GFMD a sell-out of the souls of migrant workers

THE CHALLENGE TO THE GLOBAL FORUM ON MIGRATION AND DEVELOPMENT AND OTHER ISSUES OF MIGRANT WORKERS
October 19, 2008
Seoul, South Korea

KASAMMAKO believes that GFMD is a device to sell neoliberal anti-poverty and financing strategy. It thrives on the poverty of Third World countries, directs them to institutionalize migration policies as a mechanism for development and development cooperation.

The GFMD as localized in the migration policies in South Korea, the government under President Lee Myung Bak has institutionalized labour migration as a means of off-setting the lack of labour resources due to its ageing work force. Although there is so much publicity about better working arrangements for migrant workers and other foreigners employed in the country, the government is up to flush out undocumented migrant workers to less than 100,000 out of over 200,000 in 2010. This has resulted to insurmountable anxiety, loss of income to thousands of migrant workers who were forcibly deported. Both the South Korean government and the Philippine government did not respond to the need to provide amnesty and eventual legalization of undocumented migrant workers. The rampant violations of human rights of migrant workers have not been addressed by both the sending and receiving governments of migrant labour.

Furthermore, the recent surreptitious agreement on the National Pension System and the Social Security System between the two governments intends to divest migrant workers of their hard-earned retirement benefits when finally approved by the Philippine Senate and the Office of the President of the Philippines. The NPS-SSS equalization scheme would eventually deprive migrant workers who contributed to the NPS a lump-sum refund of their contributions at the end of their contract. This is a scheme that would increase the funds of the NPS and the SSS but not benefitting directly the migrant workers. This should not be ratified in any way.

Moreover on the broader scale the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) which is ensuing in Manila this week is a lip service to the situation of the migrant workers worldwide. KASAMMAKO believes that the GFMD is characteristically against the interests of the migrant workers, on the following grounds:

• It hides under the cloak of universally-accepted concepts and principles such as the right to migrate, the “right to development”, “responsibility of government to manage” but peddles on “remittance as a survival mechanism for poor countries” and “temporary labor migration” as a “flexible way of meeting labor surplus and shortage across countries”.

• It avoids the notion that migration is an “alternative to development” because it will expose the undeniable fact that “neoliberal” globalization has failed miserably on its promise to usher development, especially in poor countries that has a vast pool of unemployed. It also unmasks the real intent of the current drive of First World countries and their institutions to exploit the migration phenomenon, the lucrative labor export programs and migrant remittances for the purpose of salvaging or propping up the collapsing economies, especially of semi-colonies and dependent countries.

• GFMD sells neoliberal anti-poverty and financing strategies by promoting the concept that “migration promotes development” and that the remittances of migrants helps the economy and therefore serves as a “tool for development”. It directs its efforts towards capturing the remittances of migrants to: a) ensure super profits of bank monopolies, and b) ensure that debt-ridden economies have a large currency reserve to pay off debts.

The underlying agenda however is to do away with capital pump-priming and ODA which donor countries and IFIs have so far been unable to meet for the past several decades. This exposes the fact that neoliberal globalization currently has not brought Third World countries any closer to the eradication of global poverty and unemployment.

• It promotes the concept of government responsibility to “manage migration” in order to augment state revenues and help cover deficits in foreign payments. Managing migration meant institutionalizing migration policies, adopting “policy coherence” in all its related branches of government, and by “aligning” migration policies with development policies domestically and internationally. This concept exposes that the underlying neoliberal agenda is for Third World countries to continue to tow the line of neoliberal policies (liberalization, privatization, deregulation, etc), policies that bred a vast pool of unemployed and underemployed, the very same policies that brought Third World countries heavily indebted and in a state of abject poverty.

• It employs post post-Washington strategy of “transparency” and “shared responsibility” thru “inter-partnership” with all “stakeholders” in the name of development but marginalizes the role of the most important stakeholder on this issue – the migrants themselves. Consultations and representation of migrant organizations in HLF are nil. Even in dialogues wih civil society organizations, migrant representation is merely a token.

While there is some truth that remittances temporarily alleviates the financial woes of families of migrants, this perverse notion signifies greater commodification of migrants and the perpetuation of conditions for cheap labor, not to mention the social costs of migration, especially on children and families.

KASAMMAKO exposes the so-called “development” through migration and reliance on remittances as development tool are neoliberal anti-poverty and financing concepts and strategy that thrives on people’s exploitation and miseries of migrants, enhances labor flexibilization and therefore, greater commodification of labor, and only brings Third World countries into the quagmire of poverty because these do not address the root causes of underdevelopment and the massive migration of peoples from poor countries. We call on governments, NGOs and all migrant workers to work for a just economic development and unconditional respect for the rights of migrant workers.