Covid-19

The global pandemic in 2020.

Another look at Camus' The Plague

The Plague ( La Peste ), written by the French-Algerian Albert Camus in 1947, has, unsurprisingly, undergone a surge in sales in recent months (up 1,000 per cent). It was his best-selling novel, and is considered by some to be an allegory of the wartime occupation of France by the Nazis. It is set in the Algerian port of Oran where, at some unspecified time in the 1940s, there is an outbreak of bubonic plague. The disease spreads rapidly despite the efforts of Doctor Rieux (the main character) and a team of helpers. Eventually, after many months, thousands of deaths and severe quarantine...

Behind the mask

After weeks of dithering on the issue of masks, TfL has now issued a bulletin stating "there will be a face covering available to all front line colleagues, cleaners and bus drivers who are attending work and would like to wear one."

We can help but note the disparity between this and their...

Stop the Tories' back-to-work lurch!

On 10 May Boris Johnson called on construction and manufacturing bosses to force workers back into workplaces. Without union agreements for safe working. Without making PPE supplies adequate even for hospitals, GPs, and care homes, let alone for other workplaces. Without full isolation pay rights for workers. Without a track-and-trace policy for the virus even being sketched. Without a sustained drop in infections. Johnson dressed it up as "encouragement" to individuals to go into work. Furloughed workers in construction and manufacturing have not opted out individually. Their sites and...

When and how can schools re-open?

The debate about schools re-opening has intensified in the last week. It is clear that the government and their closest media friends have decided to ramp up the pressure to open. On April 30th Johnson let it be known that he would make a major announcement the following week on government plans to...

Keys and radios

Across the combine many stations use communal key docks and most station staff don't have their own radio. Without issuing any guidance on this the company still expects us to be alright with it.

Drivers and SRT already have their own radios as do others. Now is the time for LU to give everyone...

A Load of GLAP

Reports reach Tubeworker that some CSS and CSMs are asking CSAs to sit in the GLAP ("Gate Line Assistance Point") on rotation, in stations where the size of the control room and staff numbers mean staff can perfectly safely work from the control room whilst maintaining safe distancing from their...

Open letter to Keir Starmer

Keir! - In a round of media interviews on 5 May, you were asked about the government's plans for easing the lockdown and bringing workers back to work. While you mentioned that trade unions (“and businesses”, you were sure to add) have concerns about workplace safety, and pressed for the government to be “less vague”, you declined to take a firm stand in favour of workers' rights. Specifically, in this case, you declined to uphold the right not to have to work in unsafe conditions, even though that is actually a right in existing law ("Section 44"), and has been used in this emergency many...

Workers' control of reopening!

Workers in every industry and workplace must fight for the maximum degree of workers' control over the conditions under which any “return to work” takes place and under which services are resumed and increased. While this will necessitate “working with” employers in the sense of meeting with them to present our demands, and scrutinise their proposals, the basic stance we must fight for our unions to take is one of militant distrust and hostility to our bosses. This doesn't require a belief that every individual manager is a moustache-twirling villain, desperate to plot ways to harm workers; it...

The rollbacks so far

Above: the youngest school children are returning in Queensland, Australia A provisional “lockdown rollback” checklist compiled by researchers at Oxford University bit.ly/ready-rb puts the UK fourth from bottom among all the world’s countries for readiness to roll back lockdown measures. The detail of the list is unreliable, but daily deaths have gone down less than in other European countries which are “rolling back”. Daily new confirmed cases aren’t really going down. Supplies of PPE are still inadequate in the NHS and care homes, let alone in other places. Isolation pay rights are patchy...

Nationalism or class solidarity?

Fire Brigades Union activist and National Officer Riccardo la Torre (pictured above on an FBU solidarity delegation to Calais - on the left with his fist up) spoke to Sacha Ismail. Yesterday we had “Victory in Europe” day, and a lot of nationalism. What are your thoughts on it? Well, first off I’m angry that workers are dying because they’re at work and aren’t given proper protection, and yet the same “leaders” responsible want us waving Union Jacks. There’s immediate reasons to be angry too, because the day itself created a lot of unsafe conditions. I’ve seen blokes out selling Union Jacks...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.