Solidarity 542, 7 April 2020

Work or full pay!

As of 1 April, 950,000 new people had applied for Universal Credit in just two weeks. Usually new applications run at about 100,000 a week. Hundreds of thousands, or millions, of people have lost their jobs because they were on casual contracts, and because they worked for businesses which have laid them off or simply shut down. Many small employers have laid off workers, but also big ones, like universities. Many who are self-employed — really self-employed, or formally self-employed while really being wage-workers — are not able to use the government’s scheme for aid to the self-employed, or...

Empty the jails and detention centres!

The government is planning to temporarily release something like 4,000 prisoners in order to control the spread of Covid-19 in jails. 4,000 is about 5% of the prison population of 83,000. Of those 83,000, at least 60% are in prison for crimes that do not involve “violence against the person” or a sexual offence. The figure of 83,000 is not one necessary for public safety. Other countries get equal or better public safety with lower rates. The Netherlands and Sweden have only 61 prisoners per 100,000 population, while Britain has 139, and the USA 655. Turkey is releasing almost a third of its...

Hunger in Italy

According to the mainstream Italian daily Corriere della Sera (30 March): “There is an increasing risk that a social powder keg will be created in the South [of Italy]. “In Campania, as in Sicily, episodes of night thefts or small assaults in supermarkets are multiplying...” Police have now been stationed outside supermarkets in some areas. In Naples, an exhibition hall has been converted to a food aid centre. On 31 March the city of Palermo set up an online facility to register for food aid, and it was quickly flooded. In Italy’s South, many people have depended on insecure jobs, petty trade...

Bernie Sanders on the pandemic, 4 April 2020

Photo by Mike Henderson on Unsplash Bernie Sanders explained his proposals on the pandemic in an interview with Bill Maher on 4 April 2020. Click here to view Click here for the proposals written out in full

La France Insoumise and Covid-19

After agreeing with the government to "leave the controversies for later", Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the MPs of La France Insoumise have spoken. On a live LCI broadcast on Monday 30 March, the head of LFI opined that "the time has come to ban posted worker contracts, to repatriate posted workers by putting in the papers, or to keep them here and treat them properly", because "in France lorries are still coming in from a series of countries where there is no containment and which can therefore these lorries and be vectors for disseminating the virus". LFI's answer to the virus: foreign workers go...

Two communiques from France

Photo by Fran Boloni on Unsplash We reproduce the Ile-de-France union regions (URIF) communiqué of March 23, 2020; and the declaration issued by the national coordination of strikers of 28 March. Document 1 (23 March) A common position along these lines should be taken at the national level. Cross-union unity shouldn't be dissolved in the state of emergency Communiqué of URIFS CGT, FO, FSU, Solidaires, UNEF, UNL The trade union regional bodies of Ile-de-France (URIF) of the unions CGT, FO, Solidaires, FSU, with [student unons] UNEF and UNL, reject the law declaring a "state of health emergency...

Coronavirus, China and the blame game

Anti-Chinese xenophobia has tainted some responses to the pandemic Amidst the pandemic crisis, we have seen propaganda efforts by states, politicians and press to promote their own image and scapegoat others. The Chinese government and its press and supporters boast that they are leading the world against the virus. Other governments, especially in the UK and US, are deflecting blame for their own shortcomings onto China. The Chinese state’s censorship and brittle authoritarianism do appear to have obstructed good handling of the outbreak, especially in the crucial early stages - for instance...

Socialism and science fiction

Photo by Florencia Viadana on Unsplash The simple connection between socialism and science fiction is that sci-fi imagines alternatives to the status quo. Frequently, this involves implicitly critiquing our present society or projecting possible outcomes of existing social trends. More to the point, sci-fi tends to imagine change at the level of the entire human species, such as by envisaging how humanity will evolve socially through the application of scientific inventions and discoveries. Since sci-fi imagines alternative worlds, it links in complex manners to both utopian and dystopian...

Labour members need democracy to hold Starmer to left policies

Keir Starmer was supported in his leadership bid by many MPs and organisations on the hard-right of the Labour Party. Their support was at least partially based on the idea that he can be pressured to return the Labour Party to New Labour-type neoliberal policies. However, Starmer could not have won the clear, indeed overwhelming, victory he did by getting only right-wing votes. He was undoubtedly supported by many who backed Jeremy Corbyn. He won their support in part by pledging to stick to a lot of the policies that the left won Labour to after 2015. In his leadership campaign he made ten...

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