Immigrants and integration

Transcription

1 The Year 2000 International Research Conference on Social Security Helsinki, September 2000 Social security in the global village Immigrants and integration Jean-Pierre TABIN Professor Ecole d'études sociales et pédagogiques Lausanne Switzerland INTERNATIONAL S OCIAL S ECURITY ASSOCIATION (ISSA) RESEARCH PROGRAMME CONFERENCE HOSTS: FINNISH ISSA MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS

2 Immigrants and integration Jean-Pierre Tabin, Professor Ecole d'études sociales et pédagogiques Lausanne (EESP) 19, ch. de Montolieu, case postale 70, CH 1000 Lausanne 24 Tel ; Mail : jptabin@eesp.ch Summary This contribution presents a research within the framework of the Swiss national science foundation about the social problems of foreigners to Switzerland and the policy of integration in this country. It demonstrate that a great part of the social problems of foreigners in Switzerland are due or at least increased bye their social and economic status and bye the legal status imposed to them (in particular we can observe discriminations in the social security). It shows also that if the economic policy and the policy of migration conducted by Switzerland cause discrimination among groups of foreigners, it helps this country to realize its own social integration. Bibliography : Isabelle Chaudet, Caroline Regamey, Beatriz Rosende Haver, Jean-Pierre Tabin (2000), Migrations et travail social. Une étude des problèmes sociaux des personnes de nationalité étrangère en Suisse. Lausanne : Réalités sociales. Tabin Jean-Pierre (1999), Les paradoxes de l'intégration. Essai sur le rôle de la non-intégration des étrangers pour l'intégration de la société nationale. Lausanne : Cahiers de l'eesp.

3 Immigrants and integration 1 Introduction 1 Almost everyday, the press, the authorities or some political parties denounce the problems that are raised by the migrants in Switzerland. Unemployment, crime, drug, raise of social costs, all these problems are, partially or totally, attributed to foreigners. Generally, the given explanation is that they are too far from the local habits or from the local culture. For these reasons, integration of some of the foreigners is said to be difficult and the foreigners are accused to cause trouble to the Swiss society : but is this really a fair explanation? 2 Nationality and work permits in Switzerland The problem of integration is always a problem of the host society, because the process takes place in this society and in the terms imposed by it. It is not at all natural to be or not to be a citizen of a nation. Nowadays, some 1 This presentation is about the results of a research conducted within the framework of the SNSF (Swiss national science foundation), about the social problems of foreigners in Switzerland and the policy of integration in this country. It started on January 1st for a duration of two and an half years (summer 1999). A first book was published about this research : Bolzman Claudio, Tabin Jean-Pierre (1999), Populations immigrées : Quelle insertion? Quel travail social? (1999). Lausanne et Genève : Cahiers de l'eesp et IES. And a second book was published in the year 2000 : Isabelle Chaudet, Caroline Regamey, Beatriz Rosende Haver, Jean-Pierre Tabin (2000), Migrations et travail social. Une étude des problèmes sociaux des personnes de nationalité étrangère en Suisse. Lausanne : Réalités sociales.

4 ISSA Conference, Helsinki, Jean-Pierre Tabin/Switzerland, , p. 2 territories, some human groups are recognised as nation and some not : history and balance of power can explain it. 2.1 Nationality Birth in Switzerland does not automatically entitle one to Swiss nationality. The usual procedure of naturalization, particularly complex, demands twelve years residence in Switzerland and the canton and the communes can add their conditions to the naturalization procedure : generally, they want to verify the integration of the foreigners, as it is a tradition in the ethnic nations. This restrictive right of nationality explains the large proportion of foreign nationals in Switzerland (approx. : 20 % of the population). Should Switzerland have the same right of nationality than France, the amount of foreign people in this country would be about equal in the two countries 1. It should be known that almost six foreigners out of ten are born in Switzerland, or have been residing there for more than ten years. In fact, we have two types of foreigners in Switzerland, the migrants and the non-migrants, born in Switzerland. 2.2 Work permits in Switzerland The legal status of one fifth of the resident population in Switzerland is particular : the foreigners depends from a federal law (the law in force is the 1 In 1998, the Swiss population is inhabitants. The foreigners are (only the foreigners with for workers holding a residence permit with a period of validity of more than one year), which is 18,61% of the resident population. If we withdraw of that number the foreigners born in Switzerland ( persons) and the foreigners living in Switzerland for more than 10 years ( persons), the amount of foreigners is persons, which is 7,23% of the resident population (in France, it is 6,1% of the resident population).

