& Workers’ Liberty

SolidarityFor social ownership of the banks and industry 50p/£1 • No 539 • 18 March 2020 • workersliberty.org Solidarity with those most at risk!

Covid-19 is global, and the centres of wealth have a duty of aid to COVID-19: refugees and the peoples of poorer countries. Pages 6 and 16 Workers’ REQUISITION control Covid-19 emergency plans for safe workplaces and PRIVATE workers’ rights

Centre pages, HOSPITALS plus 4-7 Climate and AND capitalism

Capitalism drives climate change, which drives pandemics like Covid-19 INDUSTRIES Page 3 Workers’ monitoring of NHS capacity-building ≫ Inside ≫Full sick pay or benefits for all Labour Build mutual aid “Progressive alliance” ≫ with Lib-Dems would ≫Labour movement is an “essential service” take Labour backwards See page 5 Pages 10-11 2 Upcoming events at www.workersliberty.org/events

Agenda

Sanders’ socialist his issue of Solidarity is pro- duced and distributed in our Tusual way. At some point, maybe soon, with demonstrations and most meetings cancelled, and the streets and the campuses empty- plan for the pandemic ing, we’ll have to adjust. Then we’ll go over to produc- ing Solidarity as a printable pdf those most vulnerable to the effects that the government be completely varnished truth: “There are other available online. We’ll print a lim- Sanders of this pandemic.” transparent and called for “daily countries around the world who ited run centrally and mail some Sanders laid out what he means information — clear, science-based are doing better than we are,” he out; and the audio and e-reader campaign by the most vulnerable, the people information — from credible scien- said. “We should be learning from versions will be available. To By Eric Lee for whom we must show compas- tific voices.” them.” subscribe to the e-reader version, sion. These include, in his view, If it sounds like he’s making a And when speaking about the email [email protected]. “those in nursing homes and reha- lot of use of the word “science”, pharmaceutical industry, Sanders We’ll continue face-to-face he mainstream media has al- bilitation facilities, those confined there’s a reason for that. In the US, said something no other politician meetings and activities, with due Tready written off Bernie Sand- in immigration detention centres, especially in the Republican party, in America dares to utter. Those precautions, as much as we can. ers and crowned Joe Biden as the those who are currently incarcer- there is considerable resistance to companies, he said, “must be told (Getting iZettle card-readers, Democratic candidate to challenge ated, and all people regardless of taking a scientific approach to an- in no uncertain terms that the med- which enable people to pay for Donald Trump (despite the prima- immigration status.” ything. icines that they manufacture for literature just by tapping a card, ries being far from over). But that These are fighting words in a Sanders has long fought for uni- this crisis will be sold at cost. This avoids the possible infection hasn’t silenced the Vermont sena- country that criminalises immigra- versal health care, but even now, is not the time for profiteering or worry from cash-handling when tor. tion and that practices mass incar- before such a system can be set price gouging.” selling literature.) The working Sanders has long seen himself as ceration (with more people in jail up, he demanded that the “gov- I could go on about his plan to class will still be at work — or more than just a conventional pol- than in China). Among Sanders’ ernment must be clear that in the address those suffering from the at least many core sections, in itician and acts as the voice for a opponents on the right, there is midst of this emergency, that “global economic meltdown,” as essential services and industries movement. This last week, he laid little sympathy for immigrants or everyone in our country — regard- he calls it. But I think in looking — and the left has to be with the out a socialist programme for the prisoners. less of income or where they live — at what Sanders says about the working class. Our activists will pandemic. He was clear in his condemna- must be able to get all of the health coronavirus pandemic, we are take due care of their health, but Sanders began with a recogni- tion of the Trump administration. care they need without cost.” In hearing the voice of an authentic we wouldn’t want to be just shut tion of the severity of the crisis, “Unfortunately, in this time of in- other words, the same core princi- democratic socialist, who draws away, just looking after ourselves saying that “the crisis we face ternational crisis,” he said, “the ples of Medicare for All could be not only upon the practical expe- at home, even if we could be. from coronavirus is on the scale current administration is largely applied right now, in the midst of rience of other countries, but also of a major war, and we must act incompetent, and its incompetence the pandemic crisis. from the moral foundations of e’ll also step up online accordingly. Nobody knows how and recklessness has threatened He listed some very specific pro- the labour movement. It is a pro- discussion and activity. many fatalities we may see, but the lives of many people.” posals, including a guarantee that gramme based on the ideals of WFor information and details, they could equal or surpass the And then he laid out his pro- a vaccine or treatment, when it be- solidarity, compassion and love – check out our website, www. U.S. casualties we saw in World gramme, a socialist programme, comes available, must be delivered words which Sanders is not afraid workersliberty.org. War II.” American casualties in for the coronavirus pandemic. free of charge to all. He called for to use. We’ve been running regular that war exceeded 400,000. He demanded that a national emergency funding for paid family In the age of pandemics, this is online political discussions for Unlike Trump, Sanders started state of emergency be declared and medical leave. He demanded what socialism sounds like. □ a while, using the Zoom plat- with idea of community, of this and that a group of experts be an expansion of community health form, and will now increase being a shared problem. “Now is convened to direct a response to centres across the country. • Eric Lee is the convenor of them drastically, both locally the time for solidarity,” he says, the crisis that is “comprehensive, And in a country whose Pres- “London for Bernie”, writing here and more widely. Check out bit. using a word rarely uttered by compassionate, and based first and ident is fond of boasting how it in a personal capacity. For all Eric’s ly/wl-online, and email awl@ American politicians but familiar foremost on science and fact.” leads the world in everything, columns and other Sanders cover- workersliberty.org for log-in de- to the labour movement. “We must Sanders was also demanding Sanders dared to speak the un- age, see bit.ly/el-bs tails for discussions you want to fight with love and compassion for participate in. We are producing for our ac- tivists a short guide about how to make quick and easy short The feminist issues round “staying home” videos, to expand drastically the range of political videos we already have at workersliberty. school student in every ten has ex- ment figures, one grandparent in ers, nurseries, care homes all take org/video. It already includes a Women’s perienced homelessness in the past five, in the UK, spends at least ten some of the burden of social repro- series of 19 short videos on the year, and many of those children hours a week looking after grand- duction. concepts in Marx’s Capital vol- Fightback and others rely on their schools to children. At the same time older The labour movement must in- ume 1, and six short videos on “In provide meals. people are being warned against sist on public resources being mo- Defence of Bolshevism”. By Katy Dollar We know “holiday hunger” is an sustained contact with children. bilised for socially-provided care, issue with existing school holiday This is because older people are organised under the safest possi- t our day school on class ore and more of us will be ad- closures. Three million children in more vulnerable to complications ble conditions, to avoid this epi- struggle environmentalism vised or forced to stay home A M Britain face health and social issues associated with Covid-19, and demic bearing down with a double dayschool (Saturday 14 March) for whole periods, and to stay in the holidays because of lack of small children will often show rel- weight on women and children. □ we set aside a session for discus- home longer each week even when access to free school meals. atively few symptoms and spend sion on how to win on sick pay, we are going to work. Those children most at risk of a lot of time touching and licking protecting cleaners, safeguarding We must remember that for hunger during the holidays may things and people. zero hours workers. many women and children, stay- also suffer from social isolation, Given the underlying sexist di- We’d already made plans to ing home comes with additional loneliness, and inactivity. vision of care and other domestic safeguard (as far as possible) dangers of its own. If schools are to close, or partially work, women are more likely to the workers in our office, to en- In the 2015 Ebola outbreak when close, which may be necessary to have to stay at home to care for able those who are self-isolating Sierra Leone shut schools, girls re- stop the spread of infection, we children than their male partners. (as one already is) to work from moved from school took on care must ensure that we do all we can They are also far more likely to be home, and to keep the office work and were also at heightened to mitigate against the risks that single parents. staffed even if some are self-iso- risk of sexual abuse and teen preg- brings to parents and their chil- As women have entered the lating. nancy. Activist reports and police dren. The government must fund waged workforce en masse in the And we’re also taking some statistics both report a spike in do- local councils to provide food, so- 20th and 21st centuries, we are still responsibility for seeing that our mestic violence in Wuhan as a re- cial care, domestic violence and expected to do a disproportionate older comrades, and those in sult of strict curfews. homelessness support. amount of care and domestic work. poor health, are looked after. □ The New York public school It seems very likely that school Unpaid domestic work is sup- system has announced school clo- closures will happen soon, as they plemented by paid care work, paid Women’s Fightback 24, March sures but tried to delay as long have in other countries. for either by the state or families 2020. See workersliberty.org as possible because of associated Already, according to govern- themselves. Schools, childmind- risks, as one New York City public Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty 3 A year of climate strikes

