We Are Foreign and We Feel Welcome in Efling Union

Barbara Sawka, Ian McDonald, Innocentia Fiati Fridgeirsson, Karla Barralaga Ocón og Sæþór Benjamín Randalsson skrifa 23. apríl 2022 12:31

We the undersigned are all born outside of Iceland. What we also have in common is that we are all doing low wage jobs and are therefore members of Efling Union.

We have all experienced discrimination and xenophobia in Iceland. We speak with accents and some of us are not white, and therefore we get asked questions like "hvaðan ertu?" and our most used phrase for Icelanders is "talarðu ensku?". Some of us have experienced much worse abuse and disrespect. We have often been made to feel like second class citizens.

One place where we haven't felt discrimination, however, is Efling Union. As active Efling members, we are now used to going to union events, meetings and rallies where we see faces and hear languages that make us feel that we are among fellow immigrants.

We have noticed and appreciated changes like making the Efling website available in English and Polish, having live English interpretation at events, conducting parts of union rep courses in English, and choosing members of foreign origin for important roles of responsibility in the union. All of this has made us feel welcome and included, much more so than in most other places in Icelandic society.

These changes did not come out of thin air. They were part of the program of the B-list headed by Sólveig Anna Jónsdóttir in 2018 and again in 2022, a program that has set the mark high and fought every step of the way for fulfilling its promises. Sólveig has time and again insisted on inclusion and respect for foreign Efling members.

Therefore, we find it truly shocking to be now witnessing claims that Sólveig is prejudiced against foreigners. It needs to be said honestly that this is a cynical lie, fabricated by enemies who are desperately looking for ways to damage Sólveig and the B-list.

Of course we still do not have full equality and inclusion for foreign workers in Iceland, and even Efling Union can do better. We, however, are not going to let opportunists misrepresent the very real positive changes that have been made in our union towards visibility, power, and respect for immigrants. Our message to those who sling false accusations of this kind are: Direct your anger to the real xenophobes in Iceland.

Authors are members of Efling Union.