5 ISSA Conference, Helsinki, Jean-Pierre Tabin/Switzerland, , p. 3 Federal Law on sojourn and establishment of foreigners, dating back to 1931) about which they cannot say anything, because they are not citizens. The same permit gives them the right to live and to work in Switzerland. For certain work permits, the Swiss administration fixes overall quotas. These are in function of the size of the work market of each canton and its total number of foreign workers. The potential employer must submit the request for hiring a migrant to the Work Office, showing that he has been unable to find, on the local work market, the necessary worker. This creates a position of subservience of the workers towards his employer as the authorization of a residence permit and work permit are closely linked. This contingency existing since 1970, concerns but a part of the entries into the territory. The foreign work-force market in Switzerland is subdivided into legal categories which form a hierarchy of rights and an inverse hierarchy of instability. According to the work permit they have, the rights of foreigners are more or less limited. The restrictions concern first of all the length of the stay in Switzerland, but also the right to live with their family, the right to change of job or the right to change of canton. These restrictions produce some of the social problems of foreigners. Not the same persons (born or not in Switzerland, for example) and not the same nationalities are in each of the categories of work permit : for this last matter, it depends from the history of migration to Switzerland and from the bilateral agreements confirmed by Switzerland. Furthermore, work permits are limited to nationals of certain countries : it is the policy called the circles, introduced in 1991 by the Federal Council. This example, clearly ethnocentric, differentiates the inner circle, in other

6 ISSA Conference, Helsinki, Jean-Pierre Tabin/Switzerland, , p. 4 words EFTA and the EU 1 countries and the outer circle, that regroups all the other countries for which Switzerland is a fortress. All these restrictions are very useful for the Swiss industry : they allow a better control upon workers and lower wages. 3 Social status of foreigners in Switzerland Switzerland has been importing work-force since the end of the 19th century. The foreign workers are wanted because they play an essential role in Swiss economy : when they are not needed by the economy, they are sent back, if possible. We could see that in the last twenty five years. Migrants to Switzerland are not recruited for any jobs. The wages they have for their jobs are clearly lower than the wages of the Swiss. One can observe social discrimination due to the types of work permits issued. The precarious work permits creates the low wages. These precarious work permit are only legal in economic sectors which make work a large amount of low-skilled and low-paid workers, hotel business, restoration, building and agriculture. Clearly, migrants are hired preferably when there is a need for a cheap unskilled work-force, which confirms the theory that using this work-force allows the stabilizing of branches and farms that otherwise would have to change their structure, or even disappear. 2 1 A general agreement between the European community and its member states, of the one part, and the Swiss confederation, of the other, on the free movement of persons was signed in the year Levy René and al. (1997), Tous égaux? De la stratification aux représentations. Zurich : Seismo, 549.

7 ISSA Conference, Helsinki, Jean-Pierre Tabin/Switzerland, , p. 5 Many researches about poverty in Switzerland 1, 2 did show that the income of foreigners (and, first of all, migrants) are under the income of the Swiss, and even lower for the foreign women. It is no surprise, because of the work they have to do in Switzerland and because they have much more risk to be unemployed. 4 Social problems of foreigners in Switzerland In modern societies, many persons do have social problems, linked with work (or absence of work), housing, budget, family, health, administration or welfare. Not everybody is confronted the same way to these problems : some persons, because their economic or legal status are more precarious than others, or because they have a bad professional status, or because of the inferiority of their social status are more affected by these problems. Foreigners in Switzerland are very concerned with social problems : many of them are low skilled, many have low incomes and precarious jobs and some of them have to face legal discriminations, in the social security for example : these inequalities of treatment depend from the nationality of the foreigner (and the existence or not of bilateral agreement between his country and Switzerland) and from his work permit 3. We know that the politic of recruitment of foreign people can cause some of the problems : the employers in Switzerland recruit for the most part 1 Levy René et al. (1997), op. cit. 2 Leu Robert E., Burri Stefan, Priester Tom (1997), Lebensqualität und Armut in der Schweiz. Bern, Stuttgart, Wien : Haupt. 3 See : Tabin Jean-Pierre (1999), Les paradoxes de l'intégration. Essai sur le rôle de la non-intégration des étrangers pour l'intégration de la société nationale. Lausanne : Cahiers de l'eesp.

