Lina Junctorius
As multilingualism gains importance in the globalized word and migration becomes more frequent, new challenges arise for host societies in Europe. In Switzerland, migrants are at a disadvantage on the labour market if they are not fluent in the local languages. They therefore mostly have job positions that are rather invisible, and not well compensated. Their skills in non-local languages are not officially recognized. Simultaneously, migrant employees’ language skills are exploited by the companies to increase their efficiency and simplify the daily work life. Official unemployment institutions often choose to minimize costs instead of investing in migrant’s language learning. This leads to the discrimination of migrants as it limits their social mobility through professional chances. Switzerland and individual workplaces need to introduce strategies that handle the issues in the reviewed studies.
Keywords: Racism – Linguistic Discrimination – Swiss Labour Market – Immigration – Multilingualism
Switzerland, migration and language
In September 2020, Switzerland held a referendum about the free movement of people. The right-wing party, Swiss People’s party (SVP), tried to limit the immigration of non-national people. They argued that too many people immigrate to Switzerland. The referendum was rejected by 61.7% of the voters. It was not the first attempt of the SVP to limit the free movement of people. (Henley, 2020) The referendums are the result of the increase in migration related to the ongoing globalisation.
In the light of the globalisation, language becomes more and more important. For the longest time, it was sufficient to speak the dominant language of the area you live in. In Switzerland, that means, for example, being able to speak French in the Romandie and German in the German-speaking part. Nowadays, new demands concerning the competences in the local and multiple other languages arise. This is especially the case in workplaces (Duchêne, 2011). The new importance of language is in particular connected to migration. In Switzerland, for example, the percentage of non-local languages being spoken as the home language has increased from less than 1% to 21.5 % from 1950 to 2013 (Lüdi et al, 2016). Since people gained new mobility because travelling became more affordable and new communication technologies are provided by the internet, the rate of migration has increased significantly. These developments allow migrants to stay in touch with their friends and family from all over the world. Furthermore, they have led to the establishment of new businesses and services. The resulting linguistic variety in host societies goes hand in hand with different advantages but also issues. On the one hand, linguistic exclusion can happen easily when institutions do not adjust to the new linguistic circumstances and stick to the national language. Institutions, whether public, private or non-governmental organizations (NGOs), are points of contact for migrants. Often they are ideological sites, meaning that existing ideologies of power are often (re)produced. The power origins in the unequally distributed value that is given to different languages making it seem as if some languages have more worth than others. In the case of workplaces, it can be seen how employers want to profit economically from the migrants’ language skills (Duchêne, 2013).
The aforementioned developments lead to the question of how present discrimination of migrants is in Switzerland and which role language plays in it. This blog post will focus on how migrants are linguistically incorporated into the Swiss labour market. To do this, the hierarchy of languages and speakers for different types of jobs will be considered. Following Duchêne et al (2013), in this entry people migrating or being mobile for work or other reasons are called “migrants”. This is to distance from any stereotypes and negative connotations that are associated with the word “immigrant”. Although technically the second term describes a person who moves to an area they are not native to, it is generally associated with a person from a developing country who moves to a more developed one, e.g. in the Western world.
When talking about language in society, an important concept is language ideology. Language ideologies are what members of a society believe and feel about language (Piller, 2015). They are social discourses about what language is or should be, how it is learned, how it is used, etc. Furthermore, language ideologies represent interests of specific societal groups (Piller, 2015). The standard language ideology implies that the speech of the most powerful group of a society is superior to other varieties, meaning that the standard language speakers are privileged and others are disadvantaged. Another language ideology is the belief that monolingualism is best for the unity of a nation and a harmonic society (Piller, 2015). This disadvantages especially people immigrating from other countries. The language ideology of integration is the believe that only migrants who speak the local language fluently and as their main language are integrated into society.
Previous Literature
Each language has a value on the linguistic market which is based on spatial occupation, social status and its social relevance. Language therefore becomes a human capital as knowledge of different languages is profitable on the job market and can lead to better salary (Filhon, 2013).
Switzerland is one of only five countries in Europe that have more than one national language and one of three that promotes an historical minority language, Romansh (Filhon, 2013). Shortly before the Second World War it was made a national language (Lüdi et al, 2016). Despite the official multilingualism in Switzerland, most cantons are monolingual on an institutional as well as on an individual basis (Filhon, 2013; Lüdi et al, 2016). It is expected that a person is fluent in each language and speaks only one language at a time (Lüdi et al, 2016).