ers: young Lib Dem members and even Tory and could make a serious difference, but it mental trade union action. But this crisis isn’t sympathizers engaged in the need to “do is through a conscious and radical organised going away, and the struggle is only becom- something” about environmental issues, al- labour movement that we will make genuine ing sharper. Climate though often with a real lack of politics. Se- change. Last month Drax in Selby announced sev- rious effort had to be put in by those most eral hundred job losses due to the phasing By Abel Harvie-Clark politically motivated to convince fellow LIMITS out of coal burning. The labour movement school strikers that they should be calling for If we continue to rely on an inherently has a collective responsibility to organise systemic, not individual, climate solutions. ecocidal capitalist state, do we not limit our- for a zero carbon society, and also to protect t is nearly exactly a year since the first We should recognise the perhaps over- itself from what is already becoming an ex- Global School Strike for Climate took place, selves to a number of “green policies”, es- I looked achievement of UKSCN through sentially on the same spectrum as the “green tremely unjust transition. and whilst the participation and coverage of hours upon hours of online organisation and The radicalism of the climate strikers the movement may appear to have peaked sprinklings” on the recent Tory budget? education to create an ever more coherent We have to think harder about this. That should also inspire a rejuvenated movement, for now, the resolve and commitment of movement that can call for system change one that stands up to bureaucracy and au- climate strikers across the globe remains is not to say the answers do not exist. The and social justice, that takes a strong stance 1970s saw green bans in Australia as well thoritarianism, and opens more spaces which strong. on against racism, sexism, and transphobia were once abandoned: for living and work- Last year I was a climate striker during my as the Lucas Plan, where organised work- (including taking action within the organi- ers posed serious industrial alternatives to ing together outside the capitalist model, for last year of sixth form and I continue to be sation when issues arise), and opposes anti creating art and throwing parties. involved in the UKSCN branch in Newcastle, environmental destruction and war. We trade union legislation, as well as dedicating should be inspired by these moments, whilst It is impossible to ignore the fact that the organising the climate strikes and trying to time and energy to ensure the organisation climate strike movement is generating nei- build links with the local labour movement. also recognise the new demands of the 21st is transparent and democratic, limiting hier- century. Many young people undoubtedly ther the excitement or attention that it was While far from the strongest in terms of archies amongst activists. This is important nearly a year ago. But that is certainly not numbers, the UK strike movement particu- oppose capitalism and its destruction of the for the organisation, and sets a standard for environment, but are yet to be convinced of a reason to give up on it. Whilst it may no larly has taken on a strong political identity, other climate movements to rise to. longer be so trendy, there is a strong core of at least at its core. Those involved in the early the need for working-class action to oppose The understanding of the problems we face it. By working in unorganised industries and activists who are committed to carrying it on. stages of UKSCN were proudly anti-capital- is, I think, pretty good. What is more diffi- It is crucial that the importance of an or- ist, anti-racist, refused to work with the po- developing new forms of democratic partic- cult is forging a path forward. This is where ipation, we can work towards changing this. ganised labour movement is not lost on this lice, and saw workers’ control as the key to the intersection of class struggle and en- group of activists; not only do they need each combining climate and social justice. The UK climate strike movement has so far vironmentalism is key. Sure, overarching failed to inspire a serious upturn in environ- other, but together they will make a mighty The movement also included many oth- government legislation is seriously needed force for change. □ Class struggle environmentalism ideas and planning to halt climate cussions for a good while, I found change being so impacted by a it exciting. Many people there were Climate pandemic which itself has been much newer to class-struggle pol- driven by the climate change we itics, to environmentalism, or to are seeking to stop. both. Those whom I talked to after- By Misha Zubrowski We heard from socialist environ- wards found it very positive, and mentalists active in many different took a lot away from it. lass Struggle Environmen- workplaces and trade unions. We Articles in future issues of Soli- talism”, a day of workshops, discussed how and why to organ- darity will follow up on some of the “Cdiscussions, and debates hosted ise environmentally at work, next discussions, as will our planning by Workers’ Liberty on 14 March, steps for climate strikes, COP26, and campaigning. Audio from the drew around 50 people — social- the fossil fuel industry, workshop “Covid-19: Fight for ists, environmentalists, trade un- The more theoretical end of the Workers’ Control” is already on- ionists, more. discussions ranged from the basics line, and most of the rest will be Of course the Covid-19 pan- of Marxist ecology and socialist up by the time this paper goes to demic made the event smaller strategy to stop climate change press. □ than it would have been other- to debating whether, how, and wise. Nonetheless, we took serious how much we need to reduce an- • Visit workersliberty.org/audio Ideas for Freedom 2020 health precautions at the event, imal-product consumption and to browse and subscribe to Work- ur Workers’ Liberty summer school, Ideas for Freedom, has been and we had many fascinating and pursue afforestation. ers’ Liberty’s audio. Audio from scheduled for 20-21 June. Since the Covid-19 epidemic looks like vital discussions. As someone who has been im- the event at workersliberty.org/ Obeing still in full swing at that date, we’re now discussing whether and The irony was not lost of a day mersed in these debates and dis- audio#forums how we can reschedule it. to arm the movement with the Speakers already signed up for 20-21 June include the list below. Of course, some may be unavailable at a rescheduled date, while others who were unavailable for 20-21 June may be brought in by the new date. Earlybird tickets bought for the 20-21 June will be valid for any re- scheduled date, and of course we’ll refund if you’re not able to come on Looking ahead to November: COP26 the rescheduled date. • Phillip Blond and Elaine Jones, to debate socialism vs Blond’s “Red A lot of trade unions had been tion” and pushing for better ones. Toryism”; organising for a demonstration to What demands are important? • Gregor Gall on anti-union laws Climate put pressure on the conference. Bring the energy companies into • Simon Pirani on climate change and fossil fuels Work on that may now be sus- public ownership? End airport ex- • Keith Kahn-Harris on antisemitism By Cathy Nugent pended. Nearer the time we need pansion? Abolish anti-union laws? • Brendan McGeever on antisemitism and the Russian Revolution to get it restarted, and get trade un- Most important will be to find • Ruth Cashman on “why a revolutionary party?” ions in Glasgow and Scotland are ways to organise political discus- • Becky Crocker on rank-and-file organisavtion in the unions ater in this year, assuming the involved, including on the level of sion and education in the run up to • Cath Fletcher on the Renaissance LUK has recovered enough from leafleting big workplaces in Glas- and whilst the event is happening. • Alison Brown and Stuart Jordan on socialists and mental health Covid-19, environmental activists gow and elsewhere to draw atten- That should be geared towards get- • Pete Cashman on organising industrial action will be active around 2020’s UN tion to the issues. ting labour movement and climate • Liam McNulty on the strange history of Sinn Fein climate change conference, COP26, Socialists need to help the cam- activists to come together. • Josh Robinson on Theodor Adorno in Glasgow (9-20 November). paigning be bolder and more con- If you would like to help us with • Patrick Murphy on “why the working class?” Probably very little radical or frontational. We need to develop planning for our socialist interven- • Edward Maltby on Michel Lequenne and what’s happened with adequate policy will be decided at a class-struggle stream within the tions, get in touch. □ “Orthodox Trotskyism” since 1989-91 that conference, even though the environmental movement. That • Mark Osborn on Solidarnosc world faces a pandemic and con- means critiquing trade-union pol- • Sean Matgamna on the lessons of the revolutionary left in 1981-4 tinuing climate crisis. icies on such things as “just transi- • Martin Thomas on automation and the working class 4 Covid-19 and capitalism is that socialist politics are different from crude “negativism”, from writing a minus wherever the bourgeoisie writes a plus, COVID-19 from going for whatever is most contrary to capitalist policy, and from crude “conspir- By Angela Driver acy” theories. We want the bourgeois effort to limit the virus’s impact to work. We op- espite many predictions over the years pose the bourgeoisie within that effort, as by the World Health Organisation that generally we oppose the bourgeoisie within Da new pandemic was fairly certain, fairly capitalist development rather than opposing soon, capitalist governments and businesses capitalist development outright. failed to do the research and development in As our lives depend on it, the population advance that could have provided us with should have access to the underlying evi- medical capacity to limit its effect, or envi- dence. That has not been shared by the gov- ronmental measures which might even have ernment so far. prevented the outbreak. And however well informed or astute The Covid 19 pandemic has laid bare the the scientists are, there remain many things lie that the welfare of the population can be about this virus that are not yet known. Prob- “left to the market”. Only now, very late, ably even the best-calculated expert response have the ruling classes recognised that the will turn out to include errors of some scale destruction mandates coordinated, collec- or another. tive, market-flouting action, and this action The much-needed funding for research is being taken by capitalist governments in into medical responses has now become cially where trade unions have been pro-ac- their own capitalist way. available, and work has gone on to try to capitalism as they seek to repurpose hotels tive. In China the initial response to the out- find a vaccine. This work has been an inter- and car factories to produce the things that These include the moves to shore up the break was to suppress information. For six national collaboration partly funded by Cepi are necessary for health provision now. NHS and measures such as allowing the weeks no meaningful action was taken to ad- (the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness In- In a socialist society there would be no self-employed and those on zero-hours dress or contain the emerging zoonotic infec- novations, set up in 2016). need for negotiation and buyouts. The deci- contract have the tiny sum of £95 per week tion. The state then flipped from punishing sion to adjust the focus of production would statutory sick pay immediately rather than the whistleblowers to police-state measures RAPID DEVELOPMENT be a routine thing. There would not be the having to wait until the end of the first week to try to contain the outbreak. Within just 42 days vaccines have emerged imminent threat of financial meltdown. Pro- of illness. To a large degree the police-state measures which are ready to be tested from several duction could shift to increase provision Yet the fate of some of the most vulnerable, have succeeded in limiting the spread within companies in different countries. At the same of health-related products for the duration including the homeless and those in prison, China (56.2 cases per million as of 16 March, time previous knowledge has been put to use of the crisis, and change again or close un- has largely not been discussed. The welfare compared to Italy’s 409.3 cases per million and tests are underway to explore whether needed units afterwards. of prisoners in Uyghur detention camps according to worldometers.org). But we still other medications can help mitigate the ef- Without the limits we have on education in China and in Iran’s jails is largely un- can’t trust China’s figures, and the risk still fects of the virus for those who already have and career opportunities in today’s society, known. The conditions of refugees in Idlib, remains of a second wave in China when the it, including treatments that have been de- probably more people would have knowl- in Turkey, and in Greece meant that chil- police-state clampdown is relaxed or frays. veloped for ebola HIV, flu and malaria (Mac- edge and skills in multiple areas of interest dren were dying even before the outbreak. In any case, the infection had already kenzie, NS, 14.3.20). including healthcare related sciences. Quite Measures to manage Covid 19 are likely to begun to spread to other countries. One by This rapid development demonstrates feasibly, many workers in other industries be near-non-existent. one, most of the worst-affected states have how much can be achieved in a short time would have some basic knowledge of health Struggling businesses all over the world been imposing “lock downs” once the infec- when the funding is available. Faced with a care so that they could be deployed in a cri- are swiftly minimising losses by sacking tion rates exceed certain levels. Iran has not threat which hits the whole of capitalist soci- sis. workers despite emergency measures by imposed measures in the same way, and its ety, including the ruling class, capitalism is Without worrying about rents and over- international banks. Without consumers figures do not appear to be accurate. able to break down barriers to use technol- heads places like theatres, pubs, cinemas, it make no “business sense” to continue to The US has not been able to obtain accu- ogies, allow international collaboration, and places where people gather, could tempo- employ people. The efforts of bosses to make rate figures due to multiple difficulties about free up streams of funding almost instantly. rarily shut without going bust. There is no workers pay, as far as possible, for the wors- its organisation of testing. There appears to Many things that we are often told are not reason why people should not live rationally ening and unfolding economic crisis, risk be a strange lack of cases in Africa, not fully possible become possible when the whole and be able to do what is needed in society at turning the crisis into a snowballing slump. explained (Vaughan, New Scientist, 14.3.20). system, including its profits, is threatened. a given point in time without being limited In many countries, we don’t know whether There has been some level of international by the need to turn a profit. low counts reflect low impact of the virus, collaboration. But the competition between SOCIALIST SOCIETY The workers, the majority of the global or low capacity to conduct tests and collect nation-states remains fierce and this has If we lived in a socialist society, we might population, do not yet rule ourselves. We figures. sometimes overridden wider capitalist in- have been able to prevent this outbreak, or have a small rich ruling class that makes The UK government to date appears to terests. As usual the working class pay the at least contain it quickly and have medica- much of the necessary organisation chaotic be trying a different strategy, or at least price. tion ready to mitigate the effects. Without and is likely to result in huge numbers of un- differently-timed strategy, from the “sud- Some restrictions to movement are nec- the dominance of profit, research that began necessary deaths soon. But the fact that we den-lockdown” tactics of other states. This essary to reduce the spread of the virus but with SARS and MERS could have continued. are the producers of all goods and profits, different strategy has been criticised both Donald Trump’s abrupt announcement ban- Protecting our ecosystem and having a better gives us power and we need to organise to by right-wingers like Tory politician Jeremy ning flights from Europe is of dubious value understanding of zoonotic illnesses would use it. Hunt, and by some on the left, for being not and has fanned the flames of xenophobia. reduce the risk of outbreaks. The need for many people to self-isolate strict enough. Italy has been the second worst affected If a widespread outbreak occurred in a so- will result in multiple hardships and poverty We should not trust the British government country so far. Its health system is buckling cialist society there would still be the need for many. Having decent benefits and social to act in our interests, but neither should we under the strain. Yet when the Italian gov- for centralised and authoritative responses provision to sustain the welfare of the most trust the model adopted by equally right- ernment asked for aid from EU neighbours, both at a regional and global level. But those vulnerable in our society will save lives and wing governments elsewhere like Austria’s. the response from European Central Bank at the centre would be accountable to the improve conditions.. The UK’s stance seems to have been devised president Christine Lagarde implied she general population, and do their jobs with- This is a global problem and must be tack- not so much by the Tory politicians, but by wouldn’t act to keep Italy in the eurozone. out special privileges. The action would be led internationally. Huge aid programs are scientists, notably Chief Medical Officer That resulted in market crashes, and gave more effective as they would be more likely needed to build and sustain healthcare pro- Chris Whitty, who as far as we can tell is well succour to the far right. to be trusted. vision in every country in the world. This qualified to advise (for more see Neville, FT Rather than giving aid the German gov- With background research, and an already is needed to allow the global population to 14.3.20). ernment banned the export of face masks so functioning network of research centres and recover. More investment in research and We on Solidarity feel well-qualified to raise a German company supplying Italy could no international comprehensive public health protection of the environment to prevent and issues about the need for full sick pay for all, longer do so. For its own reasons the Chinese provision, cases would be more accurately control future outbreaks is needed. about the need for government action to ride government delivered 31 tonnes of equip- tracked as they emerged, and this data used The agency to make these things happen is roughshod over profit considerations to req- ment to Italy including ventilators (Hall et to inform the development of effective meth- not the capitalist governments, who by their uisition extra NHS and medical-production al, FT, 14.3.20). ods of managing the pandemic. nature are driven by the demands of profit. capacity, and so on, but not to second-guess In the UK it seems the government has Without a system relying on market rules, Only the organised international working calculated that concessions are wise to avoid production can be planned and altered ac- class can build a society in tune with the the medical experts. □ A fundamental idea for us, as Marxists, civil unrest. The ruling class has thrown cording to need. The UK government is global needs of humanity. some crumbs down from their table, espe- showing that a little of this is possible under Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty 5 Covid-19: override private profit! Fight for workers’ control! tors, determined by the warping of society through private profit. Ecological disruption from climate change Editorial has increased the risk of new viruses crossing species barriers (which often means viruses which have minor or no effects in one species n this epidemic, Workers’ Liberty fights for become killers when they cross to another). Ithe labour movement to make itself an es- Development of vaccines and treatments sential service. from viruses, promoted in spurts at the The labour movement, as yet, lacks the ca- height of previous crises (AIDS, SARS, and pacity to take over society and reshape it so so on), has been allowed to languish for lack as better to minimise and control epidemics. of funds when the crisis passes and research Neither we as Workers’ Liberty, nor the la- no longer promises short-term profits. bour movement generally, has the depth of The NHS and other health services have expertise to qualify us to second-guess the been cut back to minimise the tax burden established bourgeois public health experts. on the well-off, so that they normally and But the labour movement does have, and usually, outside of crises, run at nearly full must develop more, expertise in pushing stretch. They haven’t been planned to run back and overriding the barriers to social with ample spare capacity and reserves in well-being raised by the interests of private normal times, so that they can adapt quickly profit. in crises. For years it’s been known that even On 17 March the Tory government an- an unusually severe normal seasonal flu bout nounced £330 billion in aid to business, to George Newman @gewman would overstretch the NHS, keep profits flowing. It’s the job of the labour and yet governments have movement to keep wages and working-class continued to starve it of funds. active in setting up “mutual aid” groups to high-stakes tests, and Ofsted inspections, incomes flowing. Now Covid-19 tests and protective equip- offer help to the elderly, the sick, the disa- and school league tables, should all be can- The labour movement does have, and ment are in short supply, and the NHS is bled, and the housebound in their areas. The celled. And now. Don’t leave it later and en- must develop more, expertise in speaking up short of facilities to remedy the shortage Labour Party nationally should promote courage schools which partially close down for the most exploited, the most oppressed, quickly enough. those groups, but also demand a huge allo- to send home younger students rather than and the least generally-listened-to. At the time of the 1891-2 famine and chol- cation of funds from central government to older exam-class students better able to cope. It does have, and must develop more, ex- era epidemic in Russia (the cholera killed local authorities so that they can provide for Even the bosses’ federation, the CBI, has pertise in working for the general change in nearly 270,000 in the Tsarist Empire), the the homeless, those at threat from domestic long argued that GCSEs do more harm society which will make human welfare and Russian socialist movement was still an af- violence, and others, plus representation of than good, and should be abolished. There a sustainable balance with nature the guid- fair of small groups. the mutual-aid groups in the working-out of are plenty of workarounds to give students ing principles of development, rather than Many socialists simply threw themselves local emergency plans. “CV” options for universities or jobs. private profit. into what the relief efforts there were, mainly The labour movement should demand the We are qualified, too, to argue that the The labour movement has essential jobs to organised by local authorities led by the lib- cancellation of rent bills and evictions during “each country for itself” trend of policy in do on all three fronts. eral elements of the nobility. Others argued the epidemic. the epidemic is inhuman and short-sighted. The British government is appealing to socialists must also make the arguments to In a number of workplaces, alert trade-un- Britain has problems with the NHS being industries to convert to producing medical prepare the people after the epidemic to win ion activity has won agreement that ze- unprepared. Imagine how much greater supplies like ventilators, and to hotels and a democratic society. ro-hours and agency workers, as well as the problems are with the refugees in Syria, similar to convert to housing extra NHS And in fact it was in the years immediately core employees, will get full sick pay and Turkey, and Greece, and the populations of premises, offering them good money. after the famine that the Russian Marxist not have Covid-19 time off work counted many poorer countries, and how difficult it The labour movement must press for all movement first became a mass force. those facilities, and the whole pharmaceuti- against sickness absence entitlements. It has will be to delay and mitigate Covid-19 when cal and medical-supplies industry, to be req- won better conditions, sick pay, and proper it starts to sweep through those populations. SPANISH uisitioned, as even bourgeois governments protective kit, for cleaners, whose work is The labour movement must demand It was after another great pandemic, the requisition facilities in time of war, overrid- now shown to be pivotal, and yet are often huge and rapid international aid, not the so-called “Spanish flu” of 1918, that the ing individual profit calculations. contracted-out and underpaid. foot-dragging seen for so long with the AIDS world’s first-ever NHS was developed — by To stop the economic blow from the epi- In many workplaces those things have epidemic in Africa. our comrades, the Bolsheviks, in Russia, as demic (inevitable under any social system) not been won yet. Health and safety legisla- We are critical of unions which have par- they began to win the civil war there against snowballing into a typically capitalist eco- tion which entitles workers to withdraw to tially shut themselves down for the duration, counter-revolutionary armies backed by Brit- nomic crisis, we demand the requisitioning a “place of safety” when they see “serious suspending all meetings and pickets and ain and other powers. of high finance, under democratic control. and imminent danger” — for example, from even educational courses. The socialists could do and say little Bourgeois governments in war do their co-workers being forced to come to work What can be done online, should be done about the “Spanish flu” at the time. Even requisitioning bureaucratically, with ten- even when infected, because of lack of sick online. Some workers have improved their the best-qualified medical experts knew lit- der care for profits and without democratic pay — can be a lever here. Our centre pages positions enough to have the option of work- tle, and the facts of the flu were blurred by a monitoring. The result, in Britain after World this week explain how. ing from home, and to have good and hy- welter of other epidemics (cholera, typhus). War One for example, was what even a Tory gienic homes to retreat to: good for them! The “November revolution” of 1918 in politician, Stanley Baldwin, called “a lot of WORKPLACE But large core sections of the working class Germany happened at the height of the death hard-faced men who look as if they had done In every workplace, even if no union is or- will have to be at work throughout this epi- toll from the “Spanish flu” there, yet the po- very well out of the war”. ganised or recognised there, workers have demic, with only temporary and individual litical histories of the time say little about it. And the British government in 1918 (like the right to elect a health and safety rep and absences. The labour movement should be But in India, it seems fairly sure, mass other warring governments) suppressed in- have management listen to that rep. Unions at their side, and not identify only with bet- anger against the British colonial adminis- formation about the so-called “Spanish Flu” should support and provide training and ter-off workers who can retreat to safe homes tration’s inhuman indifference to the “Span- epidemic then (which killed more people information for the epidemic to new health and rely on other workers (water, electricity, ish flu — which killed 18 million there, more than World War 1 itself) for fear of dampen- and safety reps. food-supply, repairs, healthcare) to continue than anywhere else — triggered the mass ing war morale. We do not consider ourselves qualified to working to supply them. eruption of the movement which would The labour movement needs to demand second-guess the public health authorities There are reasonable arguments for saying eventually win Indian independence in 1947. the setting up of emergency commissions, on on when to close schools. There are argu- that big, tight-packed gatherings are to be Indian independence was won under which unions are represented and through ments even after a general closure for keep- avoided in the epidemic. Smaller meetings, bourgeois nationalist leadership, and left the which they are informed, with the right to ing schools partially open -— at least for protests, and picket lines can however be mass of the people still exploited. The Bol- speak out independently when they need to, students dependent on free school meals, or organised with adequate precautions within sheviks were eventually defeated by the in- at every level: globally, nationally, in every from homeless households, or whose parents them of social distancing and hygiene. The ternal counter-revolution led by Stalin. local authority, in every company and work- are essential-service workers. labour movement should remain “on duty”, This time we must win for good. The po- place. Fight for workers’ control! We are qualified to say that this year’s as an essential service. litical battle starts now, in the midst of the Several local Labour Parties have been A-levels and GCSEs, and primary-school Behind this epidemic stand two great fac- pandemic. □ 6 More online at www.workersliberty.org Don’t let Tories push through anti-migrant law

