Efling argues workers must unite against capital

Centrist parties across Europe have lost support as the far right advances, a trend rooted in economic policies that made working people bear the costs of the crisis, Sólveig Anna Jónsdóttir writes in a column published by mbl.is.

Since 2008, Europe’s political landscape has changed dramatically, Jónsdóttir writes. Welfare systems were cut back and infrastructure allowed to deteriorate, with consequences now becoming clear. She quotes Antonio Gramsci’s description of a crisis in which “the old is dying and the new cannot be born”, leaving an interval in which “the most varied morbid symptoms appear”.

When mainstream politicians refuse to discuss class conflict and its consequences, a vacuum emerges that can be filled by calls for a tougher approach to migrants, she argues. Responses to those calls range from virtue signalling to submission to the hard right. The political centre shifts, while the left becomes lost in identity politics, she writes.

Jónsdóttir says the radical left should consider Marx’s concept of the reserve army of labour. Capital wants a large, flexible supply of cheap workers, she writes, arguing that the opening of borders has been accompanied by social dumping. In Iceland, she says, the cleaning sector is the clearest and most dismal example. The problem is not migrant workers, she argues, but neoliberalism’s approach to human life. Dividing workers by nationality helps preserve the power of the wealthy, she writes, and is reinforced by the media.

Efling’s position is based on class analysis, according to Jónsdóttir. The union sees its migrant members neither as objects of pity nor as a problem, but as fellow participants in the class struggle.

The new president of ASÍ sees the issue differently, she writes. He has acknowledged that wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of a few, but Jónsdóttir argues that his proposed solution continues an institutionalised approach associated with professional and highly educated groups, which she says does not serve workers.

She says this is clearest in his approach to migrant workers: their difficulties are presented as a lack of Icelandic-language skills and recognition of qualifications. In her view, this focuses on individuals changing themselves rather than workers acting together to change society. The difference between Efling’s position and the president’s is fundamental, she writes. If ASÍ offers no response beyond integration, it will be unable to address serious problems facing society today. Efling will not follow that path, she says.