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Category: Trade Unions

  • An NHS nurse’s video sums up the Tories’ degrading pay rise

    An NHS nurse has spoken out over the Tories’ proposed 3% pay rise for some health care workers. It’s a telling insight into the feelings of many frontline staff over what she calls a “decimated” service. The sting in the tail is that this nurse has had enough. And she’s leaving the NHS.

    A so-called ‘pay rise’

    This year, the Tory government has been at the centre of a storm over NHS pay. First it was only going to give workers a 1% pay rise. Now, the Tories have upped this to 3%. As The Canary previously reported, unions like the Royal College of Nurses (RCN) and the British Medical Association (BMA) are balloting members over the pay rise. They’re also pondering possible industrial action. Unison is doing similar. It said the 3% rise does not “meet the real living wage of £9.50 per hour for the lowest paid” staff. It also claimed it widens the gap between those at the top and bottom of the pay scale.

    At the heart of this story are frontline NHS staff.

    The NHS in crisis

    Kirsty Brewerton is a clinical sister. In a video, she explains why she’s voted for her union to reject the government’s 3% offer, saying she’s done this for “multiple reasons”. Brewerton said the main one was that she’s:

    genuinely concerned for the NHS and for its workforce. We have not seen levels of [staff] shortages like this ever before. We are completely reliant on agency and bank staff, and now we’re finding that we cannot even find those people to fill shifts. You’re seeing services decimated . We’re demoralised. We feel completely undervalued. And I just do not think that the 3% is going to do anything at all to address the issues that we are facing.

    The NHS is in a crisis created by the Tories and the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. For example:

    • Waiting times are at record highs. At the end of July, 5.6 million people were waiting to start treatment.
    • Also in July, the number of coronavirus patients in hospital was up over tenfold compared to the same time last year.
    • The NHS has around 100,000 staff vacancies.

    It’s against this backdrop that the Tories have offered a 3% pay rise. And it’s also against this backdrop that trade unions and campaign groups are urging staff to reject it.

    “Struggling”

    Meanwhile, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) analysed NHS pay. It found that for countless staff, the 3% pay rise would actually be a real terms pay cut. This would be a fall of between 7.3-7.6% since 2010. The sharp end of this is that NHS professionals are leaving their jobs. According to the Guardian, polling in May found that one in four staff were “more likely to leave” than the previous year. A think tank warned this could lead to over 300,000 NHS staff quitting. Brewerton is one such person. As she summed up:

    I myself am leaving. And I’ve done this

    for my colleagues, because I can see how much they’re struggling.

    NHS staff aren’t taking these issues lying down.

    “This ship is sinking”

    As The Canary previously reported, grassroots campaign group NHS Workers Say No has been running a petition. It calls on the Tories to give NHS staff a 15% or £3k pay rise – whichever is the greater. As of 12pm on Friday 10 September, over 820,000 people had signed the petition. You can add your name here. The group has also held protests over the pay rise.

    Holly Turner, a nurse from the group, told The Canary that:

    NHS workers are sick to death of being degraded by this government, and are leaving in the droves. The implications of this affect us all. It translates to poor patient care and enormous waiting lists. But it also gives the Tories a free pass to palm off more ‘failing’ services to the rich elite.

    This government has no intention in investing in NHS staff or protecting the future of the NHS. Privatisation is happening now and our pay is one of the levers. In the midst of this, they introduce a hike in National Insurance. This means in effect we are funding our pay rise ourselves. This is while the Tories make moves to pass the health bill. But it will do nothing to address the real issues we are facing in the NHS. Instead, it will just offer further powers to Sajid Javid while stripping back our rights.

    A nurse with 10 years experience quit her role this week. They said to me: ‘this ship is sinking and I ain’t going down with it’.

    A step too far?

    The Tories may well be playing with fire over their insulting 3% pay offer. Polling shows the majority of the public supports more money for NHS staff than what the Tories have offered. Given they encouraged us all to clap for NHS workers during the pandemic, this slap in the face may be an insult too far.

    Featured image via NHS Workers Say No – screengrab

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • There’s no contradiction in environmentalists mourning the loss of the UK’s coal mines

    Prime minister Boris Johnson has come under fire for his comments about the decline of coal mining in the UK. On the surface, it might seem hypocritical for those on the left, and especially environmentalists, to mourn the shutting down of coal pits. But a more nuanced analysis shows that there is, in fact, no contradiction.

    Misleading praise for Thatcher’s mine closures draws heavy criticism

    During a visit to Scotland on 6 August, Johnson preposterously implied that Britain has Margaret Thatcher to thank for the country having a head start in moving away from coal-generated energy. He said:

    Look at what we’ve done already. We’ve transitioned away from coal in my lifetime. Thanks to Margaret Thatcher, who closed so many coalmines across the country, we had a big early start and we’re now moving rapidly away from coal all together

    Critics were quick to point out that this was not Thatcher’s motivation for shutting down coal pits all throughout the country. Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon, Welsh first minister Mark Drakeford, SNP MP Ian Blackford, and even some Tory MPs were amongst those who publicly criticized the remarks. The comments were perhaps best summed up by Scottish Green MSP Gillian Mackay, who said:

    Thatcher’s decimation of the coal industry had absolutely nothing to do with environmentalism and everything to do with her despicable anti-trade union ideology.

    Johnson’s comments trample over important nuance

    But there is more to Johnson’s comments than this false characterization of Thatcher’s motive for closing the mines. The reality is that one can be both an environmentalist and a critic of this move. First of all, Johnson leaves out that this wasn’t a ‘transition’. In the aftermath of pit closures, the UK ended up needing to import a large amount of its energy. And this imported energy hasn’t necessarily been more environmentally responsible. Indeed, in a cruel irony, after shutting down domestic UK coal mines, the UK government then proceeded to import large amounts of coal from abroad. Thatcher had planned to do this all along because it was cheaper, which demolishes any claim that she was motivated by opposition to coal-generated energy itself.

    Importing energy also has its own pitfalls and environmental hazards. For instance, there are added environmental costs in the form of transportation when something is imported. The UK could also not regulate the production of that imported energy because obviously it’s coming from overseas. Importation, therefore, leaves foreign governments the task of setting labour and environmental standards. These standards may well be worse, especially given that much of the UK’s coal currently comes from the US, Russia, and Colombia. All three have a reputation for low-regulation economies.

    A gradual phasing out was never on Thatcher’s mind…

    Most importantly, Johnson left out of his remarks the fact that, even if domestic extraction did need reducing, Thatcher didn’t have to shut down the mines so abruptly. They could instead have been gradually phased out so that closures didn’t have such a damaging effect on mining communities. This gradual phase-out could have gone alongside investment in renewable energy generation plants and job training in this technology in areas affected by pit closures.

    Admittedly, renewable energy was not on people’s radar then as much as it is now. However, prototypes for wind turbines had been developed in the UK as early as the 1950s. Solar power, meanwhile, has been widely available since the 1980s, with sales of solar cells in the US exceeding $250m in 1983. Transitioning to such technology would have had the double benefit of absorbing laid-off miners into new careers in renewable energy while also keeping domestic energy production up at roughly pre-pit closure levels.

    …and it’s obvious why

    Of course, Thatcher would have never done that. And that’s because she considered unionised miners to be “the enemy within.” As the late-Labour MP Tony Benn put it:

    She knew perfectly well the strength of the labour movement lay in three sources of power. One was the trade union movement. So she took on the miners, described these courageous and skilled people as “the enemy within.” For God’s sake, what an insult to the people who built our economy in the sweat of their labour. And she introduced legislation that made trade unions actually illegal.

    During a speech in parliament in January 1992, Benn also pointed out the hypocrisy of Thatcher’s stance on mines given her party’s fawning treatment of British farmers:

    Ministers [in Thatcher’s government] have lied, and lied, and lied about the mining industry, and that is why people are so incensed. And don’t tell us it’s market forces. If market forces applied to the farming industry, half the farms in Britain would have closed years ago ’cause you can get cheaper food from New Zealand and Australia. And the Tory party depends on the farmers, so they support them… I’m not in favour of applying market forces to farms. You can’t close a farm one year and open it the next. But the miners haven’t had set-aside grants where they’re given money not to produce coal.

    It all boils down to Tory defence of capitalist interests

    In short, Thatcher’s decision to close down the coal mines was made on purely partisan ideological grounds. Just as she was not motivated by considerations about economic viability, nor was she motivated by any environmental considerations. The closure of the mines was simply a case of wanting to crush organised miners because they threatened the dominance of capitalist interests.

    And those were the very interests that her party represented then under her leadership. And evidently, those are the interests that the party continues to represent under Johnson’s leadership today – shown through his cheap backhanded attack on the labour movement, duplicitously disguised as concern for the environment.

    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons – Arnold Paul and Flickr – Andrew Parsons

    By Peter Bolton

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • TUC blasts ‘scandalous’ umbrella companies which dock pay and deny holidays to workers

    A trade union organisation has warned the use of umbrella companies which dock agency workers’ pay and deny their holiday days is on the rise. The Trade Union Congress (TUC) said umbrella firms lead to scandalous workplace practices and should have “no place in modern Britain”.

    As it explained:

    An umbrella company is essentially a payroll company, used by recruitment agencies to operate a PAYE (pay-as-you-earn) system for the agency workers that they find work for. In many cases, the umbrella company will also employ the agency worker, with the agency workers becoming “employees” of the umbrella company.

    The TUC says that the use of umbrella firms mean workers “face misleading and unfair deductions from pay”. And it added that “breaches of holiday leave and pay entitlement are widespread – with umbrella companies preventing workers from taking their holiday entitlements”.

    Fragmented

    The firms also fragment the employer/employee relationship. This leaves them “unsure of who to speak to resolve problems”.

    The TUC also said:

    It has been widely reported that some umbrella companies promote and coerce their employees to use tax evasion schemes, leaving workers potentially facing huge future tax bills

    Bleak future

    The TUC warned that the firms were multiplying and could increase even further in the wake of coronavirus (Covid-19). It said that due to a “combination of changes to tax rules” the use of umbrella firms could increase. And that increase would have worrying effects on workers.