8 ISSA Conference, Helsinki, Jean-Pierre Tabin/Switzerland, , p. 6 unskilled people and they employ them in doing jobs which are often dangerous. Consequently, they have many problems of sickness or invalidity associated to certain professions, or, when they loose their jobs, they do have many problems to find another. The official statistics are not very useful to explain these social problems. For example, the official nomenclature knows only two categories, Swiss and foreigner, and for it a person born and educated in Switzerland and somebody just arrived and asking for asylum in Switzerland are in the same category : foreigner. It is impossible to understand with these statistics the problems of a group or another. In our research, we choose to proceed by extensively analyzing social files of a social service 1. Doing that, we hoped to understand which are the real problems of foreigners. Because of the limitations inherent such research, the study has focused on : specific years ( ) ; precise nationalities (Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, in other words, three populations that represented forty percent of all the foreigners established or annual workers in Switzerland (broken down as follows 1 The Fraternité of the Protestant social center in Lausanne. The Fraternity is the only social service within the Lausanne area that specializes in the problems of migrant workers, it is also the only one that offers free counseling in the language of the clients. The Fraternity exists since 1964 (opening date of counseling sessions in Spanish for Spanish workers (or sojourners) in Switzerland). In 1970 the Italian counseling sessions were opened (in Italian), and consultations for other nationals since Social consulting for Portuguese nationals (in Portuguese) exists since First done on a benevolent basis, this service is now provided professionally since Since 1975, only 8 social workers were working at the CSP (Centre Social Protestant). The number of jobs at the Fraternity went from 3 to 3.9, filled by 4 social workers and two secretary-receptionists.

9 ISSA Conference, Helsinki, Jean-Pierre Tabin/Switzerland, , p. 7 (1998) : Italy, persons, 24,3 %, Portugal, persons, 9,9 %, Spain, persons, 6,6 %) a given region (Lausanne urban area, approximately 285'000 inhabitants) social files were analysed. The problems that were raised by foreigners can be classified in three categories : the migration problems, the specific problems of foreigners and the other social problems. 4.1 Migration problems The migration problems are the problems linked with coming in Switzerland and with leaving this country. One quarter of the problems are migration problems. The problems linked with the arrival in Switzerland are not at first problems of installation in the new country, housing for example, but family problems : some foreigners do not have the possibility of being joined by the members of their family, and it is a very big problem for them, which leads some of them to a clandestine living. The new immigrants, above all the women, are more concerned than the others by this kind of problems. An example. Mrs. M. is married to a Italian seasonal worker. She joins her husband and starts work in a bar, the boss of the establishment requested a trial period before asking the authorities for a work permit. Denounced to the State Security police, her passport is seized and a two-year ban on entry into Switzerland issued against her. An appeal was placed with the authorities against the ban on entry which was quite out of proportion considering the error committed : it was rejected. The employer was not concerned. The problems linked with leaving Switzerland, generally going back to the native country, are most of all administrative : for example, when they have worked in different countries, the procedures to obtain wages from the

10 ISSA Conference, Helsinki, Jean-Pierre Tabin/Switzerland, , p. 8 Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance are very complicated. In order to do that, foreign people often need help. 4.2 Specific problems of foreigners The specific problems of foreigners are the problems linked with the permit to leave and to work in Switzerland. One other quarter of the problems are specific. First of all, women, young people and new immigrants are concerned by these problems. The more the status in Switzerland is precarious, the more the people are concerned by this type of problems. For a great part, these problems come from the refusal or the lost of the work permit, or from a decision of expulsion from Switzerland : all of these problems are linked with the application of the law. For example, if foreigner, somebody, even born in Switzerland, can loose the right to live in Switzerland if he or she goes in an other country for more than six months. Mrs. A came from Italy with her parents at the age of six months. She spends all her childhood, studies and does her apprenticeship in Switzerland. She has not asked for the Swiss nationality. At 19 the young woman joins her fiancé in Italy and gets married. The marriage is unsuccessful, she divorces. Having no direct family in Italy, and considering herself as Swiss, she returns to her parents and friends in Switzerland. Because of her Swiss diploma, she finds an employer who hands in a request for a work permit which is then refused by the authorities (quotas). Neither the personal or family situation of Mrs. A., nor the fact that she had a job in view, or even the fact of having a diploma issued in Switzerland and not her country of origin do not count for the decision of the authorities.

