Health & safety

In Italy, workers’ stoppages of production in major factories, Arcelor Mittal, Fiat-Chrysler, Fincantieri, Maserati, Yamaha, Ducati, among others, about inadequate safeguards against infection within factories, pushed three trade union confederations — CGIL, CISL, and UIL — to get a joint protocol with government and employers on 14 March about minimum standards. The agreement has been criticised by grassroots activists as too soft. — Francesco Pontarelli on Global Labour Column Amazon in France After French Amazon workers threaten to use the equivalent in French law of Section 44 of the...

I was rostered onto District Energy (DE) last week (ending 20 March). There are lots of repair jobs; because of the major leak near the swimming pool last month, sections of the network have been isolated several times. As pipes cool and warm back up the metal expands and contracts slightly, leading to leaks at other weak-points. As well as these there is street-resurfacing to complete, and a big hole in the ground to fill. D, my mentor, is a chatty ex-miner with dodgy knees. His role is to issue work permits to the civil engineering contractors, supervise jobs, isolate the network where...

The labour movement needs to assert itself in the current crisis. Whilst being sensitive to what is happening around us, we cannot suspend our struggles and demands. The movement needs to raise big political demands, such as the demand for a complete moratorium on lay-offs and redundancies. We’re raising that demand with the civil service. We know that the Department for Work and Pensions is about to announce yet more office closures and resultant redundancies. We have made it clear to them that if they don’t back down from that then we’ll be in dispute. Exactly what form that will take in the...

In the emergency, Britain’s right-wing Conservative government is going for a limited, crude and undemocratic form of “socialism”. It is overriding market signals and criteria, and being forced to fall back on a bureaucratic and hierarchical approximation of the socialist ideal of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need”. In sector after sector, from the (patchy) steps to guarantee incomes for those unable to work, to banning evictions, to acquiring private hospital facilities, to taking over rail franchises to removing competition-law curbs on cooperation...

1. Requisition (in other words, take into emergency public ownership): • private hospitals, so that all their resources are directly available to the NHS • the pharmaceutical and medical-supplies industries, so that production can be ramped up in a coordinated way to meet the crisis • manufacturing facilities which can be adapted to produce ventilators and other medical equipment • hotels and empty houses, to use them for the NHS, for the homeless, and for domestic violence victims • transport and logistics, so that essential deliveries and travel can be coordinated and planned • the big...

“You know that Corona sales have plummeted? They’ve lost millions.” “What?” “Yeah you can get a crate on special offer in Morrisons – we should throw a barbecue.” “Fucking...what…?” “The beer! You plant-pot...” For the last few weeks the conversations at work have been about trivialising: “It’s only old people and sick people who’re at risk; and they die of the flu every year anyway but no-one cares – everyone here will be fine” (“Except you D, you’re basically at death’s door.”) Making fun: “Me and the missus were at the check-outs and saw these two women with a trolley-load of loo-roll. We...

The fourth week of the strikes by the UCU university staff union (9 to 13 March) saw twelve student occupations: UCL, University of the Arts London, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Imperial, Manchester, Exeter, Brighton, Glasgow, Nottingham and the Royal College of Art. Sussex students blockaded multiple university car parks, Exeter students disrupted an open day, and Leeds students held a sit-in during a University Senate meeting, forcing it to be adjourned to a non-strike day. The Cambridge occupation expanded to take three floors of the Old Schools building, including the office of Chief...

Tube drivers vote for strikes, Tube workers make C-19 demands London Underground drivers in the ASLEF union have voted by a 95.2% majority for strikes to win an improved settlement on pay and conditions, on a 74.5% turnout. Although ASLEF is a minority union on the Tube overall, it represents a slight majority of drivers. The result is significant, and smashes the arbitrary thresholds of the Tories’ anti-union laws. ASLEF’s pay claim overlaps substantially with other unions’ claims, including in its demand for a 32-hour, four-day week. It also includes a sectional claim for a driver-specific...

A briefing for workers, workplaces and union branches. Download as a PDF Full pay for all workers from day one of absence No disciplinary action for following NHS advice in staying away from work Abolish zero-hour contracts and outsourcing All necessary measures to protect workers’ safety Has your boss: guaranteed full pay (not Statutory Sick Pay, SSP) and no disciplinary action for all workers from day one of any absence, including asymptomatic self-isolation? taken necessary precautions to minimise the risk of exposure?
 If not, there are actions that you and your workmates can take. Contact...

On Thursday 12 March, the union will be meeting the Cabinet Office to discuss workers’ rights in the Covid-19 pandemic. We’ll be putting a number of demands to them, including the right for workers to walk off the job if they feel themselves to be at risk of infection, and that people with underlying health conditions are moved away from public-facing work. We’re also demanding that the government ensures the companies to which it outsources various work pay full company sick pay from day one of any sickness, and that any outsourced workers who have to self-isolate are fully paid. If the...