    As it explained:

    The IR35 or “off-payroll working rules” will potentially make employers liable for the tax and national insurance contributions of the contractors that they engage with. Government guidance states that the off-payroll working rules are unlikely to apply if you are employed by an umbrella company.

    It raised concerns that:

    transferring contractors to umbrella companies will be seen by some companies as a convenient way to continue to shirk their tax and employment rights obligation.

    Report

    In its new report on the issue, the TUC said up to half of agency workers were now employed by umbrella firms. This includes many workers who were key to the coronavirus response like testing staff and those in social care. And it warned that in the post-coronavirus scramble by firms for new labour, the issue could get much worse.

    The TUC wants an immediate ban on umbrella companies.

    It also outlined possible regulatory measures to nip the issue in the bud. These include new conduct regulations and for HMRC to focus on the firms rather than the workers when it came to the tax avoidance linked to umbrella companies. It also wants to deepen trade union rights and campaign for new rights so agency workers can collectively bargain more easily.

    Post-coronavirus work

    TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said in a press release:

    Everyone deserves decent work. But too many low-paid workers are denied the wages they were promised and basic legal rights like holiday pay because they work for umbrella companies.

    Lots of them are the key workers we all applauded – like social care workers, teachers and coronavirus testing staff.

    She called the firms “scandalous” and said employers shouldn’t be let off the hook:

    Enough is enough. It’s time for ministers to ban umbrella companies, without delay.

    As the TUC warns, workers’ right could be trampled on even more than currently. It seems like firms have found a new way to rip-off those whose labour gets them rich. And the way to stop them is through increased organisation and proper legislation.

    Featured image via Picpedia/Nick Youngson

    By Joe Glenton

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Headache for Keir Starmer as trade union pulls funding from Labour in London

    The GMB Union has pulled its funding of Labour in London. It’s because a Labour council sacked an employee who is one of the union’s members. The GMB says it looks like potential “political victimisation”. But does the move show a wider disquiet in the trade union movement with Keir Starmer’s party?

    Meet Gary Bolister

    As the GMB tweeted:

    Gary Bolister worked as a caretaker for Labour-run Islington council for 24 years. But a mistake during a protest in 2020 has now cost him his job. As the GMB wrote:

    During the summer of 2020, Gary had been taking part in regular protests against Islington’s road closures which had been introduced by the Council without consultation. On 21 November 2020, Gary took part in a spontaneous Facebook live video in his own time on a public highway. The video captured a councillor and some of her family in their home and when Gary realised, he moved the video maker away from the property.

    Bolister took part in the protest just a week after his father’s funeral. After the incident, he expressed “remorse” and offered to write an apology letter to the councillor. But the council sacked him anyway.

    Sacked for protesting?

    As the GMB wrote:

    A formal complaint was made by the councillor and Gary was investigated under the disciplinary procedure. The investigation was flawed and prejudiced. Despite these issues being raised, Islington Council went ahead with the hearing and dismissed Gary for gross misconduct on the basis that he had breached the code of conduct and the social media policy.

    Bolister appealed the decision. The incident was the only “misdemeanour” across 24 years of service. But as the GMB wrote:

    Islington Council decided not to uphold the appeal. We argued that the decision was not reasonable and the penalty was unduly harsh. Islington Council took no notice.

    Islington council: “no compassion or humanity”

    Bolister said in a statement:

    I’m absolutely gutted – I’ve spent half my life serving the council and this is how they’ve thanked me.

    I wasn’t even filming and I didn’t even know who the councillor was. I’ve said sorry over and over again.

    Losing my job has had a massive effect on my mental health and my family life. I feel like Islington council has shown me no compassion or humanity.

    You can sign a petition in support of Bolister here.

    Hitting the “party coffers”

    Now, the GMB is now taking things one step further.

    As it tweeted:

    The union said in a statement it has “withdrawn funding” from Labour in London because of Bolister’s situation. GMB regional secretary Warren Kenny said:

    Gary is utterly devastated by his sacking – working for Islington council, where he was born and raised, was his passion and his vocation. His callous sacking over an honest error is beginning to look like political victimisation.

    GMB will always back our members and if Islington Labour refuse to listen to reason we will hit them where it hurts – in the party coffers.

    Wider implications?

    As SKWAWKBOX noted, the GMB’s action may represent a wider disquiet among trade unions over the Labour Party’s current leadership and direction:

    Unite, another giant union affiliated to the party, has already reduced its funding over Keir Starmer’s leadership. If the Labour right expected GMB to tamely fall in line after its recent general secretary election, it assumed wrongly. GMB boss Gary Smith has already ordered a complete review of the union’s donations to Labour – and GMB and Unite recently joined forces to condemn Labour’s shoddy treatment of staff put at risk of redundancy.

    Will we see more actions like those of the GMB in the future? Quite possibly.

    Featured image via the Telegraph – YouTube

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Rights groups join forces to call for UK corporate accountability laws

    Companies must have human rights and environmental obligations, say TUC and Amnesty International

    Almost 30 organisations have joined forces to call for the UK to follow in the footsteps of its European partners by introducing corporate accountability laws requiring companies to undertake human rights and environmental due diligence across their supply chains.

    The groups, including the TUC, Friends of the Earth and Amnesty International, say systemic human rights abuses and environmentally destructive practices are commonplace in the global operations and supply chains of UK businesses, and voluntary approaches to tackle the problem have failed.

    Related: 14 major UK employers join socially focused Purposeful Company scheme

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Basic Income Will Increase Workers’ Bargaining Power

    The economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have brought calls for a universal basic income. While it’s no silver bullet, they can allow workers say no to the most thankless, low-wage work, providing a platform from which to rebuild our bargaining power.

    AN INTERVIEW WITH DANIEL RAVENTÓS by Àngel Ferrero

    The economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have brought calls for a universal basic income (UBI) back into the spotlight — and so, too, criticisms of it. This is especially the case in Spain, where a more conditional “minimum living income” project introduced by the left-wing coalition government has been undermined by poor delivery and only limited take-up by those entitled to the scheme.

    A possible way forward comes from autonomous Catalonia. Following the recent elections there, the anti-capitalist Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP) has agreed to give its support to a government of the soft-left Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), through a pact which includes the approval of a pilot program for full UBI.

    Daniel Raventós is a professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Barcelona, as well as the president of the Red Renta Básica. He spoke to Àngel Ferrero about the pilot, its limits and the potential uses of UBI.

    AF: You’ve been researching UBI for more than twenty years. How would you define it, in concise terms?

    DR: A universal and unconditional public monetary allowance.

    AF: Although UBI is not yet a reality, there have been several pilot projects. What have the results been?

    DR: There have been trial runs in many different geographical and political contexts, from Finland to Canada to Namibia. Not all these projects have been implemented in the same way, which sometimes makes it difficult to compare them.

    These experiments have many limitations. One of the main ones is that they can’t show some of the major effects UBI would have on society as a whole: in particular, increased bargaining power for workers and women. The people receiving the UBI in the pilot projects tend to be isolated from each other, so it’s hard to judge their aggregate effects.

    Clearly, planning your life with a UBI you expect to have for two or three years is something very different from planning your life with the expectation of a lifetime UBI. But these experiments do allow us to evaluate, with all the limitations I have mentioned, partial aspects such as the effects on mental health. In each of these cases, mental health improved. Which is no small thing.

    AF: But with a UBI, are the material conditions of existence guaranteed?

    DR: Not with this alone, of course.

    UBI must be understood as one policy measure, not as a complete economic policy unto itself.

    An economic policy includes fiscal, monetary, labor measures… and, for me, a maximum income, too. A few people having huge fortunes is a threat to the freedom of the majority — and you don’t even have to be a socialist or republican to recognize that.

    AF: In Catalonia, two parties recently reached an agreement for government, including a UBI pilot program. What is the status of the negotiations?

    DR: Well, the agreement talks about the implementation of a pilot plan in certain age groups of UBI in three temporary phases. This is a very moderate, very reasonable, very measured move — which has already sparked the ire of both the pro-independence Catalan right and Spanish monarchists. And also of a certain kind of left who have great respect for, and servility toward, the status quo. It is funny to see the allergies this proposal provokes among some politicians and technocrats, even just when it’s a trial scheme.

    As far as I know, both the [anti-capitalist] CUP, which had UBI very clearly in its electoral program and made it one of the main axes of its campaign, and the [soft-left] ERC, which referred to the UBI as a longer-term measure, seem to be standing firm for this policy.

    AF: How could such a measure be financed?

    DR: Catalonia has nothing like fiscal sovereignty. The financing proposal that Jordi Arcarons, Lluís Torrens, and I have been investigating with some variations in recent years is based on a major reform of personal income tax, so that 80 percent would pay less tax with UBI and the richest 20 percent would pay more. Catalonia does not control 100 percent of income tax. That’s the way things are. Many people who are for a Catalan Republic consider UBI, along with other clearly progressive measures, are a good reason to want to become independent from the Spanish monarchy.

    Even so, it’s also true that the Catalan government does have the power to pursue a much more ambitious economic policy than the one it’s carried out in recent years. One of the aforementioned economists, Lluís Torrens, more than two years ago proposed a series of measures within the limits of Catalonia’s current autonomous powers, to finance UBI. Very briefly, these included: a wealth tax, reversing the inheritance and gift tax to 2008 levels, increasing environmental taxes, gambling tax revenues, and some modifications to personal income tax.

    AF: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to basic income being widely considered as a proposal to overcome this crisis. What are the advantages of basic income compared to other measures?

    DR: Conditional benefits for the poor have for many years proven to be insufficient at best and mostly catastrophic. Subsidies for the poor in Catalonia itself — the guaranteed citizen income — and the Spanish central government’s minimum living income have been a disaster. The former has been years in the making, the latter was implemented in June 2020 as a response (let’s call it that) to the pandemic-era social situation. Everyone, apart from its designers, has found serious flaws in it. If these are especially bad cases, the problems with conditional subsidies have been known for some time. Poor rollout can make things worse, of course, but the root problem is the design.

    What are the problems with conditional benefits?

