It is a good tradition to celebrate the April Fool’s Day by playing people up. But the Russian authorities were far from joking on April 1st, when launching the campaign “to clean” the retail markets from the vendors holding foreign passports. As a result a number of markets were closed, the prices leaped up, while some patriotically minded commentators called people to tide over temporary difficulties.

These measures came as a disaster for the poorest citizens who in their native country earn as little as the starving migrants from Central Asia or the Ukrainian Gastarbeitern. It is true that the Soviet kolkhoz markets were affordable mainly for the well-to-do citizens who wanted to avoid queuing for hours in the stores. It is vise versa now. The middle class prefers to shop in big molls and supermarkets loading the cars with the food for the whole week. And those who cannot afford it go to the market. So the current rise in prices will be devastating for millions of families all over Russia.

But the politicians and the state-hired intellectuals won’t expend time in tackling such nuances, as they are preoccupied with a fierce political dispute: the nationalists insist that migrant workers squeeze ethnic Russians out of jobs, while the liberals stay politically correct.

The issue is more complex, however. Strangely, in our country the most disputed issues are always the less explored. Participants to the debates will analyze neither Russian nor international statistics; they will neither conduct investigations nor – to do the least – build their evidence upon facts. In Europe, U.S. and even Africa such studies have been carried out for long, so there is plenty of external evidence to be considered.

International studies testify that the growing amount of migrants working for a pittance allows the business to curb wage increases both for the local residents and the migrants. Herewith migration has little effect on the unemployment level. Firstly, immigrants doing the low-paid jobs help the economy to develop and create new better-paid jobs for the local population. This dependency has been proved by the experience: outflows of migrant labour are almost always followed by decline in employment of the local citizens. And if the Russian authorities persist with the anti-foreign-labour policy, we will see the scheme working in practice. Secondly, the labour market is not homogenous: in Russia there are a lot of unemployed defense industry engineers, but this doesn’t mean that they will prefer to be paid for cleaning streets. And the fact that some jobs are done primarily by the migrants signals only that the citizens don’t want this job because of the low payment, social insecurity and risks. The situation would change should the authorities raise salaries several times, give social guarantees, say, to the market vendors, and protect them from racketeering and police harassment. These measures would inevitably demand paying officially registered and taxable wages, which in its tern implies higher business transparency and paying taxes. All in all, these changes will increase the expenditure level for the employers and create additional troubles for the state. And strangely, neither liberals nor nationalists have included these reforms in their programs.

One more point: due to the abovementioned reasons the migrant workers compete on the labour market with each other, not with the local citizens. Maybe, some of you remember the 1970’s film “Bread and Chocolate” about adventures of two Italian Gastarbeitern in Switzerland. Being hired to work in a restaurant they find it very difficult to defy competition with the waiter, native Turkish. He takes the red-hot dishes with bare hands and does it for a pittance. And nowadays, Turkish Gastarbeitern will find it difficult to compete with the Moldavians and the Somalis in Europe.

I accept that in some concrete cases a guest worker ready to work for less payment can successfully compete with a local resident on the labour market. But the better the job, the less typical such competition becomes. The logic is simple: migrants with qualification and skills want better working environment. And these requirements make them inferior to the local residents. Guest workers have to move to a new place, pay the rent, send money to their family abroad, left alone problems with documents and police harassment. Native citizens in Moscow or St. Petersburg are free from all these troubles, while even the citizens of other Russian regions, who dare to move to the capital, will face just the same problems as those holding Uzbek, Kazakh, or the worst, Afghan passports.

In the both cities it is our compatriots who are low-balling the labour market.

But as soon as we start talking about social aspects of migration, we are forced to talk money, not employment. Again strangely, nationalist propagandists are reluctant to talk about wages. The reason is that their sponsors are interested in maintaining low wages for the local residents as well as in sustaining the role of the guest workers in Russia’s economy. Thus their aim is not to protect the local blue-collars but to put them at odds with the migrants.

They show ignorance of our language and culture, nationalists continue implying the Russian citizens who are ethnic non-Russians. At this liberals show their indignation and start talking about multiculturalism and tolerance.

And again they are fooling us. Immigrants need to know the language and understand the culture of the country, not to please the nationalists but simply to increase their social mobility and get better chances on the labour market. A Kyrgyz native barely knowing Russian is doomed to work as a yard-keeper. Hardly any politically correct liberal will give him the post of the head of the department. But his compatriot speaking Russian fluently, possessing manners of a gentleman and knowing our business environment will put competitive pressure on that very politically correct liberal.

Shall I repeat my thesis: neither nationalists nor liberals want to resolve the problem, which can only be done through social reforms.

Since there are millions of immigrants in Russia, and the demographic situation in the country won’t change in the near future, we have no other option but to help migrants learn the Russian language and our culture. We should give up negative attitude towards integration policy, which does not mean curbing ethnic traditions. Today extra-knowledge means new competitive advantages and gives freedom to choose depending on the situation. And vice versa: inflow of foreign cultures into our culture doesn’t prevent us from preserving it. As a matter of fact, Alexander Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov were descendants from the families of Ethiopian and Scottish immigrants correspondingly. Recently the Indian and Nigerian natives have put themselves on top writing prose in English and Arabs talk and write French better than some of the descendants of the ancient Gauls who tend to speak Franglais.

Integration process should be regulated at the state level. Cultural adaptation of the migrants costs public money. Should our authorities reserve from spending the money, the immigration won’t stop but will become less economically and socially effective.

All this reasoning suggests one simple recommendation: it is necessary to regulate migration. We need to invest money into education and social adaptation of the migrants, carry out national programs to help legal migrants find work and provide for the living. It is up to the state to protect both guest workers and citizens from the “social damping”.

When a German left-wing politician Oscar Lafontaine published similar ideas, the liberals met them with condemn. It was a challenge not to their understanding of the migration processes but to the widely accepted understanding of the market. “The free market” dumped with cheap labour force is the basis of modern national economies. It seems quite logical that under the free market model the market reforms in West Europe and Russia are followed by the spread of xenophobia. Retreat from the social regulation schemes breeds war of all against all.

Under these circumstances nationalists see the only solution in more repressive laws. All the more that in Russia the legislative regulation of the immigrant labour is weak. But the draconian laws won’t save the day. As we know, tough laws are simply neglected. Severe registration procedures in Moscow haven’t prevented population of the megalopolis from growing with the unprecedented for Europe speed.

As economic and social forces make it impossible to stay within the severe laws, new stiffening of the law results only in massive violations. Corrupted police is not a cause but a consequence – when the population has nothing else to do but violate the draconian laws, officials at all levels have more occasions to take bribes. In this situation introducing more stringent legislation is equivalent to raising the sum of the average bribe. If our state wants to restrain and regulate migration, it should introduce more liberal laws that would be observed. Laws must become transparent and clear, and policy – democratic and honest.

Boris Kagarlitsky is Director of the Institute of Globalization and Social Movements

13.04.2007

Digest