By Ben Towse litany of exceptions and problems with the system means that many he Conservative government’s are at risk of falling through the new Immigration Bill would cracks. And if they don’t secure Tgrant sweeping “Henry VIII” pow- Settled Status in time, people who ers to the Home Secretary to make may have lived in the UK for years up immigration rules with limited or decades will become “illegal” oversight or accountability to Par- overnight. liament. Since that report, the new Bill The Johnson government’s new to implement the government’s post-Brexit border policy ends free policy has now had its first read- movement with the EU. It extends ing in Parliament. On top of to EU migrants the brutal anti-mi- everything we already knew about grant regime that is already im- the Conservatives’ xenophobic, an- posed on non-EU migrants, while ti-worker plans, the Bill’s publica- also changing that regime in new tion reveals an added danger. ways. Rather than setting out these It classes migrants earning less proposed immigration rules in de- than a certain salary threshold as tail, it delegates sweeping powers “unskilled” and offers no general to the Home Secretary who will be route for them to enter the coun- able to make up immigration rules try. They will be allowed in only as she sees fit, through “secondary as family dependents of “skilled” legislation”. We don’t yet know when the sec- Nevertheless, it’s vital that we So at 12 noon on Saturday 21 migrants; or on precarious, hy- Secondary legislation is sub- ond reading – the first opportunity make as much of a stand as we March (the time of the national an- per-exploitative, short-term in- ject to much less scrutiny by Par- for MPs to debate the Bill – will can now. Labour, the unions and ti-racism demonstration that was dustry-specific “guest worker” liament than is required to pass come. The Tories have a large ma- our movement need to voice our cancelled due to Covid-19), LCFM schemes. Otherwise they will be primary legislation, including jority, so it will be difficult to stop unequivocal opposition to the Bill is organising an online group call shut out entirely, pushing more less debate and no opportunity to them signing this blank cheque and the Tories’ policy, and pos- with MP Nadia Whittome. This people towards dangerous routes, amend. By reducing parliamentary to themselves. And the Covid-19 itively argue for the alternative will be an opportunity for sup- putting them at the mercy of un- scrutiny over immigration rules, crisis makes it harder to organise overwhelmingly backed by La- porters to get a briefing on the Bill scrupulous bosses and smugglers. such “Henry VIII” provisions also protests and other public actions bour conference last year: to de- and discuss ideas for the campaign EU migrants already in the UK effectively reduce the window that might force MPs’ hands: the fend and extend free movement against it. are eligible to apply for Settled in which outside pressure from Labour Campaign for Free Move- and migrants’ rights. Even if the See labourfreemovement.org Status. Those successful will avoid campaigners, protesters, strikers ment has already had to postpone Bill passes now, putting down a and social media for details to join □ being subject to this regime. But a etc could hope to influence deci- indefinitely the planned 25 April marker now will help us build a the call, and please get involved. sion-makers. day of protest against the Bill. movement to reverse it later. Covid-19 only strengthens the case to welcome refugees By Mohan Sen — the regional epicentre of the displaced a million new people in The Turkish government is dispersed by the refugees being outbreak, at 14,000 confirmed cases north-west Syria, with about half pushing Syrian refugees towards let into the country of their choice, ight-wing governments and and 700 deaths. The World Health the population now in camps. The and into Greece in an attempt to welcomed into the networks of so- movements are using the C-19 Organisation assesses Syria’s risk surge of new arrivals means it is extract financial concessions from ciety, and given full, equal access Rcrisis to demand refugees from as “very high”. now common for multiple families the EU. While justly denouncing to healthcare and services. the Middle East and elsewhere are Syria’s healthcare system has to share tents. the Greek government for its treat- Equally importantly, this is the kept or driven out of Europe. been devastated by years of civil In addition to other problems ment of migrants, it too is treating only course of action that can avoid In fact the crisis only strengthens war. But it is the refugee camps on and shortages, in some camps there the Syrians appallingly — includ- or minimise incredible suffering to the case they must be let in, wel- Syria’s borders that face the grav- is literally no running water. ing, almost unbelievably, denying among people who have already comed and integrated. est danger. There are likely to be many more them access to healthcare. suffered horrendously. A Syrian The Syrian government says the There are as yet no reports of Syrian refugees soon. In refugee Europe is the world epicentre of life is not worth less than a British country has no confirmed C-19 cases in the camps. If – when – the camps in Europe, for instance on C-19, not the Middle East. In any or Greek or German life. cases, but the Syrian Observatory virus does reach there, it will most the Greek island of Lesbos — case, the infection of desperate, So socialists and labour move- for Human Rights reports out- likely spread like wildfire, in con- “home” to 20,000 Syrians — the densely-packed refugee camps will ment activists must use this crisis breaks in several provinces. It says ditions that could almost have been situation is better but still dire, increase the chance of a more rapid to argue to open Europe’s borders the regime has issued a gag order designed for rapid spread. and highly conducive to the mass spread of the disease in the sur- and welcome migrants. to stop medical personnel discuss- If C-19 cannot be contained spread of the virus. rounding countries, and further. We must argue for urgent, huge ing the issue. in rich countries with relatively On Lesbos, last week, far-right Demonstrating again the absurdity aid from the governments of rich Meanwhile Syria is one of very solid healthcare and public ser- activists from across Europe joined of nationalism, the virus does not countries to poorer countries to en- few countries in the region not to vices, imagine what is likely in their Greek comrades to carry out respect borders and fences. able them to rapidly build up their have stopped air travel with Iran the camps. Just since December, attacks on aid workers and burn The safest course of action for healthcare capacity and public ser- the Syrian-Russian war drive has down a migrant shelter. everyone is for the camps to be vices. □ Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty 7 Winning safer workplaces By Gerry Bates Transport for London has agreed that as a way of increasing social distancing and to be fully consulted about management workers for its cleaning contractor will get reducing risk of infection. plans, including plans for deep-cleaning of arly on in the Covid-19 crisis, the public full sick pay for Covid-19 absences, and sim- “Nobody knew that this policy existed- “hot-desking” areas. (Unison in some coun- service union Unison in Lambeth Council ilar concessions have been won by contract- neither senior managers nor workers — and cils has proposed a straightforward end to Ewon assurances that anyone working on its ed-out staff at the government department the next step is to insist that the Trust ad- “hot-desking” during the epidemic). premises, including outsourced workers and BEIS and workers for the big cleaning con- vertises it widely as a basic infection con- Science teachers have raised the need for contractors, would be given full paid leave tractor ISS. trol measure. They sent out an email today good science education about viruses, in- so that they could comply with the public A worker in an NHS mental health trust but most of the workers affected are not on fections, and their risks. Schools could be a health advice. tells us that after some days of agitation in email. channel to counteract the flood of conspiracy Workers’ absences on Covid-19 related his workplace about sick pay for “bank” “I will also propose we ask the Trust to en- theories and quack remedies on social media. leave would not count against sickness mon- (casual) and subcontracted staff, he found a sure that organisations that we share prem- Islington branch of the National Educa- itoring policies, and the union won the right policy agreed in November 2019 which says ises with have similar policies in place. tion Union says: “We suggest than members to a break every hour for handwashing for that all “bank” staff with shifts booked in ad- “In my break I spoke to workers in the discuss with their Headteacher how during all frontline staff. vance and anyone working for a subcontrac- local Sainsburys. Got a very good response. a period of school closure staff could work If these guarantees can be won from Lam- tor gets two weeks leave on full pay. Gave them the Workers’ Liberty Covid-19 for a limited opening to ensure that we can beth council, a right-wing Labour council “The effort to get this information in- web address...” look after the children of... NHS staff, food strapped for cash after ten years of central volved talking to about 100 workers across Workers in schools have generally not and distribution workers, police, prison and government cuts, then they can be won from the Trust and allowed some useful conversa- supported the call by some left-wingers for fire brigade staff and those who are work- other employers. tions about trade unionism, workers rights, an early and complete shutdown of schools ing to produce medical equipment, includ- The major outstanding issue in Lambeth is including our rights to walk off the job, and (though they recognise that closures will ing hopefully industries being re purposed paid leave for workers who may have to stay socialism. come soon). Instead they have focused on to produce ventilators… [and] ensure that home to look after children if the schools are “I have collated a list of further demands sick pay and absence policies as in other children on free school meals or otherwise in closed. from these conversations, including asking workplaces. food poverty can eat nutritious meals... [and] the trust to negotiate free parking for all staff Additional demands have included calls support other children in need”. □ Make the Labour Party speak out! Workers’ plan for the Tube By Rhodri Evans France’s suspension of bills is, however, By a London Underground worker health and safety reps. only for businesses, not for households. La- a. Allow vulnerable staff to stay away from n 17 March, Labour leader Jeremy bour should simply be demanding that rent, ube union RMT has made the demands the workplace without loss of pay. Corbyn presented a list of demands to mortgage, and utilities payments are can- below to London Underground. b. Allow those living with/caring for vul- Othe Government: celled for the duration of the epidemic. TThe Tubeworker bulletin supported by nerable people to stay away from the work- • extend sick pay to all workers; Ireland has introduced a £182-per-week Workers’ Liberty is demanding, in addition, place without loss of pay. • increase sick pay; (€203) fallback payment, easily and quickly “a monitoring committee, including repre- 4. Immediate action needed on cleaning • introduce rent and mortgage payment claimed, for all workers and self-employed sentatives of passenger groups and trade a. TFL must immediately guarantee full deferment options; people losing income and not covered by unions, to sit in permanent session during pay to all cleaners who have to take sick • ban coronavirus evictions; sick pay. this crisis to scrutinise information and rec- leave or self-isolate. • remove the requirement to present for Sweden has guaranteed laid-off workers ommend necessary actions”. b. Increase the number of cleaners avail- Universal Credit and reduce the waiting 90% of their income. New Zealand has intro- Tubeworker argues that this “is particularly able. time; duced a fallback payment of £284 per week important, as it allows us to keep up with a c. Provide all cleaners with appropriate • support councils working with food ($585), though channelled not directly to rapidly-changing situation and to assert the PPE and equipment. banks. workers but via employers who can show a right of working people — workers and pas- d. Give immediate training to all cleaners Those leave a lot unsaid, though, and the 30%-plus decline in income. sengers — to scrutinise and drive the policies in how to make work areas exposed to Covid Labour leadership has made no effort to As well as demanding full sick pay for all that directly affect us”. 19 safe while protecting their own health and publicise the demands. A short video put (including agency and zero-hours workers), On 17 March Transport for London com- safety. out on social media by the Labour Party on Labour should be demanding a much bigger mitted to paying full pay for any Tube e. Bring cleaners in-house now the same day, 17 March, did no more than and quicker-delivered fallback payment than cleaner who self-isolates, rather than just 5. Urgently discuss with the trade unions explain that the epidemic makes the case for Statutory Sick Pay (£94.25 a week) or Uni- Statutory Sick Pay. Union pressure was the how to implement a managed emergency “collective public action”. versal Credit (five weeks’ delay) for workers major factor in securing this concession. The service that can be maintained while pro- All the Labour leader candidates have who will fall through the net (self-employed, full list of RMT demands is: jected isolations and sickness absence con- been fairly quiet, too, though Rebecca Long or workers whose bosses go bust). 1. Immediately ensure that all staff in all tinues. Bailey has been a bit more vocal, and Richard Labour has shut down all meetings, in- LUL [London Underground Limited] work- a. Suspend Night Tube Burgon has called for “taskforces, involving stead of replacing them by smaller meetings places have ready access to hand sanitiser, b. Only require members to run a service trade unions, to reorientate non-essential in- in which social distancing can be respected, gloves and liquid soap. This must be avail- to meet the greatly reduced needs of essen- dustries into producing medical equipment and online meetings. Many local Labour Par- able to LUL staff and all contracted staff. tial users. where possible”. ties have initiated local “mutual aid” groups, Hand sanitiser must also be made as widely 6. Reduce risk at stations Coventry South Labour MP Zarah Sultana but the Labour leadership is doing nothing available as possible to passengers. a. Review all congestion plans to prevent (pictured above) has pointed out: to promote them. 2. An immediate function by function the build-up of crowds in enclosed passages “In last 24 hours: The labour movement needs to act as an review of arrangements for cleaning and b. Turn off multi-user touch screen devices “Denmark: Protects wages and prevents “essential service” in this crisis, fighting to responding to trains/workplaces where and leave WAGs [Wide Aisle Gates] open. layoffs with a trade union and employer break through the barriers to effective action someone has been symptomatic. This must c. Suspend SATS [station staff on platforms deal. made by the rules of private profit, fighting include immediate isolation of that work- announcing and helping to despatch trains] for workers’ control, fighting for the worst- d. Allow staff to work behind glass as far “Spain: Nationalises private hospitals. □ place with all staff removed to a safe place. □ “France: Suspends rent, gas, electricity and off. 3. Immediate risk assessment of all staff by as possible. water bills”. line management in conjunction with Tier 1 8 More online at www.workersliberty.org Covid-19: take action to win safe workplaces