    They have been known for a long time: the poverty trap, the high administrative and management costs, the stigmatization they involve, the insufficient coverage with respect to the population they ought to cover, and what is known as non-take-up, which is the segment of people who do not apply for a benefit even though they meet all the eligibility requirements and are thus entitled to receive it. In some cases, non-take-up is as high as 60 percent!

    The UBI overcomes these problems of conditional benefits — all of them. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why people who’d been opposed to the UBI recognized at the beginning of the pandemic that it ought to be considered.

    In the Basque Autonomous Community, which has one of the best subsidies for the poor in the European Union (nothing to do with the minimum living income or benefits anywhere else in Spain), a popular legislative initiative for a UBI has been launched. This is promoted, among others, by people who advise benefits applicants and are thus very knowledgeable about the reality of the subsidies for the poor, here. They are very competent and technically very knowledgeable people. Their conclusion is clear, and this is what they have stated: the Income Guarantee Payment, which is the name given to the Basque regional subsidy for the poor, has failed. Hence their support for UBI.

    AF: Feminists have defended, and also criticized, basic income. What are the feminist arguments in favor of UBI?

    DR: Well, the arguments offered by feminists are very diverse. At the risk of leaving out some important points, I think we can summarize these as follows. First, UBI would mean greater freedom for women. Already Mary Wollstonecraft pointed out that the attainment of rights, citizenship, and a better status for women, both married and unmarried, required their economic independence. Second, many women today caught in the poverty trap under the system of conditional benefits could escape it with a UBI, thus greatly mitigating the feminization of poverty.

    The economic independence that a UBI would allow would make it possible for many women to escape more easily from relationships where there is violence and abuse, as well as to leave paid jobs where sexual harassment or abuse occurs.

    Third, with financing that favors the majority of the non-rich population, such as that proposed by Jordi, Lluís, and myself, there is a transfer of money from men to women. This is consistent with what we know about the worse social, labor, and economic conditions that women have on average compared to men.

    AF: One of the arguments that you have had to combat most over the years is the idea that it would be better to guarantee full employment than UBI, also because a UBI would discourage job seeking, and even the value of work itself. Why?

    DR: Being a supporter of full employment is admirable, almost heroic in today’s conditions, but for me what’s interesting is to make clear whether we are talking about full employment in semi-slavery or in decent conditions. In the Spanish case, it should be remembered that from 1978 to today, this country has been the world champion among the OECD economies for joblessness: the place where the unemployment rate has exceeded 15 percent in thirty years out of forty-two.

    There is no doubt that there are parts of society with an employment-centric view, upholding the “dignity of work.” For me, the dignified thing is having a guaranteed material existence.

    Many authors, as different in time and intellectual hinterland as Aristotle and Marx, had no doubt that wage labor is “a limited servitude.” Marx spoke of the alienation of wage labor because, he said, as soon as there is no physical or any other kind of coercion, one flees from labor like the plague.

    Many think employment has special virtues: the most frequent being a sense of identity and contribution to the community, the dignity it confers, and a structuring of time, among others. A lot of things are mixed up in these statements. Job loss usually leads to terrible situations such as the loss of a home due to the impossibility of paying rent, as well as to serious depression and general deterioration of mental health, even to a sense of loss of identity. There is no doubt about it.

    Drawing the conclusion that people are less “happy” than when they did have a job is also defensible. Losing a job due to arbitrary corporate power, to a general or sectoral economic crisis — or for any other reason outside the newly unemployed person’s own will — is not going to make that person happier. That’s obvious, trivial even. But only to this extent can we relate involuntary job loss to unhappiness.

    If someone is faced with the choice of having a horrible paying job or a miserable life because of the lack of said job, it is easy to understand why they’d choose the former option.

    AF: Has there been resistance from the unions?

    DR: A lot. And there still is. There are exceptions and perhaps some cracks are opening up in unions’ monolithism against the UBI. We will see. I have been a member of a union for forty-five years, I have participated in union leadership and work councils for many years in the past, so I think I know this world very well. Over recent decades I’ve seen all sorts of arguments, I think I can summarize them as followed.

    It is argued, against UBI, that trade unions would lose strength because it would weaken their potential for collective action — although it is accepted that the UBI increases workers’ individual bargaining power. It is customary to add that the UBI could be used as a pretext to dismantle the welfare state, mainly public education and health care. It has also been argued that employers would exert pressure to reduce wages, since they would argue that part of their salaries would be covered by the UBI. Another argument is that, being a proposal that uncouples material existence from employment and the rights linked to it, UBI is unacceptable for the world of trade unionism — which, after all, makes work central to its worldview.

    The UBI — another objection from trade unionists maintains — could numb or appease the working class’s capacity for struggle by assuring it a minimum existence. This would mean that employers could make and unmake their plans with less trouble; this, in turn, would result in greater exploitation of the working class because the passivity that the UBI would bring would end up damaging their wage and social-welfare conditions. Finally, another trade union objection is that what we need to be standing for is full employment: giving people paid work is the right solution because that is what gives us dignity, and all the rest is mere palliatives.

    As I have answered this last objection already, I will briefly respond to the various others. The fact that individual bargaining power increases does not mean that collective bargaining power should suffer. In case of a long strike, a UBI could act as a resistance fund: a long strike is very difficult to sustain without a resistance fund because of the significant loss of wages in direct proportion to the number of days on strike.

    On the alleged dismantling of the welfare state. The right-wing advocates of the UBI do seek to dismantle the welfare state in exchange for UBI, but the left-wing advocates of the UBI seek a redistribution of income from the richest to the rest of the population and the maintenance, and even the strengthening, of the welfare state. Mixing the very different and opposing ways of defending the UBI of the Right and the Left is perhaps a propagandistic way of confusing the debate, but it has little to do with a rational and sincere discussion.

    It’s obvious that employers will bid to try to reduce wages using UBI. Or rather, they’ll seek to do that whether or not UBI is there. But that is part of what in times past was called, and in today’s times should be called, class struggle.

    AF: In Jacobin Michal Rozworski asked what the ultimate point of UBI was. I pass his question over to you: if there were a social movement broad and strong enough to implement an UBI, wouldn’t it make more sense to make much more ambitious demands?

    DR: The UBI is not a socialist program, nor is it a whole economic policy. In the face of any proposal for improvement, one can always say that it is insufficient and that it does not put an end to capitalism, for example. Or that it is possible to go further. That is irrefutable.

    But let me make a general comment.

    The UBI is a reform of the currently existing capitalism, it is not a measure that would do away with it.

    A capitalism like the present one, with a UBI, would undoubtedly still be capitalism, but it would be a capitalism notably different from the capitalism we know today.

    With the Fordist pact the working classes gave up control over production in favor of ex-post, conditional measures. They did that in a capitalism very different from today’s. I think that the UBI would allow the working class and the vast majority of women to significantly increase their bargaining power. Because by unconditionally guaranteeing people’s social existence, a UBI would enable the ability to “say no” to crappy jobs. For those who stand for freedom, this increase in bargaining power is something that alone deserves to be defended.

    ______________________________________________________

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Daniel Raventós is a professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Barcelona.

    ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER: Àngel Ferrero is a journalist and translator, and a regular contributor to Público, El Salto, and Catarsi magazine.

    The post Basic Income Will Increase Workers’ Bargaining Power appeared first on Basic Income Today.

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • ‘We’re not sending our daughters to be punching bags at uni,’ says PNG union

    Asia Pacific Report newsdesk

    Students of the University of PNG have taken the right step to demand that the authorities address harassment on campus, says the women’s wing of the Papua New Guinea Trade Union Congress.

    Wilma Kose, leader of the wing, said the protest was the right thing to do as it would demand remedial action by the authorities.

    She said the authorities must now inform the public on what action had been taken to address the issue.

    “The prevalence of harassment of the girls and mothers, left unattended for so long, has become a major hindrance to development progress,” she said.

    “As a public institution for all Papua New Guineans which is largely funded by workers — half of which are women — we demand drastic action and responses from the university administration, Department of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology and authorities who should be concerned about such behaviour.”

    Kose said girls and women who progressed to tertiary levels of education had earned their places by merit and deserved respect.

    “We are not sending our daughters, our sisters or our mothers to be someone else’s punching bag to get harassed and assaulted,” she said.

    Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • ‘Enough is enough’: blaze engulfs ‘Grenfell-style’ London tower block

    More than 100 firefighters tackled a blaze that ripped through a 19-storey London tower block. It’s believed to be covered in “Grenfell-style” flammable cladding. So, people are already asking how the government allowed this to happen. And a Grenfell survivors group has said “enough is enough”.

    New Providence Wharf

    As PA reported, on Friday 7 May residents called the London Fire Brigade (LFB) to the New Providence Wharf development. It’s near Canary Wharf in Poplar, East London. The LFB said 100 firefighters and 20 engines were at the scene of the fire, which engulfed three floors:

    Pictures and videos on social media show part of the building engulfed in flames, with thick grey smoke pouring out of the block several stories high:

    People also shared footage reportedly filmed inside New Providence Wharf during the fire:

    PA reported that the LFB said:

    The brigade was called at 0855. Fire crews from Poplar, Millwall, Shadwell, Plaistow, Whitechapel and surrounding fire stations are at the scene.

    The cause of the fire is not known at this stage.

    By 12:40pm, the LFB said the fire was “under control”. It also said that:

    Two men have been taken to hospital suffering smoke inhalation. A further 38 adults & four children have been treated at the scene… for shock & smoke inhalation.

    But crucially, people have said that the tower had the same flammable cladding as Grenfell.

    Another Grenfell?

    PA reported that one resident said on Instagram:

    When your building has the same cladding as Grenfell Tower. Oh my god.

    LBC journalist Rachael Venables said the same:

    As did Inside Housing‘s Jack Simpson:

    Also, one local resident claimed that the tower block had “walking fire wardens” for a “couple of weeks” prior to the fire. And as Simpson tweeted, people had known about the potential danger at New Providence Wharf for “over two years”:

    Local MP Apsana Begum said similar:

    And Venables said that:

    work to remove the cladding was due to start THIS week, and finish in March 2022.

    “Shame this government”

    The fire comes just days after the government’s post-Grenfell fire safety laws. Campaigners argue they could leave leaseholders paying tens of thousands of pounds to remove cladding on their buildings.

