There are those who call for the intervention of the army: at least two thousand drivers with stars, to replace the missing truck drivers and bring supplies to fast food chains. Who is calling for a review of the post-Brexit rules, to include truck drivers among the highly skilled workers who can enter without a visa. Who, from the benches of Boris Johnson’s government, appeals to entrepreneurs to hire British labor. And who already dreads a ruined Christmas due to empty shelves or skyrocketing prices (or both).
The double impact of COVID and Brexit is hitting hard on British consumers, with a midsummer crisis erupting on freight transport, starting with two daily consumer goods: chicken and milk. It is not the only short-circuit in the post-pandemic economy, which around the world is blowing up value chains: from the microchip crisis, which has led the world‘s leading car manufacturers to temporary closures of factories (in Italy, they will not reopen after holidays at the Sevel plants in Val di Sangro and Stellantis in Melfi), due to the steep rise in the prices of maritime transport. But in the British case, there is an earthquake on the labor market, destined to empty – along with the shelves – many clichés of recent times.
Without truckers, chickens and smoothies
The first signs of the UK lorry driver crisis came in early July. The shortage of manpower from Eastern European countries raised the alarm to the sector associations and led the government, at first, to allow the extension of working hours. A warm panel, for a highly deregulated sector, in which exploitation and self-exploitation are the norm and shifts already at the limit of physical endurance. In August, the first visible effects, with the signs displayed outside the premises of Nando, the large fast food chain: closed awaiting refueling. Shortage of chickens.
McDonald’s, which had to remove milkshakes from its menus due to a lack of milk, was joined closely: on 24 August it announced that milkshakes and bottled drinks are temporarily unavailable in restaurants in England, Scotland and Wales. The supply chains for chickens and milk are calibrated on “just in time”, they cannot rely on large volumes of stocks: the trucks stopped, fast food restaurants simply had to cut the offer.
But the entire food industry is suffering, based on the gigantism of production and distribution: a few days ago the announcement was made that 70 thousand pigs destined for slaughter were blocked due to lack of personnel. In farms and slaughterhouses, the labor force is predominantly foreign, and the new immigration rules due to Brexit, together with the more general difficulties of movement due to the restrictions of the pandemic, have led to a strong reduction in it.
With the majority of families returning from holidays and the normal activity of autumn approaching, many fear that the crisis will spread to all imported goods and productions in which there is a high presence of foreign labor, spoiling Christmas for the British.
As Sarah O’Connor wrote in the Financial Times, Brexit opponents could be singing victory and gloating: “We told you so.” Indeed, what is happening is like a great live experiment on the impact of the foreign workforce on local economies: many economists have challenged, based on theoretical models or empirical tests, the theory that “immigrants take away the work”.
One of the most studied historical cases is that of the arrival of the marielitos, named after the Cuban port from which 125,000 Cubans sailed who in 1980 suddenly increased Miami’s workforce by 7 percent: a sudden and gigantic influx, which, however, did not reduce either the employment or the wages of local Americans. In that case, it was shown that the demand-effect prevailed more than the downward competition on the labor supply: that is to say, immigrants bring with them families and consumption, an entire economy, therefore in addition to “taking away” work they also create some. But what happens in the opposite case? That is, if immigrants suddenly disappear from an already suffering labor market, with many people left out of work due to the pandemic?
A series of unknowns
The news of these days offers us some first reactions: entrepreneurs are asking for government intervention, to relax the rules, even help with the army, and above all they are pushing for the United Kingdom to reopen its doors to foreign workers. The government led by Boris Johnson, supported the yes to the referendum, promoted the campaign for a hard Brexit marked above all by the immigration issue, won the elections on this and signed the final protocols with the European Union.
Consistently, for now the government has responded spades and asked industrialists to tackle the truckers crisis under the banner of “British first”: hire the British, wrote the secretary of state for economic affairs Kwasi Kwarteng in a letter addressed to associations of entrepreneurs. In the letter, Kwarteng (Londoner, son of immigrants from Ghana), tells industrialists that reopening the borders to immigrant workers would be a short-term solution, while instead the best way to deal with the crisis is to hire local labor, especially since September will expire benefits for the unemployed who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic and there will be many people looking for work; if they don’t know or don’t want to do the required jobs, Kwarteng tells the industrialists, train them, pay them more and improve working conditions. Industrial lobbies have replied that recruiting British labor takes time, and cannot solve the major emergency in the immediate future. Meanwhile, in no particular order, many chains have rushed to offer higher wages to anyone who wants and can drive a truck.
All this opens up a series of other unknowns. The first is the impact on prices. Industrialists have already made it known that “food inflation” is upon us if wages go up and hours are reduced, with food and drink prices likely to rise between 6 and 9 percent in the fall. The second is what British workers will do. The labor market is undergoing strong change: it is true that there is a lot of unemployment, but it is also true that many are looking around, there are new sectors that are hiring – all those linked to online – and smart working is redesigning everything. the market and the cities. The third is: what will the progressive camp, the Labor Party and the trade unions do?
The progressive opponent of Brexit may have to lower his victory song at this point. True, the trucker crisis highlights the lies of Brexit and anti-immigration policies; in the end, those who have little to spend on consumer goods are affected by the effects of the expulsion of low-cost foreign workers, since low prices are possible (also) thanks to the truck drivers from the east. But the same crisis also highlights the unsustainability of this model, based on a “broken” labor market (words of the capitalist Financial Times).
If at least a hundred thousand truckers are missing in the UK, and those who do have an increasing average age, it is because too low wages and grueling shifts may have induced a “flight” even before Brexit and covid – which, of course, have aggravated the situation.
In addition to showing that anti-immigration economic claims can have a boomerang effect, what is happening reveals the paradox of a labor market in which the essential is invisible; professions crucial for the maintenance of production and distribution chains are hidden and poorly paid. Now they have become visible, by absence. And this raises dilemmas that go far beyond the lack of chicken in our sandwiches.
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