in the costs of services provided by tradesmen, seamen, cleaners, security men and home helps, to mention but a few occupations.
A topical area that highlights this process is childcare. In recent years, we have seen an explosion in the number of foreign nannies and au pairs. Had they not come here, childcare would be even more expensive and many thousands of educated Irish women would find it impossible – or, more pointedly, uneconomic � to go out to work. But both problems were solved by immigrants.
An article in US magazine The Atlantic, by Caitlin Flanagan, stated that �for many young mothers, the precise intersection of their two most passionate influences – their profound, almost physical love for their children and their fervent wish to make something of themselves beyond the hall door – is the exact spot where the foreign worker turns up for work each day’�.
So who benefits? Obviously, the professional Irishwoman and the immigrant woman. But what about the Irishwoman who used to look after other people’s children? Her wage has been compressed downwards to a level where it would not have been had there been no immigrants.
For many, this might be positive, if they can get better-paid jobs, which is possible while the boom continues.
So as long as there are jobs aplenty, the disproportionate impact of immigration on working-class Irish people will be masked. However, if that were to change – as the ESRI hinted in its latest report – what might happen?
An indicator of what could happen politically in Ireland can be seen in the French EU referendum earlier this year.
The unsung hero of the French �Non’ campaign was the demonised �Polish plumber’.
The invasion of Polish plumbers was seen as emblematic of the problem with the EU. If it weren’t for enlargement, there wouldn’t be half as many Polish plumbers who were coming to France, competing with French tradesmen and driving down the wages of blue-collar workers across the country.
But apart from the Polish worker, his family in Katowice and second-hand car salesmen in suburban Lyon, who benefits from this? Well, the white-collar, bureaucratic elite of Paris and other metropolitan centres who buy the now-cheaper services of plumbers.
This divergence in who gains from immigration and who is threatened caused blue-collar France to vote overwhelmingly against the EU constitution. In contrast, white-collar France voted for it.
So could this happen here? Until now, Irish trade unions have been on the side of the immigrants and championed foreign workers in the few areas where blatant exploitation has been uncovered. The booming capitalist economy has, ironically, allowed international workers’ solidarity to flourish.
However, Irish Ferries has focused attention on the big issue, which is that the interests of the foreign worker and the Irish worker are not the same, particularly if the foreign worker is prepared to undercut the local lad.
This implies that the next big battle for the unions will be not against Irish capitalists, but against foreign workers. Already, Siptu has begun to employ Polish-speaking organisers to try to co-opt Polish workers into the union movement, but will this be enough? The experience of black Americans over the years suggests not. It remains to be seen whether international worker solidarity can survive the impact of a slowing economy. Let’s hope it doesn’t get too messy.
A really interesting article. We can see some of the pressures of immigration in the riots by blacks recently in Lozells, Birmingham. You are right to wonder about what happens when the boom ends. The irish used to carry the tagline ‘the blacks of europe’ and we discriminated against because of the competition in the labour market. After the potato famine of 1840 thousands of starving irish people moved to the east end of london – to try to get any work they could. They were then joined in 1870 by waves of persicuted jews. The labour market is a… Read more »
Interesting article. However you could go deeper and examine the extremely uneven playing field that separates accession EU workers and native Irish people. For example in Ireland only 65% of the population work, compared to 75% in Sweden. The differential was historically due to high gender inequality levels in the workplace. However this is now partially due to the high net replacement incomes of some of those dependent on social welfare compared to those on an average wage. (For example a lone parent with one child who works only 20 hours a week and receives 80 euros a week in… Read more »
Interesting article. Basically what you are saying is that blue collar workers are competing more and more with immigrants for jobs and that immigrants are suppressing wages in these jobs. You say that if the economy turns downwards things could get messy. But I think in future middle class jobs are going to come under pressure because to quote from what laura said “I reckon this is why you have loads of eastern europeans working on building sites and in service jobs who have degrees and professional qualifications)” So basically in ireland we have a huge pool of underemployed immigrants.… Read more »
Socialist hogwash. People who work be they from Latvia or Leitrim in the
aggregate add wealth to Ireland. They increase production, increase profits, pay
taxes, purchase local goods ,start businesses etc etc. Sure a few workers are
displaced by cheaper labour initially but this is more than compensated for by
the above examples.A wealthier country in the long run provides better work for
all. A free and open labour market will keep the tiger healthy and wealthy
Kevin says “Socialist hogwash. People who work be they from Latvia or Leitrim in the aggregate add wealth to Ireland. They increase production, increase profits, pay taxes, purchase local goods ,start businesses etc etc.” This of course is the catchcall of the elites. Labour is but a commodity, and if you increase the supply of labour you reduce the cost of it. People’s real incomes fall, rent goes up, trains become more crowded, people push out to the suburbs and take longer to get to work: it is all bad news for the normal, young and unskilled worker. The reason… Read more »
Qiute honestly i don’t know where you stand on the issue of immigration. But i think the last thing this country need at this time is stylishly instigating people against the necessary immigrants created by the booming economy. Not only that Irish people are racist, thay are also suffering from insecurity. people like you are afraid of what becomes of them when better qualified and willing immigrants snatch their jobs. The Foreigners may not create the booming economy but they help push the economy to another level. the influx of immigrants into this country is irreversible especially with New member… Read more »
Undestanding clearly where Irish people stands on the
views of immigration, I believe Goverment try to reduce
the cost’s of education and increase more educational
Institutes to bring more young irish people to the work
force rather than complaing of the EU and Non EU work
force. being within the EU, don’t forget no other country
benefited than Ireland.
