Poor folks foot immigration bill

IN 2013 I moved from France to Braamfontein, Johannesburg. I noticed, without much effort, that an overwhelming majority of the maintenance and security employees in my building were immigrants.

Oftentimes I would invite the security guards to my place for dinner. It was clear from our conversations that they had overcome enormous hardship to get into South Africa. Like everyone else, they were in Johannesburg searching for a better life.

One evening, when the guards rotated, I met for the first time a South African fellow with a thick Mpondo accent. I stopped to ask him about his colleagues. He was visibly annoyed and his response rather dismissive: “Those people will not be on duty until next week.”

Startled and intrigued by his annoyance, I waxed him with a full pack of cigarettes (I was trying to quit anyway), and struck up a conversation.

He told me that he has no problem with foreigners; except, “they ” were hurting his livelihood. His employer insisted that immigrants were willing to work for less and slashed his monthly wages from R2 000 to R1 000. Also, he worked on a rotation schedule for three, instead of four weeks, at R250 a week or R750 a month. His pay was not enough to cover transport to Alexandra, let alone feed his family.

He complained that, whereas he was denied an education by the apartheid government, his colleagues (mostly Nigerian) had advanced diplomas or degrees. He could not understand why they did not search for “proper jobs ”.

Having lived as an immigrant in France, I was unsympathetic to his xenophobic tirade. However, his anger made sense. If the claims were true, then both he and the immigrants were victims of corporate abuse.

Also, he was right; most of the immigrants I interacted with had completed A-levels. A few of them held tertiary diplomas. One fellow was a SAQA-accredited medical technician, except he could not work because of an expired visa.

This story is the other side of the coin, which has largely been ignored by the discourse on xenophobia in South Africa.

First, let ’ s look at the context. Various sources estimate that there are up to 10-million undocumented migrants in South Africa. For a population of about 50 million people, that figure is about 12% of the population.

Second, and perhaps most contentiously, the costs of immigration are borne disproportionately by the poor and the working class. Undocumented immigrants flock into the informal economy, irrespective of their level of skill. Also, since they are “undocumented ”, they do not enjoy collective bargaining rights and do not benefit from welfare programmes.

Their “undocumented ” status fences the costs in the working and under classes, who must share their diminishing slice for immigrants to survive. The middle and upper classes are hardly affected.

Now, let us look at the numbers. First, consider that South Africa has a serious problem with poverty. According to some estimates, 31.3% of the population lives below the breadline. Second, a large segment of the population is either unemployed or unemployable. The worst affected are youth.

It ’ s disconcerting to hear some commentators saying South Africans have a sense of entitlement when it comes to jobs. I can bet you there is not up to 10% of South Africans who would be willing to do the menial and embarrassing work my parents and other foreigners did for as long as they did it and for as little as they did it if were you to ask them today.

So it annoys me, to the deepest part of my being when I see a South African open their mouth and cry “foul ” against or harming innocent foreigners.

The immigration problems are real and cannot be solved with slogans. Yes, mass rallies and sloganeering are necessary to prevent violence and to protect human rights in the short term.

However, we must not pretend there ’ s no immigration crisis – that would be the worst possible response. We need long-run fixes to ensure that xenophobic violence does not rear its ugly head again. Poor people – those who are talking – have a point. Immigration is a problem and they are footing the bill.

So, what is to be done? First, we must reform out immigration laws to make it easier for skilled immigrants to participate in the formal economy. The reforms must cut the redtape associated with work visas. The government must consider pardoning, and thus documenting, people who are in the country illegally. Legalising their status will expand their economic prospects and perhaps ease pressure on the poor.

Second, government must enact minimum standards and codes of practice for the informal sector generally, to prevent the abuses outlined above. The labour reforms must include a state-run watchdog within the Department of Labour to combat abuse.

Third, we must grow the pie for the working class in two ways. One, we must provide skills training and education opportunities to disaffected youths. Two, the government must expand state capitalism through infrastructure projects and other forms of public spending. Market-driven growth is taking too long.

Fourth, government must streamline the process of incubating and funding small businesses. The scattered business development agencies must be incorporated into a single agency – perhaps a staterun Development Bank – to ensure efficiency and to prevent fragmentation and arbitrage.

Finally, we must coordinate with other African countries to improve democracy. The level of migration into South Africa indicates serious governance and economic problems north of the Limpopo River. Even a prosperous South Africa cannot accommodate the whole African continent.