f not, there are actions that you and your • no disciplinary action for following gov- We believe that there are good grounds Iworkmates can take. ernment advice in staying away from work to perceive serious and imminent risk if, for COVID-19 • Contact your trade union. If you are not • adequate hygiene provision, including example: in a union, join one and form a workplace access to frequent hand-washing • there are insufficient hygiene facilities union group. • social distancing at work, including in your workplace e.g. lack of access to soap • Full pay for all workers from day one of • Elect a health and safety representative. withdrawal of duties that involve close con- and water; inadequate alternative provision absence You have the right to do this even if there is tact, and home working where practical for mobile workers • No disciplinary action for following not a recognised trade union in your work- • the establishment of a monitoring com- • your work involves close contact with NHS advice in staying away from work place. mittee including elected workers’ repre- other people • Abolish zero-hour contracts and out- • Draw up a list of demands and table sentatives to scrutinise all information and • you are working alongside people who sourcing them to your boss. advice and recommend further actions. may be infected but have come to work be- • All necessary measures to protect work- • Where you believe that you are in seri- cause they would lose vital income or face ers’ safety ous and imminent danger, refuse to work. REFUSING TO WORK ON SAFETY disciplinary action if they did not You have the legal right to do all these GROUNDS as your boss: things. Under Regulation 8 of the Management WITHOUT FULL SICK PAY, WE ARE NOT SAFE H• guaranteed full pay (not Statutory Sick of Health and Safety at Work Regulations YOUR DEMANDS Official government advice from Thursday Pay, SSP) and no disciplinary action for all (1999), and Section 44 of the Employment We suggest that these include: 12 March is to self-isolate for seven days if workers from day one of any absence, in- Rights Act (1996), all workers have a right to • full sick pay (or paid special leave) from you have a new persistent cough or a fever. cluding asymptomatic self-isolation? refuse work on health and safety grounds, day one for all workers in the workplace (in- without victimisation or loss or pay, if they Many workers — especially workers in un- • taken necessary precautions to minimise ionised workplaces — are entitled to full sick cluding agency and contract workers) who perceive there is a “serious and imminent the risk of exposure? pay and/or other leave arrangements that are following government advice in staying risk”. mean they can self-isolate without worrying away from work about the financial impact. What the law says he relevant sections of legislation are work in his undertaking; experience or knowledge and other qualities employer’s attention, by reasonable means, Tpasted below. The law gives us the right (b) nominate a sufficient number of compe- to enable him properly to implement the circumstances connected with his work to take “appropriate steps” to avoid “serious tent persons to implement those procedures evacuation procedures referred to in that which he reasonably believed were harmful and imminent danger”, and to be protected in so far as they relate to the evacuation from sub-paragraph. or potentially harmful to health or safety, from suffering any detriment, including loss premises of persons at work in his undertak- (d) in circumstances of danger which the of pay, for doing so. Clearly, an employer ing; and mployment Right Act 1996, Section 44 employee reasonably believed to be serious inclined to argue the toss could contend that their refusal to guarantee full pay to anyone (c) ensure that none of his employees has E(Health and Safety Cases) and imminent and which he could not rea- self-isolating does not represent a “serious access to any area occupied by him to which legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/18/sec- sonably have been expected to avert, he left and imminent danger”, or that refusing to it is necessary to restrict access on grounds tion/44 (or proposed to leave) or (while the danger work until they do is not an “appropriate of health and safety unless the employee persisted) refused to return to his place of step”. concerned has received adequate health and (1) An employee has the right not to be work or any dangerous part of his place of But the stronger your action, and the safety instruction. subjected to any detriment by any act, or work, or more workers involved in it, the flimsier (2) Without prejudice to the generality of any deliberate failure to act, by his employer (e) in circumstances of danger which the their ability to make that argument will be. paragraph (1) done on the ground that — employee reasonably believed to be serious Given everything we know about the highly (a), the procedures referred to in that (a) having been designated by the em- and imminent, he took (or proposed to take) contagious nature of this virus, there is a sub-paragraph shall— (a) so far as is practi- ployer to carry out activities in connection appropriate steps to protect himself or other clear case for arguing that forcing potential cable, require any persons at work who are with preventing or reducing risks to health persons from the danger. carriers to come to work, in direct defiance exposed to serious and imminent danger to and safety at work, the employee carried out (2) For the purposes of subsection (1)(e) of public health advice, because they can’t be informed of the nature of the hazard and (or proposed to carry out) any such activi- whether steps which an employee took (or afford to do otherwise is a “serious and im- of the steps taken or to be taken to protect ties, proposed to take) were appropriate is to be minent danger”. them from it; (b) being a representative of workers on judged by reference to all the circumstances For more info on the law and how it (b) enable the persons concerned (if nec- matters of health and safety at work or mem- including, in particular, his knowledge and works, we recommend this briefing, from essary by taking appropriate steps in the ab- ber of a safety committee — the facilities and advice available to him at the RMT union: rmt.org.uk/news/publica- sence of guidance or instruction and in the (i) in accordance with arrangements estab- the time. tions/serious-and-imminent-danger-book- light of their knowledge and the technical lished under or by virtue of any enactment, (3) An employee is not to be regarded as let/serious-and-imminent-danger.pdf means at their disposal) to stop work and or having been subjected to any detriment on And this website: section44.co.uk/ immediately proceed to a place of safety in (ii) by reason of being acknowledged as the ground specified in subsection (1)(e) if the event of their being exposed to serious, such by the employer, the employee per- the employer shows that it was (or would he Management of Health and Safety imminent and unavoidable danger; and formed (or proposed to perform) any func- have been) so negligent for the employee to Tat Work Regulations 1999 (the Manage- (c) save in exceptional cases for reasons tions as such a representative or a member of take the steps which he took (or proposed to ment Regs), Reg 8: duly substantiated (which cases and reasons such a committee, take) that a reasonable employer might have legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/3242/regu- shall be specified in those procedures), re- (c) being an employee at a place where – treated him as the employer did. lation/8/made quire the persons concerned to be prevented i) there was no such representative or (4) Except where an employee is dismissed Procedures for serious and imminent dan- from resuming work in any situation where safety committee, or in circumstances in which, by virtue of sec- ger and for danger areas 8 there is still a serious and imminent danger. (ii) there was such a representative or tion 197, Part X does not apply to the dis- (1) Every employer shall— (a) establish (3) A person shall be regarded as compe- safety committee but it was not reasonably missal, this section does not apply where the and where necessary give effect to appropri- tent for the purposes of paragraph (1) practicable for the employee to raise the detriment in question amounts to dismissal ate procedures to be followed in the event of (b) where he has sufficient training and 5 matter by those means, he brought to his (within the meaning of that Part). □ serious and imminent danger to persons at Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty 9 Covid-19: take action to win safe workplaces