    General secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) Matt Wrack said in a statement:

    It should shame this government that four years on from Grenfell there are people across the country living in buildings wrapped in flammable cladding. …

    The pace of removing flammable cladding has been glacial and it’s putting people’s lives at risk.

    So, some people called for a legal class action:

    “Enough is enough”

    Meanwhile, survivor group Grenfell United said in a statement:

    We are horrified by the news of the fire at the New Providence Wharf today. When will the government take this scandal seriously? Enough is enough. The Government promised to remove dangerous cladding by June 2020 it has completely failed its own target and every day that goes by lives are at risk. Today more people have lost their homes in another terrifying fire.

    The Government needs to treat this as an emergency and stop stonewalling residents who are raising concerns. No more games, no more excuses. We’ve said all along that another tragedy is waiting to happen unless this crisis is dealt with properly and swiftly. Our thoughts are with those affected.

    PA approached building developer Ballymore for comment.

    Additional reporting and featured image via Press Association 

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Police arrest 15 Papuan students at peaceful May Day rally in Jakarta

    By Yogi Ernes in Jakarta

    Indonesian police have seized 15 Papuan students among scores arrested at a May Day rally in central Jakarta on the ground that they did not have a permit to demonstrate.

    “Yes, 15 people were secured and taken to the Metro Jaya regional police [headquarters]. They wanted to protest without a permit,” said Metro Jaya regional police spokesperson Senior Commissioner Yusri Yunus.

    The students were arrested yesterday as they marched past the US Embassy on Jl Medan Merdeka Selatan in central Jakarta. They were taken to the Metro Jaya headquarters.

    According to Yunus, when they were questioned by officers at the location, the Papuan students were unable to produce a permit for the action.

    Yunus said that the 15 students were not carrying any suspicious objects and because of this they had now been sent home.

    “We’ve now sent them home. Earlier we just collected data on them,” said Yunus.

    The rallies in Jakarta were centred on the Horse Statue area.

    Thousands took to streets
    Thousands of workers from various different trade unions took to the streets to convey their aspirations.

    The workers took up a number of demands, one of which was cancelling the Job Creation Law which they say harms workers.

    CNN Indonesia reports that up to 300 people were arrested in rallies near the Horse Statue and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) offices in central Jakarta.

    The figures on the arrests were obtained by summarising statements made by police up until the May Day actions ended at 5.05 pm.

    The first arrests were the 15 Papuan students.

    Following this, police arrested 12 anarchists.

    Senior Commissioner Yunus said that the group was arrested as they wanted to join protesting workers in front of the ILO office.

    “12 young anarchists were arrested,” said Yunus.

    Yunus said they were arrested because it was suspected that they wanted to “create a riot” during the labour protests.

    “As is usual with them there were suspicions they wanted to create a riot, so we secured them, we questioned them”, said Yunus.

    Thirty students from the Indonesian Association of Catholic Students (PMKRI) were also arrested.

    Central Jakarta District police deputy chief Assistant Superintendant Setyo Koes Hariyanto said the students were arrested as they tried to incite chaos by setting fire to tyres.

    Women protesters arrested
    In Medan, North Sumatra, CNN Indonesia reports that Medan metropolitan district police (Polrestabes) arrested 14 protesters seven women and seven men – the from the People’s Resistance Alliance for the Destruction of Tyranny.

    Medan Legal Aid Foundation (LBH) labour and urban poor division head Maswan Tambak said there were no grounds for the repressive action by police against the peaceful protest.

    In addition, the protesters did not violate covid-19 health protocols.

    Protesters from the Medan People and Workers Accumulation of Anger Alliance (AKBR) acused rogue police officers of intimidating and sexually harassing them.

    “There were police who recorded demonstrators by sticking their mobile phones in the face of women protesters. It really wasn’t ethical, and we consider that threatening,” said the founder of Women Today (PHI), Lusty Ro Manna Malau.

    “The actions of these rogue police cannot be allowed to become normalised.”

    Translated by James Balowski for Indoleft News. The original title of the article was “Polisi Amankan 15 Mahasiswa Papua di Demo Hari Buruh di Jakarta”.

    Print Friendly, PDF & Email

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Police arrest 15 Papuan students at peaceful May Day rally in Jakarta

    By Yogi Ernes in Jakarta

    Indonesian police have seized 15 Papuan students among scores arrested at a May Day rally in central Jakarta on the ground that they did not have a permit to demonstrate.

    “Yes, 15 people were secured and taken to the Metro Jaya regional police [headquarters]. They wanted to protest without a permit,” said Metro Jaya regional police spokesperson Senior Commissioner Yusri Yunus.

    The students were arrested yesterday as they marched past the US Embassy on Jl Medan Merdeka Selatan in central Jakarta. They were taken to the Metro Jaya headquarters.

    According to Yunus, when they were questioned by officers at the location, the Papuan students were unable to produce a permit for the action.

    Yunus said that the 15 students were not carrying any suspicious objects and because of this they had now been sent home.

    “We’ve now sent them home. Earlier we just collected data on them,” said Yunus.

    The rallies in Jakarta were centred on the Horse Statue area.

    Thousands took to streets
    Thousands of workers from various different trade unions took to the streets to convey their aspirations.

    The workers took up a number of demands, one of which was cancelling the Job Creation Law which they say harms workers.

    CNN Indonesia reports that up to 300 people were arrested in rallies near the Horse Statue and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) offices in central Jakarta.

    The figures on the arrests were obtained by summarising statements made by police up until the May Day actions ended at 5.05 pm.

    The first arrests were the 15 Papuan students.

    Following this, police arrested 12 anarchists.

    Senior Commissioner Yunus said that the group was arrested as they wanted to join protesting workers in front of the ILO office.

    “12 young anarchists were arrested,” said Yunus.

    Yunus said they were arrested because it was suspected that they wanted to “create a riot” during the labour protests.

    “As is usual with them there were suspicions they wanted to create a riot, so we secured them, we questioned them”, said Yunus.

    Thirty students from the Indonesian Association of Catholic Students (PMKRI) were also arrested.

    Central Jakarta District police deputy chief Assistant Superintendant Setyo Koes Hariyanto said the students were arrested as they tried to incite chaos by setting fire to tyres.

    Women protesters arrested
    In Medan, North Sumatra, CNN Indonesia reports that Medan metropolitan district police (Polrestabes) arrested 14 protesters seven women and seven men – the from the People’s Resistance Alliance for the Destruction of Tyranny.

    Medan Legal Aid Foundation (LBH) labour and urban poor division head Maswan Tambak said there were no grounds for the repressive action by police against the peaceful protest.

    In addition, the protesters did not violate covid-19 health protocols.

    Protesters from the Medan People and Workers Accumulation of Anger Alliance (AKBR) acused rogue police officers of intimidating and sexually harassing them.

    “There were police who recorded demonstrators by sticking their mobile phones in the face of women protesters. It really wasn’t ethical, and we consider that threatening,” said the founder of Women Today (PHI), Lusty Ro Manna Malau.

    “The actions of these rogue police cannot be allowed to become normalised.”

    Translated by James Balowski for Indoleft News. The original title of the article was “Polisi Amankan 15 Mahasiswa Papua di Demo Hari Buruh di Jakarta”.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The shocking numbers of insecure workers who died of coronavirus

    Insecure workers died of coronavirus (Covid-19) at twice the rate of people in other jobs. That’s the finding of new research into the pandemic. It’s shone a damning light not only into the government’s response but also the state of employment in the UK more broadly.

    Insecure jobs

    The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has researched how the pandemic impacted insecure workers. It says these are people whose:

    contract does not guarantee regular hours or income (including zero-hours contracts, agency work and casual work) or… are in low-paid self-employment (earning less than the government’s National Living Wage). In total, this is one in nine in of those in work.

    But as the TUC said, insecure work is not just people like app-based taxi drivers. It said that the following percentages of workers were in insecure jobs:

    • 15.6% of people in “caring, leisure and other service roles”.
    • 18.4% of those in “elementary roles, such as security guards, taxi drivers and shop assistants”.
    • 17.2% of “process, plant and machine operatives”.
    Working chaos UK

    A lot of what the TUC found about the pandemic and insecure work was unsurprising. For example:

    • Between those the government ‘excluded‘ and people who didn’t get help for other reasons, some three million people missed out on any kind of coronavirus support.
    • In April 2020, two million people were not getting the minimum wage. Of these, 1.3 million were on furlough.
    • Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) was not fit for purpose. 1.8 million employees had no entitlement to it. 70% of these were women. A third of people on zero hours contracts could not get SSP versus 6% of all employees.
    Care workers hit hard

    Care workers were particularly hard-hit. For example, the government put in place the Adult Social Care Infection Control Fund. It was worth over £1.1bn. The fund was for care companies. Part of it was to pay staff who had to stay off work due to coronavirus. But as the TUC wrote:

    a UNISON survey of care workers revealed the money did not get through to workers, with more than two fifths (44%) saying their employer is offering just statutory sick pay (SSP) of £95.85. Around one in 12 (8%) workers say they and colleagues were not paid at all if they needed to stay at home.

    Overall, the TUC also said marginalised communities bore the brunt of this.

    Marginalising the marginalised

    It’s research found that the following percentages of people are in insecure work:

    • 7.1% of women versus 6% of men.
    • 16% of BAME workers versus 10% of white workers.
    • 12.1% of BAME women versus 6.4% of white women and 5.5% of white men.

    Also, bosses are more likely to employ disabled people on zero hours contracts (3.8%) than non-disabled people (3.1%).

    But it’s the death toll of coronavirus on insecure workers which is particularly shocking.

    Shocking coronavirus death figures

    The TUC found that insecure workers were more likely to have died from coronavirus. It noted that the death rates were:

    • 51 per 100,000 for men in insecure work. This is versus 24 in 100,000 in “less insecure” work.
    • 25 per 100,000 for women in insecure work. This is versus 13 in 100,000 in “less insecure” work.