Even you were employed (bought) by the Irish Independant
by this blooming money, if I am not wrong…
thanks very much for all your comments, this is probably
the issue of the future and one i’ll come back to again
and again. any more ideas please keep ’em comming
David, re your own input 19th Jan here: I enthusiastically agree. The immigration issue is not only key to Ireland, but it is “new”. We are witnessing the crumbling of borders globally and many believe that this it the clue to global peace. The power of Nations is crumbling and the real war is that of vested interests in these outmoded political systems verses the new awareness that the world is indivisible in this way. Everywhere belongs to each individual; aparteid will inevitably fail between nations (especially north and south)just as it had to in South Africa. I, for one,… Read more »
David, re your own input 19th Jan here: I enthusiastically agree. The immigration issue is not only key to Ireland, but it is “new”. We are witnessing the crumbling of borders globally and many believe that this it the clue to global peace. The power of Nations is crumbling and the real war is that of vested interests in these outmoded political systems verses the new awareness that the world is indivisible in this way. Everywhere belongs to each individual; aparteid will inevitably fail between nations (especially north and south)just as it had to in South Africa. I, for one,… Read more »
David has hit the nail on the head about immigration.Im a 37 year old self employed plumber who has been turned away from site after site because my prices were too high.These prices i gave were 2 years old.These greedy builders are only adding fuel to the fire by hiring low paid immigrant workers.As ive discussed with many of my fellow Irish plumbers,its a timebomb waiting to go off.
[…] May 18th, 2007     I have just been doing some research on polish immigration in Ireland. I did a general trawl of the Internet to see what I could find but found little of interest. The immigration figures given in just about all the sites I visited are way below the actual numbers of poles now living here as a five minute stroll around Dublin can confirm. Beyond these questionable statistics there is nothing. And I do mean nothing. This is not my first attempt to do some research in this area. In the short time I have had this blog… Read more »
Ireland needs to limit immigration to Ireland. If it doesn’t restrict immigration soon, the Irish culture will almost be completely lost. While most Irish people now want restrictions on immigration, the government has yet to fulfill this wish by deporting the thousands of illegal immigrants who are still in Ireland. People who overstay their visas should get sent back and should be banned from re-entering Ireland for a minimum of 10 years. In countries like the US, Australia or New Zealand, you can’t just go there, you need immigration clearance, and it should be the same here. How come Ireland… Read more »
Only landlords and those who want cheap labour benefit from immigration. Everyone else is afraid of being tagged a racist. Being a racist is understood to mean that you support a hierarchy of humanity based on their ethnicity. The herding of people numbering a figure I would estimate as approaching two million from alien cultures is the worst bloody thing that has happened here since the Plantation. This is a fact; not a racist opinion. As most of the people from south-east Dublin – the main supporters of mass immigration – have distinctly british twangs to their accent, I wonder… Read more »
I found this very interesting, from an American perspective. I am an American, and came by this blog starting to research how I can immigrate myself and my family, (wife and 3 y.o. daughter) to Ireland one day. This has somewhat opened my eyes to the sad truth that it may not be so wise, because, although I have proffessional and military experience and decent intelligence and drive, but no college degree, I work insulating houses (semi-skilled manual labor) in a company made up of (I’m guessing but probably pretty close) 10-15% legal caucasion and 85-90% illegal mexican immigrants that… Read more »