But others do not have this right. If these meet demands to minimise risk. In this case, workers take time off, they may only get SSP, explain your action to other workmates and £94.25 per week. This less than a third of the encourage them to join you. TEMPLATE LETTER TO YOUR net pay of a worker on the minimum wage, MANAGEMENT: YOUR DEMANDS significantly less than the dole, and less than IT CAN WORK half an average weekly rent in London. In early March, following pressure from To [THE BOSS] Even if you have sick pay rights yourself, the local branch of the public service union As workers in [WORKPLACE] who are members of [TRADE UNION], we are writing to you may well work alongside people who do Unison, Lambeth Council agreed to ensure demand that you, our employer, take all necessary precautions to minimise risk during the not – especially if you work in large public full pay for zero hour contract workers who Covid-19 pandemic. Immediately we are concerned that some workmates, such as those on service industries such as hospitals, schools self-isolate or take sick leave. If Lambeth zero-hour and outsourced contracts, cannot afford to self-isolate, as they may only receive and transport. Council can do it, after a decade of austerity, Statutory Sick Pay (SSP), if that. This means that these workers are economically prevented Workers on zero-hours or outsourced con- why can’t every employer? from carrying out public health instructions and could therefore put themselves and others tracts usually have the lowest pay and worst at greater risk. conditions in our workplaces: they are the SPREAD THE WORD We therefore demand that all workers in [WORKPLACE], whether directly-employed or cleaners, caterers, security staff, etc. If these If you take this action, let other people, espe- outsourced and regardless of contractual status, are guaranteed full pay from day one of workers get a cough or a fever, they are put cially other workers in your industry, know any self-isolation or sickness absence. This may involve you as an employer instructing the in an impossible situation — either follow you’re doing it, and especially if you get re- holders of any outsourced contract to pay full pay to their employees, or underwriting such government advice and face impoverish- sults. payments yourself. ment, or struggle through work and poten- Further, we demand the following measures to minimise risk: tially infect colleagues and the public with a WHAT NEXT? [add demands specific to your workplace, which may include:] deadly virus. If your management continues to refuse to • more frequent breaks for hand-washing These harsh employment practises are ob- budge, speak to your union about formal- • adequate supplies of soap, water, etc structing the self-isolation strategy, which ising your action into a dispute. Spreading • appropriate hand-cleaning materials for mobile workers the government assures us will delay the the word about your action and encouraging • suspension of work tasks involving contact e.g. cash payments spread of the virus. social media pressure on your employer can To ensure that the workplace continues to take up-to-date appropriate act, we ask you to All workers, directly-employed and out- also add to the impact of what you’re doing. establish a monitoring committee including trade union representatives, which will have sourced, permanent and zero hours, must In the longer term, continue to press de- access to all data, information and advice, and which can recommend action. stand together to demand real action, and mands for equal treatment and conditions. We demand that you take these measures is taken as soon as possible, and within no more equal treatment, from our employers. This crisis clearly highlights the exploita- than five days. tive and unjust nature of zero-hours con- WHAT TO DO Should we come to believe that we are in serious and imminent danger, we will exercise tracts, outsourcing, and other employment our legal right to withdraw from work. Speak with your workmates. Talk practises that divide workers. All workers Yours, to them about their legal rights and should be directly employed, with access to [COLLECT SIGNATURES ON THE LETTER] □ discuss1. the issues. If you are in a unionised the same benefits and conditions. workplace, and can pursue this activity through the structures of a recognised union • See all of this online and in pdf format at and collective bargaining machinery, great. workersliberty.org/covid-action But we need to act more quickly than many • See workersliberty.org/covid-19 for more formal structures allow. articles on Covid-19. If you are not part of a trade union, 2.join one. Any long-term effort to win WHAT IS WORKERS’ LIBERTY? TEMPLATE LETTER TO YOUR more rights and power in your workplace The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (AWL) is a requires permanent organisation. Informa- revolutionary socialist organisation active in MANAGEMENT: REFUSAL TO tion on joining a union is here: tuc.org.uk/ the working-class movement in Britain, in- join-union cluding trade unions and the Labour Party. WORK ON THE GROUNDS OF Draw up a list of demands. Use the We fight for a revolutionary alternative to list above and add things that are rel- capitalism and Stalinism, based on common HEALTH AND SAFETY CONCERNS evant3. to where you work. Involve all your ownership and workers’ rule. workmates in doing this. Our members and supporters work in a To [THE BOSS] Elect a health and safety represent- variety of industries and are active in a range I am concerned for the safety of myself and others, as I believe that I am in serious and ative. Information on the role and of unions, with decades of experience of in- 4. imminent danger of coronavirus infection due to the lack of adequate safety measures in my rights of staff health and safety reps here: volvement in workplace and community workplace. Specifically, I face serious and imminent danger from: hse.gov.uk/involvement/hsrepresentatives. struggle. We have a press, including work- htm • contact with workers attending work while ill or infectious because they are not receiv- place bulletins and a weekly newspaper, Write to management. This could ing full sick pay or paid special leave and can not afford to stay off work Solidarity, and can use our experience and take the form of a letter or a petition. • contact with workers attending work while ill or infectious because they face discipli- networks to help amplify, spread, and sup- We’ve5. provided a sample template; adapt it nary action if they follow government advice and stay off work port your action. □ based on your specific workplace circum- • lack of adequate access to hand-cleaning facilities stances. Make sure you give your employer • work duties involving close contact with persons who may be infectious e.g. taking cash • www.workersliberty.org a deadline by which to implement your de- payments • fb.com/workerslibery mands. [make these specific to your working conditions] • @workersliberty If you face serious and imminent You have a duty to provide me with a safe workplace and I ask that you assure me that 6.danger, stop work. Do not wait for the arrangements you have in place adequately protect my safety and the safety of others management to consider the situation – they for whom I am responsible. can do this when you stop work, and will be Until I receive such assurance, and in line with my legal right under Section 44 of the more likely to do so! The law gives you the Employment Rights Act 1996, I am refusing to carry out my work [or specified parts of my right to refuse to work on the basis of a seri- work] and/or I am withdrawing from the workplace which I believe to be unsafe. ous and imminent risk. Please initiate the company’s procedures for protection against serious and imminent dan- Exactly what form such refusals and stop- ger and addressing my concerns. pages take might vary from workplace to Yours workplace, but it could involve a straightfor- [YOUR NAME] □ ward refusal to work at all until management 10 More online at www.workersliberty.org “Lib-Lab” is a way backwards, not forwards

By Sacha Ismail parties and dragging concessions from them. The 1880s saw the enfranchisement of a majority of male workers and then the rise ome, even on Labour’s left, advocate of strikes and mass trade unionism (“New Selectoral alliances or coalitions between Unionism”) among “unskilled” workers. Labour and non-labour movement “progres- The new unions were less tied to the old sive” parties — mostly, in practical terms, Liberal-only strategy and more open to the meaning the SNP and the Lib Dems. idea of labour representation. The socialist From a class-struggle, socialist point of movement also revived, a bit earlier in the view, there are many arguments to be made 1880s: its activists played key roles in New against such “progressive alliances”. Here I Unionism. try to draw some lessons from Labour’s his- It took many years of agitation by the so- tory, focusing on alliances with the Liberals. cialists for things to reach a tipping point. A Debating “progressive alliances” with counter-attack by the ruling class, Liberal as Janine Booth from Workers’ Liberty at the well as Tory, against the new unions and the 2019 Labour conference fringe event The working class in the 1890s also played a role. World Transformed, left Labour MP Clive Future Labour leader Keir Hardie first Lewis cited the 1906 Lib-Lab electoral pact as proposed an independent labour party at a positive step forward. (For the other side, the 1887 TUC Congress. Hardie was elected see Janine Booth at bit.ly/wcpols). Lewis ar- as an Independent Labour MP in 1892; and gued that without this pact the Labour Party he was central to the (broadly socialist, but would never have got off the ground. woolly) Independent Labour Party founded That is wrong. I’ll look at the experience of in 1893. Not until 1899 did TUC Congress 1906 as well as the Liberal-supported Labour pass a resolution, originating with rail trade governments of the 1920s and 1970s, and the unionists, leading to the founding of the La- war-time coalitions Labour took part in; and bour Representation Committee in 1900. try to draw some conclusions for today. Socialist groups of various sorts were the pioneers, pulling along the unions (and at HOW LABOUR BEGAN first only a minority of them) with them. The Labour Party arose not through clever At the second LRC conference in 1901, the electoral manoeuvres, but a growth of work- Marxist Social Democratic Federation moved ing-class consciousness, organisation and a motion committing the organisation to the political self-expression which broke through class struggle. When it was defeated they the Liberal-oriented politics and alliances of walked out. The “walkout” was in fact only the labour movement’s leaders. from the SDF’s national affiliation to the It took a long time. In the 1840s, Britain had LRC. SDF members remained active and the first independent working-class party in often central in local Trades Councils (which the world — Chartism, organised around the were generally the local LRC organisations: demand for universal suffrage (usually “uni- the LRC and then the Labour Party had no in- versal” male, but some Chartists demanded dividual membership until 1918). They were votes for women too). active in LRC and Labour conferences as del- For decades after Chartism’s disappear- egates from Trades Councils. SDF members ance in the 1850s, there was only a small sometimes stood as Labour candidates. trade union movement, mostly “craft” un- But the “national” walkout must have ions of better-off “skilled” workers. Politi- helped to reinforce the controlling influence cal trade unionists generally supported the of Liberal-minded union officials, the fuzzy Liberals, the party representing pro-free socialists of the ILP and the middle-class elit- trade industrialists and big capitalist land- ist Fabians in this new political movement of owners. (In some parts of the country where the organised working class. the major employers were Liberals, trade un- The organisation’s first year saw only a ionists responded by supporting the Tories.) small proportion of unions affiliate — rep- Until the 1867 Reform Act, pretty much resenting about 350,000 out of two million no workers could vote. The 1867 Act enfran- members, many fewer than had been for- chised over a million workers, perhaps a LRC manifesto for the 1906 general election. Note the very clear class-based message, but the mally represented at its founding conference. majority of the (adult, male) urban working lack of socialist politics, and the chauvinist appeal against Chinese workers (in South Africa!) Very important unions remained hostile class. It was the product in part of a militant and committed to Liberalism — in particu- labour movement campaign, led by trade un- basis of Britain’s domination of the world more trade unionists as candidates — a fac- lar the miners’ unions with their four hun- ionists who a few years earlier had demon- market. He noted that the British ruling class tor in pushing many union leaders towards dred thousand-odd members (ironically: the strated energy and internationalism in the had gradually conceded important elements independent politics, eventually. Liberals were very much the mine-owners’ fight to prevent British intervention in sup- of the Chartists’ demands as safeguards were As Labour leader Ramsay McDonald later party). Not until 1908 did the unified Miners’ port of the slave-owners in the US civil war. put in place. They also conceded greater free- wrote: “We didn’t leave the Liberals. They Federation of Great Britain back Labour. It did relatively little immediately to chal- dom and legal space for trade unions, and kicked us out and slammed the door in our lenge the working class’ political subordi- began to cultivate some union leaders. faces.” 1906 AND ALL THAT nation. To Marx’s disgust the bulk of the One of the most important safeguards for Engels pointed out the increasing absurd- The vote for independent Labour candidates trade unionists, with whom he had worked the ruling class was the weakness of inde- ity of failing to stand independent candi- drifted up during the 1890s, but in 1900 the closely, backed the Liberals, some attempt- pendent working-class politics. In the 1874 dates now that a large and growing number LRC and other independent labour candi- ing to become Liberal candidates. election, the first trade unionists were elected of workers were enfranchised. Many labour dates won less than 50,000 votes and only In 1874, Friedrich Engels wrote that “no to Parliament — two of them, as Liberals. movement activists also noted, and took two MPs. In 1906, with the non-aggression separate political working-class party has Ten trade union candidates standing against inspiration from, the presence (after 1874) pact with the Liberals in certain constituen- existed in Britain since the downfall of the both major parties were defeated. of Irish nationalist parties in the House of cies, the LRC won over 250,000 votes and 29 Chartist party”, identifying one reason as The thoroughly capitalist Liberal Party Commons, holding a large block of seats seats (immediately after the election it re- concessions made to some workers on the was extremely resistant to accepting any independently of the two British capitalist named itself the Labour Party). Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty 11