In Europe, the language ideology concerning multilingualism related to immigration creates the image of an integration deficit. Also, regional languages are favoured over immigration languages. The Council of Europe tried to give more recognition to multilingual practices by adopting two laws, the Charter of regional and minority languages in 1990 and the Common European Framework of reference for languages in 2001. However, in 2010 the cantons of Switzerland were still demanding the knowledge of their official languages for arriving migrants who plan to stay permanently (Filhon, 2013). Furthermore, in many companies’ corporate policy linguistic diversity and thus multilingualism is neglected since its management is challenging (Lüdi et al, 2016).
Within the new globalized economy multilingualism emerges as a market value (Duchêne, 2011), especially in the service economy. Language in every form, meaning oral, written and computer-mediated, has developed into a central tool. Efficiency and economic profitability is now created by using multilingualism which is why the knowledge of languages has an economic value. As a result, institutions exploit the linguistic skills of migrants and least qualified employees to increase productivity and flexibility (Duchêne, 2011). The exploited employees do not generally receive any benefits like a higher salary or professional mobility in return. In a study conducted in a baggage and passenger managing company at the Zürich international airport by Duchêne (2011) it was found that the requirements for language skills were based on the visibility of the employee. The visibility describes the degree of contact the employee has with the clientele. Employees in direct contact with passengers, namely in customer service, were required to have very good German (national language) and English as well as basic French skills. Employees having some direct contact with certain costumers but also doing tasks where they stay invisible needed to have very good knowledge of German and English. The invisible employees working in the baggage sector and not having direct contact with passenger were only required to be good in German. Due to negative changes in the working conditions, new groups of the population were applying to the job positions. Before, most employees were Swiss women belonging to the lower middle-class. New employees were mostly either less educated Swiss with fewer foreign languages skills or high educated migrants who are not fluent in the national languages. The number of employees speaking non-local languages were especially high in the semi-visible and invisible sectors since less Swiss in comparison to the visible positions worked in these positions.
Language is interrelated with power. This is why the knowledge of a language has an impact on an individual’s social status. Someone who is competent in several socially and economically valued languages can have more power in the sense that they can exclude people who do not know these languages without being at risk of being excluded themselves. When speakers have to use a language they do not prefer or are not fluent in they have to be more attentive to the ongoing discourse, need to cognitively process more, might question their identity and are symbolically excluded. This is why they might feel discriminated against (Lüdi et al, 2016). In case of the airport company (Duchêne, 2011), due to the language requirements an entire group of applicants is excluded from access to certain positions while others are privileged. The work activities are hierarchized and the level of visibility of an employee is therefore synonymous with their desirability for the company (Duchêne. 2011). Thus, the company is using its power by discriminating candidates on the basis of their knowledge of the national languages German and French as well as English as a lingua franca. The employees’ language skills are managed with regards to costs so that for example language classes are not paid for. Since the language skills are a requirement for getting a job, the impression is created that it is not the company’s role to officially recognize or maintain the skills of their employees but their own responsibility (Duchêne, 2011).
Language competences are handled similarly in regional employment offices (REOs) in the canton of Fribourg (Flubacher et al, 2016). Unemployed people in the region need to report to their local REO in order to be professionally reintegrated, i.e. to get re-employed. In a study observing especially the treatment of migrants in REOs, two coexisting discourses justifying the provision or lack of official language courses were discovered. First, the discourse of integration which follows the idea that competence in the local language is indispensable for the professional and individual integration of a migrant. Second, the discourse of investment which obeys a logic of cost-benefit, meaning the measures which are necessary to improve the chances of the person being employed are evaluated. These two discourses are complementary to regulate the diversity that comes with the increasing number of migrant workers. One way of increasing the chances of an unemployed migrant to settle in the new environment as well as being employed is by improving their local language skills in a language course. From the integration discourse point of view, knowledge of the local language avoids the creation of a parallel society in which migrants only speak their native language. In terms of the investment discourse, knowledge of the local language is only viewed to be necessary when it helps the migrant’s employability. It is also considered that the required level of knowledge for non-qualified migrants to get employed is rather low. The language courses as well as other strategies are paid by the REOs and therefore by Swiss taxpayers. This is why the overall costs paid by the REOs are tried to be minimized. However, in the case that a migrant does not attend a language course for the sake of keeping the costs low they cannot develop social mobility. Higher language competences lead to better employment which in turn entail social mobility (Flubacher et al, 2016).
