Cheap Housing shortages . A Rudd government excuse to expand intake of 457 visa indentured labour
Rudds government plans to use the desperate need for cheaper housing to subsidise capitalist investors and "skills shortages" as excuses to expand the importation of more indentured workers for the construction industry.
Expanding the two class labour system created under Howard is an urgent priority for Australian capitalism.
On the one hand the highly paid unionised labour aristocracy has past its use by date in such industries as manufacturing. On the other hand the capitalist class cannot simply discard that old workforce without creating political turmoil in the labour force.
But retraining and education is expensive. A cheaper way out is importing "Skilled temporary worker" labour or, allowing educated foreign students generally from bourgeois or petty bourgeois family origin a chance to join the Australian petty bourgeois as professionals.
In these prosperous times of "labour shortages" ,that is when the capitalists find it difficult to pay higher levels of pay and look for ways of paying less.
That's when demand for 457 indentured labour visas is stepped up to keep the good times for capital rolling. Because these visa workers have proved so useful in keeping the wages of workers down, the visas are called by the capitalists "anti -inflation visas".
But propaganda has to be done to get labour on side. So what better justification for importing 457 workers could be found than helping housing affordability for the poor.
"Migrant home builders to ease shortage also front page on the herald."
(Note the sneaky use of the word "migrant' in that heading!)
'A VISA scheme that would let 15,000 housing workers into Australia to build more homes is being considered by the Federal Government as part of its strategy to tackle the housing crisis.
The Prime Minister announced yesterday that the building industry's proposal was being examined as he doubled a Government-funded incentive scheme to encourage construction of 100,000 low-cost rental properties."..
'The visa scheme was suggested by the Housing Industry Association and put to Mr Rudd at a private meeting. The association's managing director, Ron Silberberg, said an extra 5000 workers a year were needed over the next three years. The association would liaise with builders and the Government to manage the visa scheme."
He envisaged most workers would come from the United States, where the collapse of the subprime mortgage market has left many thousands out of work.
So ,Rudd also gets to make a bit of propaganda on helping (OPEC photo op buddy) George out too. With American housing taking a tumble, unemployment rates in America and demands for costly social security rising.
Hey, the building industry proclaims ,we will mainly be importing nice (mostly white?)American workers.(not those Asian workers from China or the Philippines.)
This of course is just propaganda playing up the Australian labour aristocracies chauvinist racist attitudes.
The fact is what workers will be imported will be 15,000 building workers, the cheapest contract labour they can get. Most will not be American And of course as they will be filling a "skilled" construction workers vacancies they will be sent wherever the sponsoring company sends them.
Some may be employed in housing construction to keep a restraining wage pressure on the workers there. Others will be sent out for construction in the mining industry
Tens of thousands of these 457 visa workers who have few rights are already now imported every year as the two class of worker system expands rapidly.
Housing Minister Tanya Plibersek joins Tony Jones to discuss the Federal Government's plan to attack the housing affordability crisis.
For the Full Report:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s2178777.htm
TONY JONES: It's a huge problem according to your own statistics. Today the Prime Minister quoted BIS Shrapnel figures that by 2011 there'll be a deficit in NSW alone of 50,000 houses by 2011 and it's estimated that would be 150,000 nationally. So it is only a tiny percentage of the problem that you're dealing with here?..
..TANYA PLIBERSEK: We have intentionally started in the next financial year the coming financial year there'll be 3,500..
So do not go holding your breath on the Llabor government plan to help the poor into cheap housing it's a ten year plan.
The herald reported
The main purpose of this announcement is to create propaganda for a massive expansion of indentured workers.
In the old US slave south it was every white crackers dream to own his own slave or two.
In our building industry every tradesman or small labour aristocrat contractor can get to sponsor his own 457 indentured workers?
Just as they can hire cheap labour 'Illegal" Hispanic workers in America,
Related:
The Rudd government and the labour aristocracies unions big test: The indentured labour disguised slavery 457-visa system.
Note: Services based imperialist economies and their profits and the fake left.
The bulk of profitability in today's Australian economy is achieved by realising surplus value (profits) from the cheap labour third world and that the labour aristocracy (workers)is mostly unproductive and creates very little new material value but employed in helping the imperialists and local capitalists realise that imported surplus value as profits .
There are jobs with incomes to be had in the resulting mainly services based economy. Sales, advertising, financial services ,restaurants, security guards etc etc. In this economy while their may be oppression most of the workers are not actually exploited for surplus value from their own labour ,even though they have jobs that help the capitalist class make a profit.
That is while they may be productive workers for capital, who gain profit from employing them and productive in terms of producing profits for capital ,their labour itself creates little or no new physical or material value.
This can be verified roughly, empirically ,by simply looking at what is on sale in the retail shops the tools and so on in hardware stores .what your are wearing ,or the spare parts sold in the automotive industry etc.
Scientifically this would be a matter of examining the actual flows of surplus value in the international economy. But the imperialist/capitalist class and its multinational companies uses the price mechanism, transfer pricing etc to disguise these flows making this task difficult for researchers. And a propaganda field for the Marxist and social democrats to cry on the shoulders of the labour aristocracy to cry on ,assuring them that there high incomes only disguise' horrific levels of exploitation by the greedy boss class".
Consider natural resources profits like iron and coal. Huge sources of profit for our economy.
Huge international companies have achieved monopoly over the cheapest to produce and transport mines ,allowing them to dictate massive monopoly price rises for supply ,with this year increases in price up 65% or the like.
The pretence is that this is sale freely determined by the market.
The Chinese market ability to pay set the price because they produce the cheapest steel and all other steel producing countries have to compete with that. These then become the base raw material price for Chinese manufacturers who use the steel to make commodities for sale at a profit from the value added by Chinese labour.
The monopoly price is paid to the raw material supplier demanding a cut in those profits from selling the commodities made with cheap Chinese labour. Should the Chinese refuse to pay those high prices for raw materials their own manufacturing output would be much less.
The left including hysterical fake 'Marxists' and Trotskyists claims that these monopoly price rises are won because the capitalists are stealing the benefits of the profits created by exploiting the highly paid labour of Australian workers. These leftists claim to support a labour theory of value so obviously the Australian super productive workers labour must be creating 65% more value this year alone.
- 407 reads
Post new comment