Solidarity with the FBU: Solidarity with migrant workers & refugees
Time for Real Change stands in full solidarity with the resolution passed by the Fire Brigades Union Executive recently in relation to the alarming rise in far right violence against refugees and refugee accommodation.
We echo their view that the government is complicit in these attacks. Government rhetoric and demonisation has only helped to create division, a situation which will only likely become worse if the government insist on ratcheting up the rhetoric while passing divisive legislation which fails to address any of the real problems.
As the FBU point out extremely clearly: “Anti-migrant politics are an attempt to divide working class people against each other. In the past decade, the UK has suffered a crisis of living standards – with wages falling and public services left to rot. The people to blame for this are politicians, billionaires and big corporations, not migrant workers or refugees forced to live in temporary accommodation. The anti-refugee campaign offers no solutions to the real problems faced by the deprived communities they are often targeting. The answer is solidarity, not scapegoating.”
UNISON is a hugely diverse union and many of our members have direct shared experience of the issues faced by migrant workers. We cannot stand by and watch right wing racist thugs attacking refugees. We cannot stand by either and watch Tory politicians attempting to whip up division in the communities that we support and where we live. Likewise, we cannot accept opposition politicians triangulating their arguments to suit the same divisive agenda. We stand in full solidarity with the FBU and all of the other Trade Union signatories to the FBU statement including UNISON President Andrea Egan. We believe that the whole of UNISON should stand in solidarity.
As the statement concludes: “As trade unionists, we know whose side we are on when we see far right mobs attacking refugees and politicians playing the mood music. We send our solidarity to Care4Calais and all groups fighting for refugee rights, and we support the call for safe and legal routes into the UK. We call on workers and trade union members to show their solidarity and to mobilise against the far right.”
This weekend has seen a shameful and cowardly effort by the BBC to silence Gary Lineker for speaking out in defence of migrant workers on Twitter. Time For Real Change also stand in full solidarity with Gary Lineker and his co-workers who are standing by him. Now more than ever, UNISON needs to add its collective voice to the national debate on migrant workers and not stay silent at a time of their demonisation by the media and Tories and attempts to silence their allies.