11 ISSA Conference, Helsinki, Jean-Pierre Tabin/Switzerland, , p The non-specific social problems The non-specific social problems are of different kinds : family problems, working problems, money problems, health problems, etc. A priori, these problems can concern equally the Swiss and the foreign people in Switzerland. But we can observe that these problem are, in fact, often linked with the status of foreigner in Switzerland and that they can have consequences upon this status. Mr. A. is a Portuguese national working in Switzerland as a seasonal worker, then obtains a annual permit. His wife as well as two of their three children join him according to the dispositions set out for regrouping families together. But their eldest daughter, F., is 21 years old student. It is impossible for her to come in Switzerland with her family, because she is too old. The family is split and that cause many problems the wife and the two younger children, finally, go back to Portugal, and the situation leads to a divorce. The family problems a more important and more frequent when the foreigner has a precarious permit. And, if the problem is originally strictly linked with the family, like a divorce or the death of a member of the family, in some situations it can have consequences upon the right to stay in Switzerland. When Mrs. W. comes to the social service, she is pregnant. Her husband died some months ago and the Swiss authorities have decided that she have to leave the country. Why? Let s hear the argument of the administration : Mrs W. did come in Switzerland to marry a Portuguese with a residence permit. She lived twelve months with her husband before he died. As we can see it, there is no more reason for her to stay in Switzerland, as the motive to come, to marry and to live with her husband, does no more exist. She has two months to leave Switzerland

12 ISSA Conference, Helsinki, Jean-Pierre Tabin/Switzerland, , p. 10 It is the same for some of the health problems. A working accident, for example, can have many more consequences for a foreigner than for a Swiss. Mr. C, a Spanish worker, has works in a farm. He has a seasonal employment, but his employer, needing him, did ask him to stay a little longer, illegally. During that period of illegal work, he has a working accident. The employer dismiss him immediately, which is illegal. The problems for this workers are numerous. For example : How to be paid for the time he cannot work because of his accident? How to oppose to his illegal dismissal? How to stay in Switzerland, without permit and without job to claim for his rights? When ill people have precarious permit, an great amount of difficulties can arise. Actually, a foreigner with an annual or a seasonal working permit who loose his job because of his sickness can also loose his working permit, as soon as he can travel and as soon as his therapy is possible outside of Switzerland. Mr. S., a Portuguese seasonal worker in the hotel industry. During the season he is victim of an industrial accident which will prevent him from ever working in that profession again. As the collective sickness insurance of the hotel industry is associated with the authorization to work in Switzerland, it will pay out only until the date of expiry of the seasonal permit. As Mr. S. had an industrial accident and is under medical treatment, he obtains an authorization to stay in Switzerland for medical reasons, but only as long as his illness is not curable in an other place than Switzerland. It is well known that foreign people have much more working accident that Swiss people. It is because they work in much more dangerous jobs building industry for example, and because they are low-skilled they have

