“In all major cities in Europe you will find places where a crowd of men and women are waiting early in the morning at a row of white vans. There they are given a day’s work for about 60 to 70 euros. They are the wretched people of the earth today.” PS chairman Paul Magnette then talks about the sans-papers in the country. They are estimated at 120,000. And because they are officially not allowed to work, they have to rely on undeclared work. “They have no choice but to sell their time to unscrupulous employers, often as subcontractors to companies that pretend they know nothing.”
In his latest book L’autre moitié du monde, Magnette talks about the concept of work, which he believes is the central value of socialism. Reducing inequalities between employees should therefore be the priority of the left-wing parties and the trade unions. Between men and women. Between highly and poorly educated people. Starting with the most dire inequality. “The first requirement should then be the regularization of working sans-papers,” he says.
“People want to work, the cheaters are an absolute minority”
Paul Magnette
Chairman PS
This is not only good news for the sans-papers, but also for the rest of the wage earners, according to Magnette. “As long as an underground reserve exists that is at the mercy of arbitrariness, employers will be able to continue to put pressure on other employees.” And if inequality disappears, there will also be less resentment among wage earners. According to Magnette, this is “the breeding ground for the traditional and xenophobic right.”
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Asylum seekers around Klein Kasteeltje, who sleep on the streets in Brussels. — © Kristof Vadino
Last summer, PS launched the idea of regularizing sans-papers to deploy them in shortage professions. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Labor Pierre-Yves Dermagne liked this and Walloon Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo even sent a letter to Prime Minister Alexander De Croo (Open VLD). Because despite the high unemployment figures in Wallonia, the tightness on the labor market is also an issue there.
Pay them more
It fell flat for the coalition partners. “Let’s first activate our unemployed and then see if we need any additional workers,” De Croo replied laconically. In the Walloon Region, there were 119,228 unemployed people at the end of last year, an unemployment rate of 9.76 percent. In Brussels, the figure was even 14.13 percent with 57,646. By comparison, the unemployment rate in Flanders was 3.83 percent or about 95,720 people.
When presenting his book, Magnette pointed out that the employment rate in Belgium had never been so high, that 300,000 jobs were added during the past legislature. “People want to work, the cheaters are an absolute minority. I am approached every day in Charleroi by people who want to work. But the jobs that are available are often poorly paid and in poor conditions. My solution is simple: pay them more.”
And, he delicately notes, even if all vacancies – around 40,000 – are filled, there will still be quite a few unemployed people south of the language border. “There are simply too few jobs in Wallonia.”