Having doors closed on third world labour, job market in Fortress Europe is now being cleansed ethnically. One of their tactics is a new legislation, that makes it costly to employ non-European Union (EU) citizens. And one such case getting a lot of attention in the Swedish media, at least, is a group of recently fired Pakistani seamen.

These Pakistani seamen, nineteen in all, working on board Birger Jarl were served termination notices on May 15 with a three-month grace period. Birger Jarl, a cruise ship, is owned by Rederi Allandia shipping company.

Rauf Butt has been working on Birger Jarl since 1987 and has been asked to leave. “I am soon going to turn 60, am diabetic and have developed pain in my knees; long time work on board a ship causes such ailments. I think it is due to constant vibrations,” he says. He has no idea what he’d do if fired and forced to go back.

“Rederi Allandia justifies the redundancies on the pretext that under the new EU legislation on employment, the non-EU workers deprive the ship of monetary support the company is otherwise entitled from EU,” says Rauf.

Rauf thinks the citing of EU-law as a reason to fire the workers is merely an excuse. “Actually these workers, some working for about twenty-five years, earn very good wages now because of the yearly pay raise. The company wants to fire them and employ new workers from East European countries at low wages.”

All these Pakistani workers were members of SEKO-Sjefolk (Service and Communication Workers Union-Seamen). Rauf accuses “the union bureaucracy” for “betraying the workers’ cause as Pakistani workers rank low on bureaucracy’s priority list.”

The resentment against Seko was strong when this scribe visited these workers at a meeting. One worker, Azhar, had saved in his mobile an SMS he got from Seko shop steward, Tedde Scot. The SMS read: “’No point in calling. We all lose jobs now. Why couldn’t you be satisfied with the money you already earned?”.

“The Seko section on Birger Jarl has been telling these workers that if they fight back for their jobs, the company would go bankrupt. Hence, according to Seko, these Pakistani workers better sacrifice their jobs in order to save the jobs of Swedish workers,” says Tariq Nasim, another worker hit by redundancies.

Regardless of what these workers called “union betrayal”, the workers have not given up the fight. Having lost hope in Seko, affiliated with Social-democrats, they have joined the syndicalist union SAC. Now, the Syndicalists have taken up the cause of these workers and SAC is representing them in this conflict with the company.

The SAC has started a blockade since July 8. The blockade has got a lot of media attention. It was covered by national TV, SvT, when it began. On July 14, country’s largest daily Dagens Nyheter devoted a full page to this.

“The job is a matter of life and death as many of us have now reached their fifties. On return to Pakistan, nobody hopes to find either a job or start a business,” says Rauf Butt. Termination for Rauf Butt, like his other Pakistani colleagues, means returning to Pakistan since they are not Swedish citizens even after working for over 20 years. “The company would fix visas for us on annual basis. We would work for three months and return to Pakistan for three months,” Rauf Butt explains.

The Swedish workers work for one week and are off the next week. The Pakistani workers, according to Rauf Butt, wanted the same privilege but the company would deny them the rights that were enjoyed by the Swedish workers. “I once worked one week and took the next week as off. I kept doing it for two years, but the company refused to get me a visa. Hence, I was forced to do as the other Pakistanis were doing,” he says.

“The company is now exploiting this visa situation,” says Humayun who has his visa expired.

“For instance, three workers — Ishtiaq, Humayun and Azhar — have had their visas expired. When their visas expired, they were told to leave the ship. Now in a way they are living as illegal citizens in Sweden,” says Butt.

These three workers had applied for new visas but the company did not send relevant papers to Migrationverket to help them renew their visas. All the workers will have their visas expired latest by September. “The company thinks once that happens, they would not cause any trouble and can easily be dealt through police and Migrationverket,” says Rauf Butt.

“We are counting on the solidarity of the Swedish workers and fighting back,” Butt adds. An international solidarity campaign has also been launched to help save these jobs.

All the details and updates are available on birgerjarl.info.