13 ISSA Conference, Helsinki, Jean-Pierre Tabin/Switzerland, , p. 11 to do the dangerous parts of the work and because they did not receive a proper education to prevent these accidents. We can observe this phenomenon in the statistics of working accidents or in the statistics of invalidity. Nevertheless, is difficult for foreign people to have an access for social wages. We did find in the files of the social workers many requests for help to obtain something from the social insurance s or from welfare. The difficulties are due to the fact that they do not speak well the official languages of Switzerland, to the complexity of the matter (and to the inequality of treatment between national and some of the foreigners) and to the insecurity of these persons : they are afraid to be expelled from Switzerland if they ask for something, and they have reasons to be. The foreigners who are for a long time in charge of the Swiss society can be expelled from this country, as is written in an article of the Federal Law on sojourn and establishment of foreigners. As a matter of fact, we can see that they have need for explanations, translations, and tips about how to behave in front of a complicated administration. In short, if we look at all the social problems that they have, we can see that the part of the social problems which concern only foreigners or foreign migrants is very high. More than four problems in ten are specific problems 1. In more than the half, they are due to the application of the Federal Law on sojourn and establishment of foreigners. The majority of the social problems can concern the Swiss and the foreign people. But a very high part of them are in fact specific problems, because they are linked with working permit or with the Swiss policy of migration. As a matter of fact, we can observe that the health problems of foreigners are due or increased bye the types of job they do and the types of jobs they 1 43,7 %, N = 726.

14 ISSA Conference, Helsinki, Jean-Pierre Tabin/Switzerland, , p. 12 do are determined bye the policy of migration and also, some times, bye the dispositions of the Swiss invalidity insurance concerning foreigners. Family problems are frequently linked with the Federal Law on sojourn and establishment of foreigners. The working problems are often associated with the legal status, and also, some times, bye the dispositions of the Swiss unemployment insurance concerning foreigners. As we can see, a great part of the social problems of foreigners in Switzerland are due or increased bye their social and economic status and bye the legal status imposed to them. Furthermore, we can observe that the foreigners are caught up in the system : the social problems produce dynamics which increase the precariousness of foreigners, and this enforced precariousness produce other types of social or legal problems. Finally, the social problems of foreigners in Switzerland a for a good part due their economic and legal status. And this status is imposed to them by the host society : it is not a cultural question. 5 Conclusions If the social problems of foreigners were more or less similar to the social problems of Swiss people, and if the origin of these problems were first of all due to the fact that they were educated in a different culture, it would be logical to develop a policy of integration focused upon the cultural questions mutual comprehension of different groups, translations or cultural mediation, etc. We are certain that this kind of policy is useful, but the main difficulty of foreigners who have social problems is not cultural it is due to the administration, to the right, to the discriminations (or the inequity of treatment) in the social security, to the economic policy of Switzerland. These patterns have to be changed : otherwise, the cultural policies of integration cannot be really efficacious.

15 ISSA Conference, Helsinki, Jean-Pierre Tabin/Switzerland, , p. 13 For example, we can observe that unemployment is a great problem for foreigners in Switzerland. We know that this unemployment is due, for a good part, to the low professional qualifications of foreigners but it is because of these poor professional qualifications that they were recruited to work in Switzerland. We know also that their unemployment is enforced by their lack of proficiency courses but the employers in the sectors where the foreigners (and, specially, the migrants) are numerous do not propose them. We know furthermore that they need specific help to find a new job, for example language courses, etc. but the federal unemployment insurance exclude many foreigners (the one that have the precarious working permits) from the right to these courses. Etc. As you can see, the problem is complex and we have to make a link between policies of integration and economic policy, and between policies of integration and policies of migration. The economic policy and the policy of migration conducted by Switzerland cause discrimination among groups of foreigners, but it helps this country to realize its own integration : for example, the migration did slow the ageing of the Swiss inhabitants, a crucial point for the Swiss old-age, survivors and invalidity insurance. As they are younger than the Swiss people and as more foreign women have a salary than swiss women, they are very useful to increase the amount of cotisations for the swiss insurances. Generally, it is proven that the foreigners are very profitable for the Swiss social security 1, this is to say very useful for the Swiss integration. 1 See : Tabin Jean-Pierre (1999), Les paradoxes de l'intégration. Essai sur le rôle de la non-intégration des étrangers pour l'intégration de la société nationale. Lausanne : Cahiers de l'eesp.

16 ISSA Conference, Helsinki, Jean-Pierre Tabin/Switzerland, , p. 14 At the moment, the policy of integration in the national level is only beginning 1, only some region have developed politics of integration, for the most part based upon the individual factors of integration. A real policy of integration would be to identify and to change the factors that produce the discrimination of foreigners and that cause the problems they have to face. To do that, it is necessary to collaborate with associations of migrants, trade-unions and all the persons who are able to document and to denounce these discriminations. 1 The new law on integration did come into effect in the year 2000.