heights it would not have reached otherwise. reformism of 1945. It carried out no national- erals to remain in office. To win Liberal sup- It actually ran counter to the more inde- isations; it maintained and administered the port, the government promised to step away pendent, class-based (though far from fully British empire with essentially no changes; it from the relatively radical policies it had in- socialist) approach into which the labour did not disband the strike-breaking organisa- cluded in its 1974 manifesto — and some of movement was rapidly shifting. Those re- tions soon put into operation by the Tories in which it had implemented in 1974, despite sponsible for it knew that: which is why it the 1926 General Strike. being a minority administration, because the was largely kept a secret at the time! Far MacDonald included Liberals in his cab- Tories and Liberals were convinced blocking from being a consensual or popular strategy, inet, in addition to the ex-Liberal minister these measures would discredit them. it was not something even the mostly Liber- Viscount Haldane, symbolising a string of In fact Callaghan and co. had already al-inclined Labour leaders were particularly Liberal politicians’ migration to Labour. shifted further to the right when they made comfortable advocating or defending. This government was not very different a deal to secure an IMF bail-out in 1976. These leaders did not want to replace the from the Liberal one of 1906; it demonstrated The terms of the Lib-Lab pact included Liberals, as they soon would; they did not the strict limits of Labour’s political break direct elections to the European Parliament dream at first of Labour becoming the gov- from Liberalism even after it had displaced (which many on the left, motivated by na- ernment. They only wanted to exert pres- the Liberals as the UK’s second party and for- tionalism, opposed) and progress on estab- sure. (The second LRC MP elected alongside mally come out for socialism (in Clause 4 of lishing devolution in Scotland and Wales. Keir Hardie in 1900, Richard Bell of Derby, the party rulebook, adopted in 1918). But Labour also committed to abandon soon defected “back” to the Liberals.) How- Labour depended on the Liberals for its proposals to expand local authority-run ever, they were leading a movement with its majority, but the Labour leaders’ left-Liberal “direct works” projects. There was also own logic and drive, one they could not fully politics were almost certainly more decisive strong implied commitment as to what La- halt or control even while they sat astride it. for determining what they did and did not bour would not do. “The banks”, declared We can’t know how many MPs Labour do. They showed no real sign of wanting to Liberal leader David Steel, “can now sleep would have won in 1906 without the pact escape the political limits they faced. safely”. In addition to his broader meaning, (though, in addition to the by-election record, The second MacDonald government (1929- he boasted specifically that thanks to the Lib- five of 29 were elected in seats with a Liberal 31) was also dependent on Liberal support, erals nationalisation of the banks and insur- 1923 election poster candidate). That was the crucial question for and again committed to essentially Liberal ance companies was now off the agenda. the right-wing Labour leaders, but not fun- politics. Its response to the economic crisis As Workers’ Action commented at the time: But to think that advance proves Clive damental for working-class politics. after 1929 was essentially an orthodox free- “Labour’s pact with the Liberals is a pact of Lewis’ point is to miss the powerful move- Under great pressure, the Liberal govern- trader one, and more conservative in fact betrayal. Not because of its [specific] terms, ment for independent working-class rep- ment legislated to overturn the Taff Vale than the Liberals, who became the first big but because this pact draws the Government resentation that had been built over decades. judgement, introducing unparalleled legal party to back “Keynesian” public spending. even further away from any accountability to The 1900 election took place too soon for freedoms for trade unions — the freedoms Rejecting proposals for state intervention the organised working class... the LRC to campaign properly; it was not the Tories would attempt to curtail in 1927, and provision to deal with burgeoning un- “In reality there has been nothing socialist a proper test of the social movement which 1972 and, successfully, after 1980. They also employment, the Labour government in- in the government’s policy even without the was already well off the ground. introduced the first, extremely limited ele- stead cut unemployment benefit, putting it Liberals... What makes the Labour Party a The LRC gained major accessions of ments of a welfare state. to the right of some prominent Liberals. The working-class party is its connection with the strength soon after 1900 but well before 1906. To go from a mistaken reading of these cuts program eventually led to a split in the organised working class. And what makes Again, the actions of the capitalists provided years, when Labour was just emerging but party, with MacDonald and his allies defect- the pact with the Liberals criminal is that important push. In 1901, the House of Lords already had potential to supplant the Liber- ing to lead a Tory-dominated national gov- Callaghan says to the working class: I will confirmed a legal ruling against the main als, to advocating today’s Labour Party gives ernment, but even on the eve of the split a consult the junior Tories before I consult any rail union that trade unions were liable for the fairly marginal Liberal Democrats a hand majority of cabinet members supported fur- decisions of the working-class movement... costs incurred by employers during strikes. up by standing aside for them in multiple ther cuts in the dole (11-9). “The terms of the pact don’t give the Lib- (The verdict was in favour of the Taff Vale seats is to redouble the mistake. Central to erals much. There wasn’t much left to give. Railway Company in South Wales; hence the both mistakes is a failure to adequately grasp THE WARTIME COALITION Socialism as a guiding principle or goal has Taff Vale judgement.) Obviously this was a the idea that, now as then, workers need our In the First World War, Labour had entered been surrendered not by this government disaster for organised labour, threatening to own independent political voice. the Liberal-led coalition along with the To- but by the leaders of the Labour Party from abolish the de facto right to strike that work- ries, but it was fairly marginal to it. There its inception 71 years ago... ers had won over decades. THE 20S: LIBERAL-SUPPORTED was only Labour cabinet member, and great “But the temporary informal coalition is an There was outrage across the labour move- LABOUR GOVERNMENTS swathes of the Labour Party and labour open rebuke to the Labour left, a clear vic- ment. In 1902 LRC affiliations increased movement regarded the coalition as wrong tory for the coalitionist forces [represented from 350,000 to 450,000, in 1903 to 850,000. Labour’s big leap came in the 1918 elec- and illegitimate. by various Labour] Libs in Labs clothing.” In terms of institutional support and grass- tion, held on the threshold of a post-war In the Second World War, Labour was Workers’ Action called for an organised roots popularity, the campaign for labour radicalisation, and with all men and many the major coalition partner with Winston campaign in the Labour Party and the unions representation became a mass movement. women able to vote for the first time, and Churchill’s Tories, holding five cabinet posts to oppose and overthrow the pact. In fact the For what this meant electorally, consider when it broke the pact with the Liberals. alongside eight Tories and three others. pact fizzled out in 1978, leaving Labour once some by-election results. In the 1895 and Although it gained only 17 more seats, its Labour leader Clement Attlee was deputy again a minority government — but one still 1900 general elections, the Lancashire seat vote more than tripled to 20.8%. The Liber- prime minister. committed to pro-capitalist, essentially Lib- of Clitheroe was taken by the Liberals un- als split over continuing the wartime coali- Today it is often argued that participation eral policies. Thus the great workers’ strug- opposed. In a 1902 by-election, the Liberals tion with the Tories, with “Lloyd George” in coalition with the Tories was a necessary gles of the ‘70s ended with Labour paving wanted the LRC to stand aside; but organ- and “Asquith” Liberals winning 13% each. prelude to Labour’s election victory and the the way for Thatcher’s first victory in 1979. ised local cotton workers insisted on stand- The Tories went down 8% to 38%, but won a reforming government from 1945. But in fact ing one of theirs, David Shackleton, and clear majority. that victory was based on widespread work- FOR CLASS POLITICS the Liberals who lost their nerve and stood The growth of the unions, a strengthen- ing-class hostility to the Tories, on a wave of The “Corbyn surge” beginning in 2015 down. (Shackleton was elected unopposed. ing of working-class consciousness, waves left-reformist political radicalisation, and on In 1906 he would defeat an independent con- of mass workers’ struggles in Britain and opened possibilities to renew and rebuild the a prompt withdrawal from the coalition (in labour movement and working-class politics, servative with 76% of the vote.) The textile revolutions in Europe, all played through in May 1945, before the war ended). workers’ union joined the LRC soon after. Labour’s continued rise. In 1922, Labour won many of which had been lost — at least tem- In a 1903 by-election, future Labour leader 29.7% and almost tripled its parliamentary porarily — by the time Jeremy Corbyn de- THE 70S: “THE BANKS CAN NOW parted as Labour leader in 2020. Arthur Henderson narrowly defeated the To- group to 142. In 1923 it won 30.7% and 191 SLEEP SAFELY” ries and the Liberals in the previous Liberal seats, and together with the Liberals denied The basic problem is that, even with a safe seat of Barnard Castle (county Durham). the Tories their majority. After the war, the Liberals declined dramat- greatly expanded Labour membership, the In the 1907 by-election for Colne Valley in This was an unprecedented political situ- ically, winning only 2.5% in the 1951 general labour movement’s base in workplaces and West Yorkshire, socialist Victor Grayson ation for Britain. A working class-based po- election. Between the 1970 and February 1974 working-class communities has continued narrowly defeated both major parties as an litical party now became the government for elections, the Liberal vote recovered from to stagnate and decay. In many respects Independent Labour candidate, supported the first time. But as socialist historian Brian 7.5 to 19.3%, as a section of voters looked for “Corbynism” did not even try to rebuild it. by local Labour activists despite the fact that Pearce put it, this first Labour government “middle ground” in the hot class struggles Labour post-2015 was not “too much” a the national party refused to support him. “marked a new phase both in the advance of those years. In the October 1974 election, working-class party, but “not enough” one It seems clear that the Labour Party of the working-class movement and in the they maintained 18.3%; Labour, which since (the phrase is from Tribune magazine, though emerged out of a major social-political thrust degeneration of its leadership”. February had led a minority government, Tribune was expressing wrong, pro-Brexit towards independent working-class politics, The new Labour prime minister, Ramsay now gained a majority of three. conclusions). rooted in long-term changes in British society MacDonald, had opposed World War 1 on a Alongside the rise of working-class strug- The defeats we have suffered are not a re- and the rise of the labour movement, devel- pacifist basis, and came from the “soft left” gles, the old working-class politics was in sult of failure to make deals with non-labour oping slowly at first but in flood by 1906. In- of the Labour Party, then represented by the crisis. It would either be reconstituted on a movement-based, pro-capitalist parties like ternational factors were also in play: labour ILP (which was, literally, a “party within a more radical basis, as socialists fought for in the Lib Dems, but a failure to build up work- and socialist movements were rising across party”). His government carried out some the ‘70s and early ‘80s, or decline severely, ing-class consciousness and organisation, as Europe and in the US, and the world had just pro-working class reforms, notably the as eventually happened after many defeats ends in themselves and as a more solid plat- been shaken by the 1905 Russian revolution. Wheatley Housing Act of 1924. for the labour movement and left. Increased form for Labour and socialist advance. But the Labour leaders had tamed the rad- support for Liberals was a symptom of this. “Progressive alliance” deals and politics Without the 1906 Lib-Lab pact, the course □ taken would of course have been different. icalism widespread after the war. Far from In 1977 Labour lost its small majority cut against this urgent necessary work. But the pact was not Labour’s ladder to being socialist, the Labour government did through by-election defeats. Prime Minister not even begin to approach the more radical James Callaghan made a deal with the Lib- 12 More online at www.workersliberty.org The anatomy of Labour’s “youthquake”

By Matt Cooper The age gradients for general the emergence of current trends. elections since October 1974 are: There are two short books on the n the 2017 British general elec- 1992 — 3.5 / 1997 — 3.4 / 2001- 3.0 issue. Keir Milburn’s Left Genera- tion, Labour succeeded in closing / 2005 -3.2 / 2010 — 2.7 / 2015 — tion (2019) contains no meaningful Ia 20% deficit in the course of the 7.8 / 2017- 13.8 / 2019 — 17.5 empirical data on young people campaign. Labour ended up with From 1974 to 2010 there was an and their motivations. Milburn only 2% less than the Conserva- average age gradient of +3. There dumps truck loads of questionable tives, and denied them a majority. was, on average, 15 points more theory onto the subject until the re- There were many reasons support for Labour over the Con- ality is no longer visible. for that turnaround. One was a servatives among 18-24 year-old His conclusions are plausible “youthquake” — an increase in voters than among over 65s. Be- enough, suggesting the 2008 finan- turnout among younger voters tween 1974 and 2010 young people cial crisis and ensuing austerity who overwhelmingly voted La- voted on average 39% Labour and have led young people to reject the bour. The effect was so notable 32% Conservative; older people pre-crisis dominance of neo-lib- that the Oxford English Dictionary voted 43% Tory, 35% Labour. eralism and that activism around made “youthquake” their neolo- 2015 saw a departure from this Occupy and similar movements gism of the year. general pattern. The change went has rippled out into more general In the 2017 election around 62% much further in 2017 and 2019. political culture among young of 18-24 year olds voted Labour. There was a large increase in people. He offers no evidence that Only 27% voted Conservative. young people voting Labour in what is plausible is also true. (Unless otherwise stated, data on 2017, and even more so in 2019, A more useful and empirical Another way of looking at this ages and economic issues assert age and voting is taken from Ipsos but also increases in Conservative analysis can be found in James comes from ideas recently de- themselves, it is likely to split along Sloam and Matt Henn’s Youthquake veloped by John Curtice and Ian class lines. 2017: The Rise of Young Cosmopoli- Simpson in British Social Attitudes. But currently, it appears that tans in Britain (2019). It suggests Their analysis of the 2017 elec- the surge in the Labour vote was the development of a culture of tion in BSA 35 (2018) suggests that strongly influenced by the increas- “left-cosmopolitanism” among the surge in young people voting ing cultural cleavage in British so- younger Britons, a somewhat Labour was associated with a move ciety fuelled by Brexit. vaguely defined set of attitudes of 2016 Remain voters to Labour. There is a lack of evidence to including both economically left- Prior to 2015 whether someone show that young people were at- wing views (greater state spend- was socially liberal or socially con- tracted towards Labour’s left-wing ing on health, homelessness and servative had some impact on their programme, though, equally, no wealth redistribution) and an an- voting, but that impact has become evidence that they were not. ti-nationalist cosmopolitan outlook much more marked since the Brexit It is clear that some young peo- (pro-EU, accepting of immigration, referendum and Labour’s shift left ple were enthusiasts for Corbyn’s welcoming of cultural diversity). (and the Conservatives’ shift to a Labour, it is unclear the extent to more right-populist position). which this was the case in younger COSMOPOLITAN This has led to a move of socially voters as a whole. The most im- Poll data from both 2017 and 2019 liberal voters away from the Tories portant issue (by some distance) to tends to confirm this view that and many younger first-time vot- young voters was climate change. younger voters are distinguished ers (who are strongly social liberal) More traditional left-right issues by a culture of cosmopolitanism to Labour. While left-right patterns featured less prominently. against older voters’ socially con- still underpin voting for Labour The large-scale rallying of young servative nationalism and an- and the Tories, the move of all people to a Labour Party which MORI polling data). support from older voters. ti-immigrant sentiment. A similar, types of social liberals towards La- they must have seen as left-wing Meanwhile, only 25% of over- This appears not to be just the re- although weaker, trend can be seen bour has increased its youth vote. (even if many, perhaps, do not con- 65s voted Labour, while 61% voted flection of some other demographic in older voters who appear to be A lack of clear data means that we sider themselves all that left-wing) Conservative. Among the youngest trait. For example, young people becoming more economically right- do not know if some young socially is something to build on. The lack age group Labour had a lead of 35 are more educated than older peo- wing. With straightforward links liberal youth who are also “right- even of a serious attempt to build percentage points, among the old- ple, but young people’s voting in between economic position and wing” in the sense of anti-egalitar- a real Labour youth movement has est the Conservatives had a lead of 2017 and 2019 was not simply the voting becoming weaker, it ap- ian have been drawn to Labour. to be counted as one of the main 36 points. In the 2019 election this product of young students and pears that the cultural differences failures of the Corbyn years. difference was even greater, with graduates voting Labour. Among of cosmopolitanism against nation- LUMPING But the evidence suggests this is a Labour lead of 43 points among young people, those of all educa- alism are more important. It is probably wrong for Sloam and not a generation of oven-ready so- the youngest voters, and a 47 point tional backgrounds tended to vote The poll data on the issues that Henn to call these voters “left-cos- cialists. Notably, trade union den- Tory a lead among the over-65s. Labour (although the least edu- voters feel are important is patchy, mopolitans”, and a close reading sity among employed 16-24 year This split is not business as cated young men far less so). but some policy issues stand out as of their analysis suggests that they olds is below 5%, while it is above usual. Young people have always Nor was it just a matter of having strong age-related levels of are lumping all cosmopolitans to- 35% for workers over the age of 35. been more likely to vote Labour younger people being worse-off support. The age gradients here are gether, whether they are left-wing The future of these cohorts of than older people in British general and more concentrated in “worse” not strictly comparable with those or not. It also suggests that Mil- younger voters remains to be de- elections (this pattern goes back to jobs. The pollsters all use the rather for voting above, and will necessar- burn’s view that a large part of this termined by the way that the left at least 1974, probably further). blunt tool of the ABC1/C2DE clas- ily appear less strong. young cohort constitutes a unitary and labour movement relate to □ In Conservative landslides more sification. But that crude measure In the 2019 election the strong- age-class is wrong. As this cohort them. young people voted Tory than La- shows young people from man- est differentiators in two polls (by bour but by a smaller margin than ual occupational backgrounds D Lord Ashcroft and YouGov) were: older voters. To see the pattern of and E only slightly more likely to For young voters: this I have condensed voting fig- vote Labour than those from pro- • Climate change (+5.10 You- ures by age into a single measure, fessional backgrounds (and some Gov, +3.8 Ashcroft) the “age gradient”. polls show no differences at all). • Cost of living (+3.4 Ashcroft) The higher this figure, the greater Although the more educated, • Inequality/homelessness (+2.2 the tendency for young people to women and those from a BAME Ashcroft) vote Labour and older people to background were most likely to For older voters: vote Conservative in that election. vote Labour, Labour voting was • “Getting Brexit done” (-6.4 The figure is the increase in the generally high among all young Ashcroft, -4.08 YouGov) percentage Labour/decrease in people, with the partial exception • Immigration/asylum/ travel- the Conservative vote for each ten of young men with no or few edu- lers (-4.29 YouGov, -2.8 Ashcroft) years change in a voters’ age, with cational qualifications. • Strong leadership (-2.6 Ash- a positive figure showing more There is a lack of hard evidence croft) young people voting Labour. This on why. As far as I am aware there • Law and order (-2.85 YouGov, is a fairly rough and ready metric have been no large scale studies of -2.4 Ashcroft) designed to easily see how voting the political views of young people • Defence and security (-2.04 patterns have changed over time. in the UK since studies around the YouGov) 2001 and 2010 elections, well before Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty 13 In praise of Mega2