    In short, the coronavirus death rate for insecure workers was double the national average. The TUC noted that the more insecure the industry, the higher the coronavirus death rate was:

    Coronavirus deaths by occupation

    The TUC wouldn’t commit to why the rates were higher in insecure work. But it did note that:

    many of these occupations include work outside the home and that many insecure workers lack decent sick pay.

    In other words, people in insecure industries had no choice but to go to work in the middle of a global pandemic. Despite the risks, they could not afford to protect themselves and their families fully from coronavirus.

    Change is needed

    As the TUC summed up:

    The pandemic has exposed the lack of dignity that many insecure workers face. Society relies on these workers to carry out vital roles such as caring for sick people and delivering vital food and other services. In return, a significant number of these workers will have no job or income security.

    It says that three things need to change:

    • “Increasing and enhancing sick pay entitlement”.
    • “New rights for workers to benefit from the protection that collective bargaining brings”.
    • “A ban on zero-hours contracts”.

    After such a devastating time for so many workers, you’d hope the government would listen. Whether it will or not remains to be seen.

    Featured image via the TUC

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Deliveroo riders strike as the fat cats try to make a killing

    Deliveroo workers have gone on strike, just as the company joined the stock market. It was, of course, a game of two halves: workers fighting for rights; fat cat investors attempting to make a killing.

    Everybody out… on your bikes

    Deliveroo workers held protests in cities across the UK: from London, York and Sheffield via Reading and Wolverhampton. The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) is repping the Deliveroo workers. It noted a report which stated:

    major health and safety concerns including but not limited to poor COVID-19 protections. It also highlights pay well below minimum wage, with many riders earning as little as £2 per hour and points to the rise in litigation and industrial action against the company.

    So, on 7 April Deliveroo workers made some noise.

    Striking for basic rights

    There was a sizeable demo in London:

    MPs showed their support:

    And people were also urging the public not to order from Deliveroo on 7 April:

    IWGB president Alex Marshall, who is a former bicycle courier, said:

    Deliveroo presents a false choice between flexibility and basic rights but the Uber ruling showed that, here as well as abroad, workers can have both.

    That is the least they deserve and what the public expects for our frontline workers.

    But so far, Deliveroo itself has been scornful. It’s dismissed workers’ concerns. It called IWGB a “self-appointed union”. And it said that the majority of its workers were “happy”. Of course, it’s of little wonder the company was so barbed about its striking workers. Because its trading on the stock market hasn’t gone according to plan.

    Money talks

    IWGB said on its website the strike coincided:

    with… [Deliveroo’s] Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange.

    That is, the company was open to anyone buying its shares for the first time. Press Association (PA) reported that Deliveroo saw shares increase by more than 3% to 290p in early trading on Wednesday, before edging back slightly.

    But as PA noted, shares are still around 28% below their launch price of 390p per share, which would have valued the business at £7.6bn. As of midday on Wednesday, the company had a market value of around £5.3bn.

    Of course, it’s not worker’s pay and conditions that’s primarily spooking investors.

    Worker’s rights? Who cares?

    PA said that leading fund managers largely said that the primary cause of their caution was its shareholder structure, which will give significant power to its founder Will Shu in shareholder votes.

    Surprise, surprise. Who cares about workers’ rights when there’s money to be made? But it doesn’t have to be this way. As IWGB said:

    The company’s main competitor Just Eat already declared its intention to abandon the gig economy model of ‘bogus self-employment.’ Other courier corporations [like Uber] have been compelled to do so by courts in the UK and victories against Deliveroo are being won in courts abroad.

    So, will Deliveroo back down? Or is the power of the shareholders too strong? Given its less-than inspiring stock market performance, Deliveroo may well make changes to how it operates in a bid to earn more money. But don’t immediately expect workers’ rights to be part of this.

    Additional reporting and featured image via Press Association

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • A socialist candidate will give away his councillor allowance if elected

    A candidate in the May local elections has pledged to give away his councillor allowance if elected. But the potential politician’s platform is also one with which many people could get on board. Because the coalition he’s standing with could be a potential new home for countless Jeremy Corbyn supporters who feel Labour is now letting them down.

    Meet TUSC

    The Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) has been going since 2010. As its website states, it was:

    co-founded by the late Bob Crow, with the primary goal of enabling trade unionists, community campaigners and socialists to stand candidates against pro-austerity establishment politicians.

    Under Britain’s election laws candidates can only appear on the ballot paper as an ‘Independent’ if they are not endorsed by a registered political party. That doesn’t allow trade unionists or local anti-cuts campaigners to distinguish themselves as standing for something different to the mainstream. But using the TUSC name does.

    It’s steering committee is made of members. It also includes reps from both Chris Williamson’s Resist movement, the Socialist Party, and the RMT union.

    Beating the Tories

    Former Labour MP Dave Nellist currently leads TUSC as its national chair. The coalition has had some success. It states:

    Since 2010 hundreds of candidates have stood under the TUSC umbrella, polling over 375,000 votes.

    A few have won council seats – while the TUSC candidate for Liverpool mayor in 2016 polled 4,950 votes (5.1%), coming in ahead of the Tories. This was the second time that TUSC has outpolled the Tories, the governing party, in a Mayoral election in Britain’s eighth biggest city. TUSC candidates’ average vote in local elections has been around 5%, despite a general media blackout.

    Now, in North Tyneside TUSC is fielding another candidate. And this one’s agenda is particularly eye-catching. William Jarrett is an NHS worker. He’s standing in the city’s Riverside ward in North Shields. So, as part of our #MeetTheMovement series, The Canary caught up with Jarrett. We discussed TUSC, his bold agenda, and whether or not former Labour voters could find a new home in the organisation.

    Working class “centrality”

    Jarrett isn’t new to TUSC. He’s been heavily involved in it for several years, and he’s clear on why he found a home with the coalition:

    I’ve stood for TUSC once before, so it isn’t my first rodeo! What drew me to it was the appeal of something other than broken Labour, and that was in 2014. It’s something which celebrates the centrality of the working class and its organized movement as the sole agency to deliver genuine and socialist change.

    TUSC has a fairly clear approach to politics. It allows people who share its views to stand as a candidate under its banner. It says that it lets candidates have “autonomy” over their campaigns, but they have to commit to TUSC’s core policies. Some of these include:

    • “Oppose all cuts and closures to council services, jobs, pay and conditions”.
    • “Reject council tax, rent and service charge increases for working class people to make up for cuts in central funding”.
    • “Vote against the privatisation of council jobs and services, or the transfer of existing council services to social enterprises or ‘arms-length’ management organisations which are the first steps to their privatisation”.
    Councils left, right, and centre

    Jarrett says that TUSC “has grown exponentially” since its launch. It’s fielding over 330 candidates in May’s local election. On top of its core policies, Jarrett told The Canary that there’s an overriding drive in the movement to create something bigger. This is based around council budgets:

    This is a local election campaign, so of utmost priority to us is council budgets. We won’t tolerate the ‘heavy hearts’ and ‘reluctantly no other choice’ rhetoric of any parties implementing cuts; those which have set us back a generation of more. We’re action-not-talk socialists, the genuine red article. We’ll build campaigns with council unions and any allies who’ll stand with us for needs budgets using all powers available, from use of reserves to prudential borrowing, and working alongside other socialist local authorities to fight this rotten Tory government until they relent. And, they will. It’s happened before and we’ll do it again.

    TUSC is also all about local issues.

    Localism

    Many candidates have a sharp knowledge of the area they’re standing in. None more so than Jarrett, who told The Canary that one thing angers him most about the situation in North Shields:

    When I first became a shop steward at the council I read a North Tyneside Council study which shook me to my core. It revealed that life expectancy from affluent and leafy Front Street in Tynemouth to Waterville Road in North Shields, very near where I live, drops by 11 years. That horrified me. It also made perfect sense however. This town has been decimated by Toryism and same-same, Blairite-riddled and cuts-bedevilled local Labour.

    This is endemic of a national problem. The life expectancy gap between rich and poor has widened in recent years. It’s now 9.3 years for men in the most deprived areas and 7.5 years for women.

    Jarrett’s campaign is also led by a fairly groundbreaking central pledge.

    Anti-allowance

    Councils and the government don’t pay local councillors. Instead, they get an allowance for their time and expenses. The amount varies wildly. For example, in 2018/19 the highest allowance was in Manchester (£16,926). The lowest allowance was in Torbay (£687). But this doesn’t matter to Jarrett. Because he’s going to give his allowance away. He told The Canary:

    My political heroes are labour movement and socialist titans like TUSC’s national chair… Nellist, Terry Fields, Pat Wall, Matt Wrack of the FBU and Steve Hedley of the RMT. These were workers who went to parliament and still only accepted the wage of a skilled worker in order to identify with and relate to constituents. With so many out of work and an economy tanked by Covid capitalism, I won’t accept a penny. I’m fortunate to work in a reasonably secure job. I’ll donate the lot to strike funds and other good causes to demonstrate my sincerity to local people and to keep it real. Careerism is abhorrent. We’ve got councillors who are landlords.

    Real working people

    Jarret also told The Canary that TUSC welcomes independent candidates with open arms:

    Yes to independents by all means but especially yes to collectivism and getting organized. That’s the beauty of TUSC. As long as someone agrees our eight point minimal socialist programme, then they’re in. They can expand on it or promote other policies the other groups haven’t promoted which will go further. The all-important element is socialist unity. March separately, strike together.

    And he said in his area TUSC is fielding a handful of candidates who are all actual working people:

    My fellow candidates are just amazing. They represent every spectrum of work. We’ve got a taxi driver; a nurse; a blacklisted shop steward; a care worker; a mental health worker and a hospital porter. We’re all in unions. We’re all socialists. And whichever group we’re from we’re working like a well-tuned machine to create a socialist alternative in this beautiful but forgotten and neglected community.

    But there’s no getting away from the fact that voters largely ignore local elections.