In the airport company, languages that are not required for employment are not officially recognized through financial compensation or promotion but are nevertheless indispensable for the daily working life in the company (Duchêne, 2011). Employees speaking other languages are registered in a list so that they can translate in situations where unpredictable language needs arise. The majority of these so-called translators for rare languages are migrants in invisible or semi-visible positions. They become only visible when they linguistic services are needed meaning that they are exploited. At the same time they are objectified and their language skills and thus multilingualism are trivialized as they are taken for granted and relied on but not compensated (Duchêne, 2011).
These ways of dealing with migrant languages and multilingualism in general make the capitalist market discriminatory and reproduce social inequalities between Swiss citizens and migrants (Duchêne, 2011). A way to better the general perception of languages spoken by migrants is to offer education in these languages to migrants. This would help dissolving the hierarchical structure by recognizing the benefits of multilingualism and support the migrants’ social mobility. In general, recognition of migrants, their languages and culture by host countries like Switzerland would be a key element to integration (Filhon, 2013).
Discussion and Conclusion
The presented studies suggest that migrants often have disadvantages on the Swiss labour market. Language is used to create a hierarchy that benefits people who speak the dominant official local languages, i.e. German and French in the regions investigated. Since languages have value on the linguistic but also on the labour market these individuals have a higher social status and better chances to get a job. Also, because of this language ideology, being able to speak several relevant languages gives an individual power over people who are not fluent in these languages. The latter are therefore discriminated against for not knowing the languages required for given jobs.
The knowledge of the official languages is often required to immigrate to Switzerland in the first place but also to be eligible for many jobs. It is often expected that each individual speaks the local language fluently. Migrants who do not speak the local languages or are not fluent in them are less desired. Also, their multilingualism is seen as indicator for them not being well integrated instead of a benefit for the society.
At the same time, the language skills of migrants are exploited to increase the productivity and flexibility of companies. On the labour market, multilingualism has an economic value because language is developing into a central tool. It helps companies to create efficiency and economic profitability in the daily work life. The migrant employees’ knowledge of non-local languages are used without compensating them for their extra work or recognizing their skills. This leads to the impression that the migrants’ language skills are not valuable while simultaneously naturalizing the knowledge of non-local languages.
In the study of Flubacher et al (2016), it can be seen that the official institutions in Switzerland recognized that knowledge of the local language is needed to accomplish the social as well as professional integration of migrants. However, the institutions do not want to take responsibility for this process and due to cost-benefit logic often decide that basic language skills are enough for the migrant to be employed. This leads to migrants working only in invisible or semi-visible positions.
The more visible an employee is, the more important their language skills are. That is why most migrants who do not speak the local languages fluently enough usually work in semi-visible or invisible positions. Here, a clear hierarchy of languages and speakers can be seen. The local languages are considered more important than non-local ones. Speakers of local languages are therefore more valued and are compensated with, for example, higher salary. Therefore, the hierarchy of languages leads to applying a hierarchy to workers. This is why it can be said that the labour market in Switzerland is discriminating groups of people who do not speak the local languages well, especially migrants. Also, by sticking to the hierarchy of languages, existing social inequalities between Swiss nationals and migrants are not changed but reproduced. To break the hierarchy of humans it is necessary to stop valuing some languages more than others. This could be achieved by recognizing migrants’ languages, getting to know their culture and meeting their needs. As Filhon (2013) suggested, offering education in migrant languages is one way to do it. If the migrants’ social mobility were increased, integration would be easier which would also lead to a higher social status and better professional opportunities. In my opinion, it is the responsibility of the Council of Europe, the confederation of Switzerland, the cantonal governments and every institution and company to work on the recognition of multilingualism related to migration. Even though the Council of Europe, for example, already released some language policies (see Filhon, 2013) these are not sufficient and need to be better implemented on a daily basis. However, it also has to be pointed out that language is not the only factor leading to discrimination of migrants.
References
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