By Paul Hampton However Mega2 makes accessible (often for the first time) the letters that were writ- he Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (Mega) ten to Marx and Engels. This is a far better is a project to publish a complete critical way to understand how they developed their Tedition of the publications, manuscripts and thinking through interaction with others, correspondence of Karl Marx and Friedrich rather than in splendid isolation. Such corre- Engels. The project is still incomplete after spondence brings out a more rounded sense almost a century. However as more materi- of Marx and Engels as individuals, as well als are published, we get a far deeper under- as contextualising their politics in the time standing of the origins and development of they lived. Marxism. For anyone interested in working class self-emancipation, the Mega should be IV: EXCERPTS, NOTES, MARGINALIA an irreplaceable referent. Probably the most exciting aspect of the The Mega was conceived after the Russian Mega2 concerns the publication of Marx and revolution. The Bolsheviks wanted to make Engels’ notebooks of excerpts. These demon- the theoretical legacy of Marx and Engels strate the range of philosophers, economists, available to the revolutionary working-class activists and other thinkers that they learned movement. In 1921 David Rjazanov was ap- from. The notebooks, with passages copied pointed director of the Marx-Engels Institute verbatim or summarised from the works of Jenny Marx, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, as others (some long forgotten), spread across in Moscow. He prepared the first editions of portrayed in the film “The Young Marx” the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (known as multiple languages and sometimes anno- Mega1). In 1927 the first of a planned 42 vol- tated with their own observations, shed new umes appeared. Twelve volumes came out entail 114 volumes. Each has an elaborate scripts as if they were a finished ‘work’. light on how Marxism developed. over the next six years. apparatus and contextual annotation (in There is now an English translation of the Many of Marx’s early notebooks, made in In 1931, Rjazanov was arrested and Mega1 German). In 2008 Mega2 started its digital original Feuerbach manuscript, produced by Kreuznach (1843), Paris (1844) and Manches- effectively terminated by Stalinism. The Sta- project along with researchers from Tohoku Terrell Carver and Daniel Blank, along with ter (1845) are now available. They demon- linist states brought out editions of Marx and University in Japan. a separate commentary, which explains how strate the origins of his political economy Engels’ writings in Russian, German and Mega2 consists of four sections, with vol- the German Ideology book myth was created. in reading some of the classics of bourgeois English editions. From the 1950s the East umes published and total planned: Far from elaborating a philosophy of his- thought, including Adam Smith and David German state produced the Marx-Engels- • Part I: Works, articles, drafts — 23/32 torical materialism, Marx and Engels were Ricardo. This was synthesised with the work Werke (MEW), while from 1975 the 50 vol- • Part II: Capital and the preliminary stud- mostly settling accounts with some of their of contemporary revolutionary activists. ume English Marx-Engels Collected Works ies — 15/15 previously close contemporaries. For example many will have heard Marx’s (MECW) was produced. These disseminated • Part III: Correspondence — 14/35 famous dictum in the Communist Manifesto a huge quantity of Marx and Engels’ mate- • Part IV: Excerpts, notes, marginalia — II: CAPITAL (1848) that “workers have no country”. rials, but the scholarly apparatus was often 15/32 Part II of Mega2 (Capital and the related stud- Less known is the quote Marx recorded in marred by the dogmas of Stalinism. ies) was finally completed in 2013. Eight of his notebooks (Mega2 IV/3: 427). Brissot de I: WORKS, ARTICLES, DRAFTS the texts contain manuscripts published for Warville, a French revolutionary and slavery MEGA2 The largest number of volumes so far cover the first time. Some sections of the Mega2 abolitionist had written decades before that The second Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe Marx and Engels’ published works, articles Capital are also accessible on Megadigital. “there can be no virtue since three-quarters (Mega2) was also conceived in East Germany and drafts. This includes much of their jour- They allow us to reconfigure our under- of the people have no property; for without during the late 1960s. The first volume ap- nalism throughout the 1850s. Marx and En- standing of Marx’s primary work. property the people have no country”. peared in 1975, with a further 39 volumes ap- gels contributed articles to 120 newspapers First, they show there is no definitive edi- After his exile to London in 1849, Marx pearing before the collapse of the USSR and in total — most were originally published tion of Capital volume 1. Marx published went to the British Museum and filled 24 Eastern European Stalinism. anonymously. A comprehensive survey of three German editions in 1867, 1872 and in notebooks, now known as the London Note- A new era began in 1990 when the In- their journalism for the Mega2 has found a 1883. However he also produced a revised books. These contain a substantial number of ternationale Marx-Engels Stiftung (IMES) further 200 articles newly ascribed to them, French edition in 1872-75. The first English excerpts on agricultural chemistry, including was established in Amsterdam. This net- to add to the materials already known. edition (1887) was prepared by Engels. He Marx’s first usage of the concept of metabo- work brought together the Berlin-Branden- There is some controversy about some of also produced a fourth German edition. lism. This has inspired an ecological reading burg Academy of Sciences and Humanities the volumes in this section. The so-called Marx did not finish Capital volumes 2 and of Marx, vital for today’s climate activists. (BBAW), the International Institute of Social 1844 Economic-Philosophic Manuscripts are 3. Both were published by Engels. A com- Marx’s notebooks, known as Books of Crisis, History (IISG, Amsterdam), the Russian State published as if they were an independent parison with Marx’s original drafts shows show Marx grappling with the 1857 crisis as Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI, work. They were brought out separately some small but significant changes. The it unfolded, one of the first global economic Moscow) and other bodies to coordinate the from the excerpts (in Part IV), making it manuscript used for Capital III has now been crises in history. After 1868, Marx contin- further production of volumes. harder to understand the development of translated into English by Ben Fowkes (in- ued to study natural sciences seriously, in- In 1998 the first ‘new’ volume was pub- Marx’s thinking during this time. Similarly, troduced by Fred Moseley), shedding more tensively researching agroscience and even lished. In total, 69 volumes have now come The German Ideology, published in Mega2 in light on many debates. For example it is clear modifying his judgement about scientists out and once completed, the collection will 2017, still collates the fragmentary manu- that the “tendency for the rate of profit to such as Justus von Liebig and Carl Nikolaus fall” is not the last word (or even the main Fraas. This is a fertile starting point for eco- logical Marxism. This pamphlet from Workers’ Liberty, “The aspect) of Marx’s incomplete crisis theory. There is no volume 4 of Capital – or what During the last fifteen years of his life German Revolution: Selected Writings of Rosa Marx produced one-third of his notebooks. Luxemburg”, contains Rosa Luxemburg’s has been known as Theories of Surplus Value. These were in fact part of the 1861-63 manu- Half of these deal with natural sciences. Oth- major articles from 1918-9. ers tackle anthropology and non-capitalist They span the time from when the German scripts, literature reviews interspersed with early drafts of his own thinking. These have societies across the globe. All illustrate the revolution of 1918-9 broke out, and she inquisitive, expansive research Marx and En- was released from jail on 8 November 1918, previously been translated into English in MECW. Some of the drafts became part of gels continued to explore until their deaths. through to her murder on 15 January 1919 The continued publication of Mega2 vol- by a right-wing militia operating under Capital, others were discarded. Marx’s po- litical economy remained unfinished and umes will shed new light on Marxism. Old the protection of the Social Democratic questions and controversies can be revisited. government. underdeveloped, far more ‘open’ than pre- viously presented. New approaches and different vistas open An introduction is provided by Paul up. Marxists seek to understand reality in Vernadsky, author of the Workers’ Liberty III: CORRESPONDENCE order to change it. Understanding how Marx book “The Russian Revolution: When Workers and Engels went about their work provides Took Power”. It tells the story of the German Marx and Engels exchanged letters with over 2,000 correspondents from all over Europe a method we can develop in today’s condi- revolution and discusses the findings of tions. □ recent scholarship on the events. and the United States. They included other 56 pages A4. Cover price £5. With postage socialists and family members, publishers • The Mega2 project is very well explained — non-UK £7, UK £6. Cheap rates for bulk and friends, authorities and adversaries. Pre- in Gerald Hubmann and Marcel van der Lin- orders: four for £18, ten for £40, twenty for vious editions published and translated the den, Marx’s Capital: An Unfinishable Project? £70. Buy online at bit.ly/rl-gr letters of Marx and Engels themselves. (2019) 14 Upcoming events at www.workersliberty.org/events Where we stand

