Message for International Migrants Day

18 December – International Migrants Day

UITBB calls for the integration of migrants in local societies and class-oriented struggles

December 18 marks International Migrants Day. It is a day of reflection and one needs to start by revealing the causes within the capitalist system that give rise to migration. Neither immigration nor being a refugee is the choice of workers and peoples. It is the result of the criminal action of the powers of capital and the forces that support it. People are uprooted from their homelands and their homes as a result of wars and military interventions between imperialist forces, as well as of the bad economic situation they find themselves in. Refugees and immigration go hand in hand with capitalism. This issue is being exploited by the governments themselves, which are implementing anti-labor measures, planning wars and interventions, in order to strike the workers and the labor movement altogether.

There is a huge number of migrant workers in the construction sector today, which are exploited by their employers and are used against local workers so as to keep them divided. This is clearly a class-based problem and we must fight so that immigrants, as well as all the workers, can join the trade union movement and participate in all of our class-based struggles. Let us not forget that there is only one working class and we are all part of it, regardless of colour, religion, language or place of origin.

On this International Migrants day, UITBB expresses its solidarity with all immigrants and especially migrant workers, and calls upon all its members around the world to help the integration of our class brothers and sisters in local societies and the class-oriented struggles alike, resisting the fascist forces which try to exploit migrants and divide the working class.

On behalf of UITBB Secretariat

Michalis Papanikolaou (UITBB General Secretary)