    The “largest constituency”: non-voters

    Turnout at local elections is consistently low. For example, in 2018 it was just under 35%. This is versus a 67.3% turnout at the 2019 general election. Yet as Voting Counts noted, local elections are important:

    Your local council has an impact on many of the services you see and use every day, including housing, transport and public spaces. Choices made by the council will have visible impacts on your community

    Jarrett recognises the disenfranchisement. And he understands it. But he told The Canary he’d urge non-voters to look at TUSC:

    I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t vote in local elections. Who could? Look at the ghouls and opportunists occupying council chambers; balancing budgets on the broken backs of working class communities. No, we want precisely those people, by far the largest constituency nationally, to vote for us. And they can stand as TUSC candidates too. We aren’t conventional politicians. We’re the ones fighting to get rid of them all. And we’ll deliver the results which austerity parties faintly and falsely only ever promise.

    TUSC appears to be a real socialist alternative. Since Corbyn’s departure, the actual left wing of Labour is looking increasingly politically homeless. So TUSC and its values could well be a new political home for many current and former Labour members. You can find out more about supporting or joining TUSC as a member here.

    A new political home?

    If you’re reading this and feel lost in your current political party, Jarrett has a message for you:

    We did everything we possibly could to support Corbyn and orient toward his movement while crucially maintaining our political independence. If people supported Jeremy but recognise the need to go further, to press on, and to be as ruthless with this system as it will require to dispose of the old exploiters and oppressors with a fully anti-austerity and socialist fight from the bottom up, then we’re your candidates. We won’t compromise with any austerity parties. We’ll turn their old world upside down to suit us, the workers and youth.

    Lots of people seek new political homes since Labour linked up with Tories to plunge knives in to Corbyn. To these newly politically homeless people I say: come on in. You’ll be among like-minded friends; people like you who want the best for the working class. And we will go to any length to fight to ensure they receive it.

    Jarrett is a forthright, grassroots, and people-focused candidate. Moreover, in the age of career politicians and parties that change like the weather, TUSC seems to be a constant force for socialism in the UK’s democratic landscape. It will be interesting to see how the coalition fairs at the local elections in May.

    Featured image via TUSC and William Jarrett

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • A socialist candidate will give away his councillor allowance if elected

    A candidate in the May local elections has pledged to give away his councillor allowance if elected. But the potential politician’s platform is also one with which many people could get on board. Because the coalition he’s standing with could be a potential new home for countless Jeremy Corbyn supporters who feel Labour is now letting them down.

    Meet TUSC

    The Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) has been going since 2010. As its website states, it was:

    co-founded by the late Bob Crow, with the primary goal of enabling trade unionists, community campaigners and socialists to stand candidates against pro-austerity establishment politicians.

    Under Britain’s election laws candidates can only appear on the ballot paper as an ‘Independent’ if they are not endorsed by a registered political party. That doesn’t allow trade unionists or local anti-cuts campaigners to distinguish themselves as standing for something different to the mainstream. But using the TUSC name does.

    It’s steering committee is made of members. It also includes reps from both Chris Williamson’s Resist movement, the Socialist Party, and the RMT union.

    Beating the Tories

    Former Labour MP Dave Nellist currently leads TUSC as its national chair. The coalition has had some success. It states:

    Since 2010 hundreds of candidates have stood under the TUSC umbrella, polling over 375,000 votes.

    A few have won council seats – while the TUSC candidate for Liverpool mayor in 2016 polled 4,950 votes (5.1%), coming in ahead of the Tories. This was the second time that TUSC has outpolled the Tories, the governing party, in a Mayoral election in Britain’s eighth biggest city. TUSC candidates’ average vote in local elections has been around 5%, despite a general media blackout.

    Now, in North Tyneside TUSC is fielding another candidate. And this one’s agenda is particularly eye-catching. William Jarrett is an NHS worker. He’s standing in the city’s Riverside ward in North Shields. So, as part of our #MeetTheMovement series, The Canary caught up with Jarrett. We discussed TUSC, his bold agenda, and whether or not former Labour voters could find a new home in the organisation.

    Working class “centrality”

    Jarrett isn’t new to TUSC. He’s been heavily involved in it for several years, and he’s clear on why he found a home with the coalition:

    I’ve stood for TUSC once before, so it isn’t my first rodeo! What drew me to it was the appeal of something other than broken Labour, and that was in 2014. It’s something which celebrates the centrality of the working class and its organized movement as the sole agency to deliver genuine and socialist change.

    TUSC has a fairly clear approach to politics. It allows people who share its views to stand as a candidate under its banner. It says that it lets candidates have “autonomy” over their campaigns, but they have to commit to TUSC’s core policies. Some of these include:

    • “Oppose all cuts and closures to council services, jobs, pay and conditions”.
    • “Reject council tax, rent and service charge increases for working class people to make up for cuts in central funding”.
    • “Vote against the privatisation of council jobs and services, or the transfer of existing council services to social enterprises or ‘arms-length’ management organisations which are the first steps to their privatisation”.
    Councils left, right, and centre

    Jarrett says that TUSC “has grown exponentially” since its launch. It’s fielding over 330 candidates in May’s local election. On top of its core policies, Jarrett told The Canary that there’s an overriding drive in the movement to create something bigger. This is based around council budgets:

    This is a local election campaign, so of utmost priority to us is council budgets. We won’t tolerate the ‘heavy hearts’ and ‘reluctantly no other choice’ rhetoric of any parties implementing cuts; those which have set us back a generation of more. We’re action-not-talk socialists, the genuine red article. We’ll build campaigns with council unions and any allies who’ll stand with us for needs budgets using all powers available, from use of reserves to prudential borrowing, and working alongside other socialist local authorities to fight this rotten Tory government until they relent. And, they will. It’s happened before and we’ll do it again.

    TUSC is also all about local issues.

    Localism

    Many candidates have a sharp knowledge of the area they’re standing in. None more so than Jarrett, who told The Canary that one thing angers him most about the situation in North Shields:

    When I first became a shop steward at the council I read a North Tyneside Council study which shook me to my core. It revealed that life expectancy from affluent and leafy Front Street in Tynemouth to Waterville Road in North Shields, very near where I live, drops by 11 years. That horrified me. It also made perfect sense however. This town has been decimated by Toryism and same-same, Blairite-riddled and cuts-bedevilled local Labour.

    This is endemic of a national problem. The life expectancy gap between rich and poor has widened in recent years. It’s now 9.3 years for men in the most deprived areas and 7.5 years for women.

    Jarrett’s campaign is also led by a fairly groundbreaking central pledge.

    Anti-allowance

    Councils and the government don’t pay local councillors. Instead, they get an allowance for their time and expenses. The amount varies wildly. For example, in 2018/19 the highest allowance was in Manchester (£16,926). The lowest allowance was in Torbay (£687). But this doesn’t matter to Jarrett. Because he’s going to give his allowance away. He told The Canary:

    My political heroes are labour movement and socialist titans like TUSC’s national chair… Nellist, Terry Fields, Pat Wall, Matt Wrack of the FBU and Steve Hedley of the RMT. These were workers who went to parliament and still only accepted the wage of a skilled worker in order to identify with and relate to constituents. With so many out of work and an economy tanked by Covid capitalism, I won’t accept a penny. I’m fortunate to work in a reasonably secure job. I’ll donate the lot to strike funds and other good causes to demonstrate my sincerity to local people and to keep it real. Careerism is abhorrent. We’ve got councillors who are landlords.

    Real working people

    Jarret also told The Canary that TUSC welcomes independent candidates with open arms:

    Yes to independents by all means but especially yes to collectivism and getting organized. That’s the beauty of TUSC. As long as someone agrees our eight point minimal socialist programme, then they’re in. They can expand on it or promote other policies the other groups haven’t promoted which will go further. The all-important element is socialist unity. March separately, strike together.

    And he said in his area TUSC is fielding a handful of candidates who are all actual working people:

    My fellow candidates are just amazing. They represent every spectrum of work. We’ve got a taxi driver; a nurse; a blacklisted shop steward; a care worker; a mental health worker and a hospital porter. We’re all in unions. We’re all socialists. And whichever group we’re from we’re working like a well-tuned machine to create a socialist alternative in this beautiful but forgotten and neglected community.

    But there’s no getting away from the fact that voters largely ignore local elections.

    The “largest constituency”: non-voters

    Turnout at local elections is consistently low. For example, in 2018 it was just under 35%. This is versus a 67.3% turnout at the 2019 general election. Yet as Voting Counts noted, local elections are important:

    Your local council has an impact on many of the services you see and use every day, including housing, transport and public spaces. Choices made by the council will have visible impacts on your community

    Jarrett recognises the disenfranchisement. And he understands it. But he told The Canary he’d urge non-voters to look at TUSC:

    I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t vote in local elections. Who could? Look at the ghouls and opportunists occupying council chambers; balancing budgets on the broken backs of working class communities. No, we want precisely those people, by far the largest constituency nationally, to vote for us. And they can stand as TUSC candidates too. We aren’t conventional politicians. We’re the ones fighting to get rid of them all. And we’ll deliver the results which austerity parties faintly and falsely only ever promise.

    TUSC appears to be a real socialist alternative. Since Corbyn’s departure, the actual left wing of Labour is looking increasingly politically homeless. So TUSC and its values could well be a new political home for many current and former Labour members. You can find out more about supporting or joining TUSC as a member here.

    A new political home?

    If you’re reading this and feel lost in your current political party, Jarrett has a message for you:

    We did everything we possibly could to support Corbyn and orient toward his movement while crucially maintaining our political independence. If people supported Jeremy but recognise the need to go further, to press on, and to be as ruthless with this system as it will require to dispose of the old exploiters and oppressors with a fully anti-austerity and socialist fight from the bottom up, then we’re your candidates. We won’t compromise with any austerity parties. We’ll turn their old world upside down to suit us, the workers and youth.

    Lots of people seek new political homes since Labour linked up with Tories to plunge knives in to Corbyn. To these newly politically homeless people I say: come on in. You’ll be among like-minded friends; people like you who want the best for the working class. And we will go to any length to fight to ensure they receive it.

    Jarrett is a forthright, grassroots, and people-focused candidate. Moreover, in the age of career politicians and parties that change like the weather, TUSC seems to be a constant force for socialism in the UK’s democratic landscape. It will be interesting to see how the coalition fairs at the local elections in May.

    Featured image via TUSC and William Jarrett

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Disability hate crime on public transport has surged

    Government figures have shown a “shocking rise” in disability hate crime on trains. That’s the verdict of one union. It says this is a “wake-up call” over the erosion of the UK’s rail network. The stats also highlight the ongoing lack of true accessibility on public transport for disabled people.