oday one class, the working class, lives by selling its Tlabour power to another, the capitalist class, which owns the means of production. The virus The capitalists’ control over the economy and their relentless operations as normal, but has con- last year. sarcastic and tells me: isolate your- drive to increase their wealth tingency plans in place for staff In the control room, J explains self, obviously, but you’ll be disci- causes poverty, unemployment, Diary shortages; as with the government that the “Bradford Factor” Veo- plined. P asks about self-diagnosis the blighting of lives by overwork, statements, all details of these lia’s HR department uses is a way while GP surgeries are closed. imperialism, the destruction of plans “will become available as of keeping the number of worker “If we have symptoms, and the environment and much else. By Emma Rickman and when they’re needed” as “the sickness absences below a certain self-isolate for seven days, but Against the accumulated situation continues to develop”. threshold; workers are arbitrarily then test negative – will we be dis- wealth and power of the ou know that Corona sales disciplined if they phone in sick ciplined? And if we then get better, capitalists, the working class “Yhave plummeted? They’ve COVID-19 more than three times during a fi- go back to work, and get symp- must unite to struggle against lost millions.” Covid-19 waste at the time of the nancial year. toms again – will we be expected capitalist power in the workplace “What?” meeting was categorised as “Type Phoning in sick for several short to stay in? How can we prove our and in wider society. “Yeah you can get a crate on spe- B” clinical waste and therefore periods marks you down for dis- symptoms without sick notes? The Alliance for Workers’ cial offer in Morrisons – we should must be incinerated above the op- ciplining earlier than taking one Does Veolia want us to come into Liberty wants socialist revolution: throw a barbecue.” erating temperatures of the ERF long period of absence. However, work if we’ve got symptoms, just collective ownership of industry “Fucking...what…?” (1500 Celsius). Since the meeting absences of longer than 10 days in case we haven’t got it?” and services, workers’ control, “The beer! You plant-pot...” I’ve learned that this waste is now require doctor’s notes and HR pro- At least we have sick pay, a and a democracy much fuller For the last few weeks the con- classified as a separate, highly haz- ceedings either way. steady income and secure jobs. than the present system, with versations at work have been about ardous category, and is being dealt Veolia’s policy initially forced The plant can and does operate, on elected representatives recallable trivialising: with by specialist teams – plant line managers to initiate this pro- nights, with four operators. There at any time and an end to “It’s only old people and sick workers at the ERF [Energy Recov- cedure, regardless of their opinion are plenty of operators who would bureaucrats’ and managers’ people who’re at risk; and they die ery Facility] don’t know the details of the worker, and this was what provide emergency cover if offered privileges. of the flu every year anyway but of its collection and disposal. triggered union action last year. I overtime. We fight for trade unions and no-one cares – everyone here will If a person is self-isolating, they found this out the hard way during However, the plant will shut the Labour Party to break with be fine” are instructed to double-bag all bin my first winter at the plant with a down without waste deliveries, “social partnership” with the (“Except you D, you’re basically waste and await test results. If they string of bad colds – instead of and not collecting domestic waste bosses and to militantly assert at death’s door.”) test positive, a specialist clinical gritting my teeth and going back would be a disaster for the city working-class interests. Making fun: waste team will collect the bags. If to work mid-week, I should have and a breach of contract with the In workplaces, trade unions, and “Me and the missus were at they test negative, the bags are col- just taken the week off. city council. I suspect it will be de- Labour organisations; among the check-outs and saw these two lected by Veolia as normal. livery drivers who will cause the students; in local campaigns; women with a trolley-load of loo- A discussion around PPE and DISCIPLINARY most disruption when they start on the left and in wider political roll. We’re all staring at them and disinfection follows. D would My manager was considerate and contracting the virus. alliances we stand for: thinking the same thing, so I said like clarification on wearing very reluctant, but he warned me I suspect that a manager, some- • Independent working-class to my missus quite loudly ‘Is one full-breathing apparatus and hos- that if I called in sick during the where, has a contingency plan for representation in politics. of the symptoms of this virus diar- ing the crane-grabs; his manager next six months I’d begin a disci- this such as hiring contractors from • A workers’ government, rhoea?!’” says that none of the existing pro- plinary procedure. The number outside the city... or maybe they based on and accountable to the Scaremongering: cedures have changed, that D can of complaints from workers at all don’t. labour movement. “J can you stop sending me vid- wear full-mask if he feels uncom- levels caused Veolia to revise this Our college course has been can- • A workers’ charter of trade eos of dead bodies and bags of fortable, but that the risks of con- instruction, and line-managers celled and all teaching will take union rights — to organise, to blood from Iran…?” tamination from bin waste are the can now choose not to discipline place online for the foreseeable. At strike, to picket effectively, and to And when the company calls a same as they’ve always been. M for sickness unless they want to. first my college friends think they take solidarity action. meeting about it, ridiculing: requests sanitiser at the reception My line manager does seem like a can have the day off (or in the pub) • Taxation of the rich to fund “So we’re having a meeting to and weighbridge; G confirms that’s decent person in this regard, and I but then realise their managers decent public services, homes, discuss why we should stay away already under way. can understand why workers trust have all been sent the same email: education and jobs for all. from each other?! What the hell are Sickness absence procedures and him, but this is no solution – he’ll “Damn, looks like we’re gonna • A workers’ movement that they so worried about?!” policy will remain the same for the be retiring soon. work.” □ fights all forms of oppression. Full The meeting is lead by the cur- virus as with any other illness. This During the discussion about Ve- equality for women, and social rent plant manager, who reads procedure is not outlined in the olia’s inadequate policy, I ask my • Emma Rickman is an engineer- provision to free women from out a corporate circular I’ve al- meeting, but it’s an unpopular pol- mentor what I should do if my ing apprentice at a Combined Heat domestic labour. For reproductive ready seen. Veolia is continuing icy that led to an industrial dispute partner needs to self-isolate. He’s and Power plant in Sheffield. justice: free abortion on demand; the right to choose when and whether to have children. Full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Black Students: after the strike, into the shutdown and white workers’ unity against racism. By Maisie Sanders pandemic. Only Edinburgh is still in occupation. Students in halls need assurances that they • Open borders. The UCU has decided to suspend the reballots will not be charged rent if they leave university • Global solidarity against he fourth week of the strikes by the UCU necessary for further escalation of its dispute. accommodation to return home. Normally, stu- global capital — workers university staff union (9 to 13 March) saw On Friday 13 March many pickets were can- dents can only exit the contract early if they find everywhere have more in Ttwelve student occupations: UCL, University of celled and teach-outs were moved “online” due another to take over their room. common with each other than the Arts London, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Liv- to fears of infection. At SOAS (the School of Oriental and African with their capitalist or Stalinist erpool, Imperial, Manchester, Exeter, Brighton, Studies, in London), a student strike is planned rulers. Glasgow, Nottingham and the Royal College of SUSPENSION after a cleaner was asked to clean a room con- • Democracy at every level Art. The temporary suspension could mean a very taminated with Covid-19 without personal pro- of society, from the smallest Sussex students blockaded multiple uni- damaging loss of momentum for the dispute. tective equipment, and without being informed workplace or community to versity car parks, Exeter students disrupted But the issues aren’t going away. of the risk. Potential rent strikes are also being global social organisation. an open day, and Leeds students held a sit-in Student Strike Solidarity is continuing to discussed by students living in halls, demand- • Equal rights for all nations, during a University Senate meeting, forcing it hold regular online meetings to discuss plans ing they be allowed to leave their contracts early against imperialists and predators to be adjourned to a non-strike day. The Cam- for campaigning, particularly around Covid-19. to avoid paying rent for accommodation they big and small. bridge occupation expanded to take three floors Staff on short-term contracts have no guarantee are not living in. • Maximum left unity in action, of the Old Schools building, including the office that they will still have their jobs once the crisis Staff and students should agree shared de- and openness in debate. of Chief Investment Officer and USS negotiator eases, and zero-hours and outsourced staff still mands on management, including things like If you agree with us, please Anthony Odgers. do not know if they will be entitled to sick pay. full sick pay, suspension of rent in halls, no at- take some copies of Solidarity Staff and students at Kent stormed their Sen- Many students who work will struggle to cope tendance monitoring for online lectures, an end to sell — and join us! □ ate meeting to protest upcoming huge cuts, in- if they self-isolate, lose their jobs or have hours to outsourcing and zero-hours contracts, ade- cluding 500 compulsory redundancies. cut. It is unclear what will happen to exams and quate hygiene provision, and representation for coursework, when students will not have access staff unions on committees set up to manage the Now many universities have started to shut □ down and go online because of the Covid-19 to library resources and many will be ill. crisis. Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty 15 Tube drivers Full pay at BEIS vote for Postal workers vote for John strikes Moloney strikes, but union holds back e met the Cabinet Office last week, and have two more Wmeetings scheduled this week. tubeworker By Ollie Moore this approach.” a strike. We’re pressing a number of key It is not clear what additional The decision to take this ap- demands, including the right for ostal workers in the Communi- remit or duties “emergency ser- proach seems to have been decided any worker with an underlying cation Workers Union (CWU) vice” designation would involve entirely by the CWU leadership, condition to stay at home, on full By Ollie Moore Phave voted by 94.5%, on a 63.4% for postal workers, or what ad- with no prior discussion amongst pay, regardless of whether they turnout, for industrial action in ditional powers it might give to members. have symptoms. ondon Underground drivers their dispute with Royal Mail over Royal Mail as an employer. A North London postal worker We want the employer to en- in the Aslef union have voted working conditions and job secu- Ward writes: “We have called told Solidarity: “As a rank-and-file sure the latest government advice Lby a 95.2% majority for strikes to rity. for Royal Mail Group to step back postal worker and union member, is actually adhered to regarding win an improved settlement on The CWU was forced to hold a from their attacks in the workplace, I’m well aware of how important our members, and they wont suf- pay and conditions, on a 74.5% new ballot after a previous vote, imposing un-agreed change and we are during this crisis. However, fer any detriment for sticking to turnout. which returned a 97% majority on destroying the very morale and with no commitment so far from those policies — which is ironic, Although Aslef is a minority a 76% turnout, was injuncted by vocational sense of purpose the na- the company or the state to protect considering that the main em- union on the Tube overall, it rep- the High Court, after Royal Mail tion now needs and work with the our jobs and conditions, it seems ployer is the government itself. resents a slight majority of driv- bosses claimed it breached anti-un- union to enact our proposal. bizarre to commit to not striking, We’re also taking up out- ers. The result is significant, and ion legislation. “If we can agree the introduction apparently unconditionally. sourced workers’ issues very smashes the arbitrary thresholds However, the CWU’s leadership of the very best health and safety “Royal Mail have top form when strongly. We’re demanding full of the Tories’ anti-union laws. has declared it will not be calling provisions and equipment that can it comes to going back on agree- pay for all outsourced workers Aslef’s pay claim overlaps strikes, and has instead demanded guarantee our members safety, ments — look at how they reneged who have to self-isolate. In some substantially with other unions’ that the post is designated as an ad- they will become an additional on the ‘Four Pillars’ agreement, areas, we’ve already won this — claims, including in its demand ditional emergency service during emergency service.” one of the catalysts for the current for example at BEIS London. for a 32-hour, four-day week. It the Covid-19 crisis. In an article in It is unclear how the union in- dispute. It seems pathetic to try to That’s a department where our also includes a sectional claim for the Mirror, CWU general secretary tends to respond if Royal Mail endear yourself to the current far- outsourced worker members are a driver-specific salary increase Dave Ward said the union will be refuse to “step back from their at- right government. Union leaders well organised and recently won to bring Tube drivers’ pay more tacks”, or what its next steps might can’t keep making these decisions victories after sustained strikes. “writing to the Prime Minister to □ in line with that of drivers on gain the government’s support for be now that it has ruled out calling without consulting us.” That shows that where organi- mainline train companies. sation is stronger, you can make The RMT, which is the majority gains. We want to organise more union on the Tube, and which or- outsourced workers into the ganises across all grades and de- union to push these demands partments, is currently balloting across the civil service. its members over pay and condi- Museums and galleries are tions, in a ballot running until 31 More online likely to close in the coming March. weeks, and we’re fighting for our Many Tube workers’ immedi- Daniel Randall on Sanders, members there who are on zero ate focus has now been claimed Biden, and the movement hour contracts to be guaranteed by the Covid-19 crisis, but de- full pay, based on an average of mands for improved pay and • bit.ly/bs-jb what they work, if so. We’re also work/life balance remain press- preparing for the possibility that ing. RMT has levelled a number employers will attempt to make of demands on London Under- temporary lay offs. □ ground over Covid-19. □ • John Moloney is assistant general secretary of PCS, writing • See page 7 here in a personal capacity.

Arguing for a The real history Otto Rühle’s society based of the 1917 abridged on human revolution, of version of solidarity, social the Stalinist Capital, putting ownership counter- aside current of industry revolution, and factual material, and banks, of the lessons illustrations, and political, learned. polemics, is a economic good lead-in for and social 374 pages, £12 the full book. democracy. 182 plus postage pages. 131 pages, £6 £5 + post. plus postage

The history of A socialist approach Defending the A debate on reform, A critical history of Solidarność, from its within the recent Bolsheviks and their revolution, Labour, the disoriented left, dawn until the coup. “wave” of feminism. relevance today. democracy, more. and the way forward. The Two Trotskyisms £20; Fate of the Russian Revolution 116 pages, £5 + post 102 pages, £5 +post 312 pages, £10 + post 107 pages, £5 + post 408 pages, £12 + post £8; Miners’ strike £9; 1919: Strikes, struggles, and soviets £4; In an era of wars and revolutions £9; Anarchism £5; Can Order from workersliberty.org/books. Add £2 per book for postage, or 50p for 1919 book. If you buy three or more books, post Socialism Make Sense £12; Gramsci in Context £6; How is free, and the third and subsequent books are half-price. Pay at workersliberty.org/payment Solidarity Can Change the World £6. All plus postage. SolidarityFor a workers’ government 50p/£1 • No. 539 • 18 March 2020 • workersliberty.org

Anti-migrant policies worsen Covid-19 dangers

By Ben Towse and decent housing and financial speculators, or hotel rooms and of the need for full financial sup- Given that individuals’ circum- support so that those who need to the like. Decent-quality, warm, port. We can’t obey medical advice stances can be complex, and the he harsh regime of hostile self-isolate can do so. Any workers non-overcrowded housing is a if staying home means not having situation is changing rapidly, it policies imposed on both doc- sent home as a result must be kept human right at any time, and even enough money to feed ourselves or would be safest and simplest for Tumented and undocumented on full pay. more so in a public health crisis. keep the heating on. That includes the government just to extend all migrants living in this country is Similarly, asylum seekers shel- We know from extensive evi- everyone. So the pernicious “no re- visas and suspend all immigration already a racist scandal. tered in temporary accommodation dence that NHS charging and the course to public funds” conditions enforcement. Now, with the spread of Covid- need urgent support and protec- threat of information being shared that deny the majority of migrants The demands raised here are 19, these policies put migrants at tion. This temporary accommoda- with the Home Office deters mi- access to social security must be temporary measures to face the cri- increased risk and could exacerbate tion has been contracted out by the grants from accessing healthcare. suspended right now. sis. But most of them would ideally the public health crisis. Labour, our government to private businesses, Even where specific diseases are Similarly, the Home Office needs be permanent. unions and our movement must and it is often overcrowded. exempt, as Covid-19 is, there are to suspend the conditions that Public health crises force us to re- demand immediate action to pro- We need independent health still charges for any other condi- force many visa-holders to report member that our individual well- tect migrants. inspections of asylum accommo- tions they might have at the same in regularly, and must issue re- being is connected to that of others 1500 to 2000 people are impris- dation; relocation of particularly time, plus the threat of being tar- assurances that anyone forced to around us. As long as any of us are oned in the UK’s immigration vulnerable people and anyone in geted by immigration enforcement. miss appointments or deadlines subject to repression and precarity, detention centres. Close-quarters accommodation found to be below will face no penalty. none of us can truly be free and se- incarceration and the frequent standards; and specific healthcare NHS The government has already in- cure. When the crisis subsides, let’s moving of detainees between provision. All NHS charging must be halted troduced some limited visa exten- not forget it. centres mean that Covid-19 could For both asylum seekers needing immediately, a firewall must be es- sions for Chinese nationals. This Instead let’s fight for a perma- spread rapidly and put both de- relocation, and any released detain- tablished to prevent any data-shar- isn’t enough. Anyone needing to nent end to the violent injustices of tainees and staff working in the de- ees who don’t have decent housing ing with immigration authorities, self-isolate, or anyone facing a re- detention and deportation and for to which they can return – as well and the government must mount quirement to return to any high- an NHS and social security system tention system at heightened risk. □ Migrants’ rights groups have al- as all homeless people, whether a publicity campaign to let every- risk region around the world, must that are truly universal. ready issued a call to free all immi- UK citizens or immigrants – the one know they can access the NHS be granted an automatic and un- gration detainees. The government government must be prepared to without fear. conditional extension. The Home • Reproduced with thanks from must let them leave immediately, requisition housing if necessary. As increasing numbers of work- Office must issue physical docu- the Labour Campaign for Free while ensuring they are supported This might mean homes left ers are asked to self-isolate, there ments confirming this to everyone Movement labourfreemovement. with decent healthcare as needed, empty by landlords and property has been widespread discussion affected. org

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