    Disabled people: transport discrimination

    The Department for Transport (DfT) has released a set of statistics about disabled people’s access to transport in England in 2019/20. Overall, the figures show that non-disabled people still have better options than disabled people.

    For example, disabled people used buses and taxis more than non-disabled people:

    • Disabled people made 55% more trips by taxi.
    • They made 40% more trips by bus.

    When disabled people travelled by car, around a third of them were a passenger. This compares to a fifth for non-disabled people. It ties in with driving licence figures. The DfT found that of those aged 17-64:

    • 60% of disabled people held a driving licence. The figure was 78% for non-disabled people.

    Given the modifications that are available for cars, the number of disabled people with driving licences should be higher. The stats also revealed disabled people’s feelings about public transport.

    Less satisfied overall

    The DfT found that outside of London:

    • 47% of disabled people were “satisfied” with “overall transport and highways services”. The figure was 50% for non-disabled people.
    • 60% of disabled people/59% of non-disabled people were satisfied with local bus services
    • 67% of disabled people/65% of non-disabled people were satisfied with taxi services.
    • 52% of disabled people/51% of non-disabled people were satisfied with cycle facilities.
    • 46% of disabled people/56% of non-disabled people were satisfied with pavements and footpaths.

    Overall disabled people were less satisfied across the board on transport information:

    Disabled People Public Transport Information

    But looking at the DfT stats in more detail, certain problem areas emerge.

    Varying issues

    Taxis were one issue. In London, all black cabs were accessible. But outside the capital, the figure drops to 82%. Then, for licenced vehicles overall (for example, private hire firms) in London, only 17% were accessible. This dropped to just 10% outside the capital. Also, as the DfT noted, police in England and Wales prosecuted 32 cases of discrimination against disabled people by taxi drivers or firms. This was for the year ending 31 March 2019. These were for:

    • Assistance dog refusals.
    • Wheelchair user discrimination.

    The DfT said:

    The number of prosecutions have in general been increasing.

    Other modes of transport fared varyingly in terms of satisfaction:

    • 46% of disabled ferry passengers were satisfied.
    • 71% of passengers with “restricted mobility” rated airports “good or excellent”.
    Invisible illnesses

    Another figure stood out. It was about so-called “maritime” transport (cruise ships and ferries). The DfT said that:

    • Maritime transport satisfied 60% of disabled people living with visible impairments.
    • But only 42% of disabled people with invisible conditions were happy with it.

    It’s important to note this analysis of visible/invisible illnesses and impairments was not available for other transport. The government must give more insight into this area. Because 25% of disabled people live with a mental health condition. Also, a further 18% live with invisible conditions, illnesses, or impairments.

    Rail travel

    Crucially, disabled people’s satisfaction with rail was lower than non-disabled people’s. The biggest difference was in the steps between trains and platforms:

    Rail Satisfaction

    And it was on rail travel where hate crime saw a surge.

    Hate crime surging

    The DfT noted that:

    Between 2014 and 2016, the numbers of disability related hate crime incidents in England reported to the British Transport Police decreased by 37%…

    However, since 2016 the number of incidents has seen a slow but steady increase, increasing by 24%

    This fits with the bigger picture on disability hate crime in England and Wales. In 2019/20:

    • There were over 7,300 disability hate crimes.
    • But the police only charged 1.6% of these.
    • Cases of violence rose by 16% to 3,628.
    • Online hate crimes rose by 46%. They made up one in 10 of all reported ones.
    “Cost-cutting”

    On the rail network, the RMT union was clear why it thinks hate crime has risen. It blamed the:

    cost-cutting that has emptied staff from trains and stations

    The Canary previously reported on this. As we wrote in 2020:

    • Train companies only fully staffed 10% of UK stations.
    • They staffed 45% “some of the time”.
    • Train companies never staffed the other 45%.

    A similar thing has happened on board trains. So, it may be of little wonder that hate crime is up. Moreover, this could be why disabled people’s satisfaction with rail is lower than non-disabled people’s.

    As Labour MP Debbie Abrahams tweeted:

    So, it seems that while UK laws reflect the need for disabled people to have equal access to transport the reality is different. It’s clear that transport operators are still leaving disabled people disadvantaged. And the government also needs to do more to ensure equality is ensured across the country.

    Featured image via The Canary

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • 14 signs the UK is becoming a modern fascist state

    #FacistBritain has been trending on Twitter. But can we quantify whether the UK is descending into a modern, fascist state? Simply put: yes, we can.

    Fascism’s “defining characteristics”: nationalism and disregard for human rights

    Che Scott-Heron Newton tweeted how she believed fascism was “presenting in modern Britain”. She noted four areas. One was “Powerful and Continuing Nationalism”. In this instance, she gave the example of police protecting a Winston Churchill statue:

    Heron’s second example was:

    Disregard for human rights: people are more likely to approve of longer incarcerations of prisoners, look the other way

    She gave the example of the current furore of the so-called ‘Police Bill’. But the degradation of UK human rights has been ongoing for a long time. Back in 2016, the UN accused successive Tory-led governments of “grave” and “systematic” violations of sick and disabled people’s human rights. With the UK’s potential withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights, things will only get worse.

    The arts and crime

    Heron’s third point was:

    Disrespect towards intellectuals & the arts

    Tory attempts to clamp-down on universities ‘cancelling‘ far-right bigots from speaking forms part of this. Or, as The Canary‘s Maryam Jameela put it, the Tories attempt to ” quash dissent”. Then, you have the Tories’ attacks on “lefty lawyers” doing human rights work. Meanwhile, in recent years, they’ve also cut public arts funding by 35%.

    Finally, Heron said:

    Obsession with crime & punishment

    The recent Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (the ‘Police Bill’) is a case in point. As Liberty said, it includes:

    dangerous measures including restrictions on protest, new stop and search powers, a “Prevent-style” duty on knife crime, and a move to criminalise trespass.

    Also, the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill allows intelligence services to break the law on UK soil.

    So, Heron summed up some major indicators of fascism well. It was in-part based on historian Laurence Britt’s 2003 work on the signs of a fascist regime.

    Picking apart his remaining ten points, how does the UK look?

    Scapegoats and sexism

    Britt noted:

    Identification of enemies/scape-goats as a unifying cause.

    From immigrants to Muslims via disabled people, the UK establishment has always had “enemies” and “scape-goats”. Now, we’re seeing left-wing activists, Black Lives Matter and the “woke” being the target.

    Another point Britt said was:

    Rampant sexism.

    The recent clamping-down on vigils and protests in the wake of Sarah Everard’s murder is a chilling sign. Not that Tory misogyny is anything new. For example, just in the social security system you had the so-called ‘rape clause‘ and the benefit cap hitting lone mothers the hardest.

    The mass media and national security

    Britt also listed:

    A controlled mass media.

    The UK media is already controlled by a handful of right-wing billionaires. Now, with GB News, Rupert Murdoch’s News UK TV, former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre potentially heading-up the media regulator Ofcom, and a Tory donor being put in charge of the BBC – it’s going to get even more dystopian.

    Britt added:

    Obsession with national security.

    The Tories’ upping the cap on the number of nuclear weapons the UK can have is one example. Its review looking at left-wing “extremism” is another. Amnesty called the Investigatory Powers Act (which allowed mass surveillance) “among the most draconian in the EU”.

    The new religion and corporations

    Another marker of Britt’s was:

    Religion and ruling elite tied together.

    Flip this into capitalism being the new religion – the mantra that guides how we all live our lives – and it fits with Britt’s description of fascism being marked by a ‘manufactured perception’ “that opposing the power elite was tantamount to an attack on religion”. The Tories blocking of anti-capitalist teaching in schools sums this up.

    A crucial point of Britt’s was also:

    Power of corporations protected.

    This has been ongoing for decades. But it has reached a crescendo in recent years. The Tories allow big companies to pay tiny amounts of tax. Also, the revolving door between big business and big government is constantly open. As the Week wrote last year:

    Facebook has hired ten former UK government policy officials with insider knowledge of regulatory processes since the beginning of 2020, an investigation has found. …

    The new claims about the so-called “revolving door” between politics and the private sector come just a week after J.P. Morgan announced that former chancellor Sajid Javid has been appointed as a senior advisor to the banking giant.

    Suppressing labour and cronyism

    Britt then moved on to:

    Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.

    The Tories moves to restrict protest is a current example. And in 2015, The Tories put in place what the Guardian called the “biggest crackdown on trade unions for 30 years”. The gig economy helps this. And the consistently low minimum wage puts the power in the hands of the bosses.

    Perhaps Britt’s most recognisable point was:

    Rampant cronyism and corruption.

    This is the Tories all over; not least during the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. As Byline Times wrote on 16 March:

    A company owned by a Conservative Party donor has surpassed £200 million worth of Government contracts during the Coronavirus pandemic

    ‘Nuff said’.

    Election fraud

    Finally, Britt noted:

    Fraudulent elections.

    The 2015 election was marred by allegations of Tory election fraud. So was the EU referendum. The establishment corporate press helped get Boris Johnson into power in 2019. But the Tories are taking their election rigging agenda further. Our First Past The Post voting system has consolidated their power. And now, they’ll be rolling it out to all English elections. As City A.M. reported, in London Assembly elections this:

    would “wipe out” many smaller parties like the Liberal Democrats and The Green Party

    So, is all this truly fascism? On paper, the signs are there. But there’s probably a better name for it. And that is “corporate fascism”.

    “Corporate fascism”

    As Johanna Drucker wrote for Riot Material on the US under then-president Donald Trump:

    Fascism is defined as the alignment of power, nationalism, and authoritarian government. We are there. The power is capital linked to politics. Capital is not merely the currency of money, but a force with nearly animate capacity for agency. The nationalism is an inflammatory rhetoric that galvanizes affect from responses to actual conditions (the real erosion of social infrastructure) in combination with a fantasy of entitlement grounded in long-standing myths of American exceptionalism. And the authoritarianism is an increasingly evident fulfilment of the worst fears of the founding designers of Democracy, as its checks and balances are put aside in favor of the interests of corporate wealth and its beneficiaries as a grotesque populism feeds on lifestyle fantasies and delusional identification.

    Corporate fascism is wanton, virulent, and unregulated. Wanton because it has no regard for consequences (psycho-socio-political pathology is without constraints). Virulent because the full force of inflamed populism is fuelled by self-justified rage and unbounded triumphalism. Unregulated because the capital is now amassed in extreme concentrations of wealth without any controls. Corporate because Citizens United created the legal foundation for corporations to act with the same rights, privileges, and protections accorded to individuals, thus sanctifying the role of disproportionate power within a mythic construct of corporate entities.

    Johnson’s government is also using that MO. It’s no exaggeration to say that corporate fascism has been creeping into the UK for decades. And it now appears the situation is only going to get worse.

    Featured image via 10 Downing Street – YouTube

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Proposed free speech law will make English universities liable for breaches

    No-platformed speakers could get compensation under plans unveiled by Gavin Williamson

    The government is to introduce legislation that will enable academics, students or visiting speakers who are no-platformed to sue universities for compensation where they feel they have suffered because of free speech infringements.

    The proposal is one of a range of legal measures put forward by the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, as part of the government’s manifesto commitment to protect free speech and academic freedom in universities in England.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • 10 months of horror for students has taken a heavy toll on us

    In September 2020, the government decided that schools were safe to reopen.

    I remember my first day back. It was an hour bus journey from home to college, surrounded by passengers, some of them maskless. Then, entering school with face masks, only to have to take them off again in the classrooms. Here, there was no form of social distancing at all. This wasn’t our fault. It was a complete dereliction of duty from the government.

    Now, once again, we are learning from home and what our education will look like over the next few months is uncertain. But one thing is clear, the government’s multiple failures have caused this crisis. And it has had a massive impact on our education and wellbeing.

    Coronavirus UK: a monumental catastrophe

    In early 2020, the world started taking notice of this new coronavirus. Some countries shut their borders. Others ordered citizens to stay at home. But in the UK, life was the same. Buses were full. Underfunded and poorly-ventilated schools were rammed. And the wearing of face masks wasn’t even contemplated.

    These early failures in proper science-led decision making have had a devastating effect on the country. They’ve had a monumental impact on the economy. And they have caused an everlasting educational disadvantage to the poorest students in our society.

    The government dithered and delayed, before announcing the strict lockdown measures back in March 2020. Since then, they have consistently been behind the curve. This has caused the UK to have one of the worst death rates in Europe. But the effect on young people and their education has also been severe.

    Early failures

    It was late March. Pupils across the country were still expected to clamber onto busy buses. We had to head off into rammed classrooms with no social distancing at all; we had never even heard the phrase that has now painfully become our new normal. We were aware of the virus and the danger it posed. But we had no choice. School was a legal ‘must’, and with it came an abundance of anxiety and a wave of danger.

    Then, on 23 March the obvious was finally announced. At 8pm in an address to the nation, prime minister Boris Johnson said that schools, restaurants and all other non-essential businesses would be forced to close their doors for the foreseeable future; taking a hammer-blow to people’s livelihoods and children’s futures.

    The first period of online learning was a real shake-up. The structure was different. Our older teachers were unaware of how to use the technology. We live in Shropshire, so the internet was poor at times. And in some areas, there was no mandated time for actual teaching online. But this was only the start of the continuous problems for students across the UK. These problems especially hit the poorest students in our society.

    Myriad struggles for students

    Myriad struggles were fiercely inflicted upon us: the lack of devices available to access this new virtual education; the often crammed housing many students live in meant there wasn’t a designated area to sit and work, and the lack of free school meals funding may have negatively affected their concentration levels. All of this led to a lack of classwork completed; lack of revision, and a lack of understanding, all of which would negatively impact our educational attainment.

    The dithering and delaying also impacted on this. Johnson repeatedly U-turned over when students would go back to school, which stoked people’s anxiety and confused parents. But he then performed another one of the many U-turns his inept government has enacted over this bleak period. Exams were cancelled, and a now-notorious algorithm put in place to decide students’ results.

    Then, the summer arrived.

    A summer of discontent

    Teachers were still trying to figure out how to perform and maximise their capaicty. It is a situation which has changed nearly every aspect of their careers. Over the summer break, the lack of government resources and requirements again led to children not receiving work or having resources for their human right to education.

    And it got worse. We found out that that education secretary Gavin Williamson had not delivered on his vow to provide the promised number of laptops for the most disadvantaged students. This deepened the educational divide. And it allowed private schools to further overtake underfunded, understaffed and overworked state schools.

    August came, the month when exam-year students across England nervously waited to pick up their results. But this year, the situation was different. Pupils’ futures were in the balance of something unfamiliar, something new. This turned results day into one of widespread protests and embarrassing government U-turns.

    A rogue algorithm?

    It was 13 August. The day had finally arrived. A-Level grades were ready to be opened by thousands of eager teens across the country. But the day also laid bare the pure discrimination and contempt the Tories have for working people and poor communities. The grades were awarded by a cruelly mutant algorithm. It was assembled by the Department for Education (DfE) and manufactured by Williamson. And this algorithm crushed the hopes, aspirations and dreams of the poorest students in our society.

    It made sure that students from the richest areas of England, and those privately educated, got higher grades on average. Meanwhile, some pupils from the poorest areas and a swathe of state schools got considerably lower grades than the previous year’s averages. This essentially meant that pupils paid to get into university and college. It was a shocking, dehumanising approach.

    Protests filled Downing Street and cities across the country. Students were standing up to the establishment and demanding justice. Social media went into a frenzy; the government panicked as the ‘exams fiasco’ gained mass attention. The unification of these students under the call for equality was unbreakable. This led to another government U-turn; the Ofqual head resigned, teacher assessed grades were introduced for every student. Williamson just about clung on.

    The first leaves of autumn

    September arrived. With it came a grave amount of danger for spreading the virus, alongside unpreparedness and cohorts of students with gaping holes in their knowledge. Months without face-to-face learning and a lack of government requirements had taken their toll.

    Already, the students, teachers, unions and scientists knew that schools weren’t safe. They knew the risk of transmission was too high to contemplate. Yet despite this, and the sound recommendations of the National Education Union (NEU) and others, the government shamefully stuck to its plan for a normal opening of schools.

    Travelling to school on public transport. Sitting shoulder to shoulder with students in a classroom all day. Transport back home again. Then mixing with the wider community. All this with an already alarming R-rate. None of this should have been happening. But yet again, the government favoured the economy and prioritising getting parents back to work. All during a pandemic.

    Everyone inside schools – teachers, support staff and pupils – could tell this wasn’t going to end well.

    It was never going to end well

    In the run up to the Christmas holidays, cases were rising. More and more areas were put into stricter measures. The NHS was on the brink of collapse. Yet despite knowing this and the potential dangers of a new variant – Williamson still didn’t act. Instead, he threatened councils with legal proceedings if they took action to shut schools early for the Christmas break to stop the spread of the virus.

    Christmas mixing came and went.  The country again waited for clarification. Were schools going to open? Would there be a new national lockdown? Would exams be cancelled?

    Unions warned the government that reopening schools in January 2021 was dangerous. Staggered opening was announced for secondary schools. But the government pressed ahead with opening most primary schools on 4 January, claiming that it was safe to do so except in certain areas with high infection rates.

    Lockdown three

    Then, on the day primary schools were forced to open, the PM gave another address to the nation. He announced England was going back into a national lockdown. The government was closing schools until at least February half term. And it had cancelled exams for a second year. The relief was immense, knowing that we no longer had to risk our community’s lives to support the economy. Knowing that exams had finally been cancelled after almost a year of harsh disruption.

    Then, after the relief subsided, we quickly realised that, yet again, there was no clarity from the government. It hadn’t announced what was replacing exams, how they’d be graded and when we’d know this vital information. This is because there had been no preparation at all. There was no plan B. The government had no communication with the unions and teaching staff. And it gave no consideration to students, especially the poorer students who they’d screwed over throughout the pandemic.

    The future?

    In terms of exams, there have been reports of the DfE conjuring up ‘mini-exams’ for the 2021 cohort. If this is true, teachers and students will see this as a U-turn on another promise. The stress is unbearable; the anxiety is off the charts and the knowledge for exams severely lacking in detail due to online learning. Make no mistake: I agree with the government’s U-turns because I do not believe schools are safe. But the constant suggestions, deliberations and glimmers of hope constantly suggested are demoralising.

    I recently founded the group Young Socialists. Our education spokesperson says:

    If the proposals from Ofqual of mini-exams go ahead, once again an air of uncertainty will return. The government’s continuation of U-turns has made it difficult for teachers and students alike. Young Socialists will continue to fight to ensure there is an equal and fair way to assess all pupils.

    The government from now on must get its act together. It cannot re-open schools too quickly. It must constructively work with the unions and teachers. And it must take advice from students about our wishes and the way this crisis has impacted us. Schools can only open when it is extremely safe to do so. We cannot keep repeating these mistakes. It’s ripping families and communities apart.

    But if the government continues with its plan, it must take one thing into consideration. Students will fight back. There will be protests. Social media will blow up and the government will be forced into another embarrassing U-turn. Me and Young Socialists will be at the forefront of the campaign against them.

    Featured image via NeONBRAND – Unsplash 

    By Joshua Foster

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • SHORTEN’S END

    Twenty years ago, Trade Union legend Bill Ludwig introduced me to Bill Shorten, telling me that here was a young guy who was going places. Shorten and I met for coffee at Melbourne University where he was studying part time to get his MBA. I liked him and asked what were his future plans for his …

    Continue reading SHORTEN’S END

    This post was originally published on My Articles – Everald Compton.

  • TRUST FADES AWAY

    The Royal Commission on Banking has stirred Australians to the very core of our being. It has convinced us that TRUST no longer exists in our nation. Our sense of security is severely diminished, particularly among Senior Australians. This is understandable as, once upon a time, our local bank manager was a highly respected citizen. He was trusted to …

    Continue reading TRUST FADES AWAY

    This post was originally published on My Articles – Everald Compton.