Covid-19

The global pandemic in 2020.

Domestic violence spikes

Nine people died in domestic killings in Britain’s first week of lockdown, following a global trend of increased domestic violence during coronavirus quarantine. The low level of reporting makes statistics on domestic violence unreliable, but domestic violence deaths and police reports are going up. The government has responded saying women can leave their homes to seek help at a refuge, which ignores that many refuges are already struggling to meet need and that many access domestic violence services through something like their child’s school, children’s centre, or library. Sandra Horley CBE...

Threat to disabled people

Disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) are objecting to the lack of adequate healthcare, the loss of social care support, the erosion of rights – and the ominous attitude that disabled people are somehow less worthy of life. At the onset of the pandemic, assurances abounded that people need not worry too much, as the virus posed a serious threat only to the old and those with underlying health conditions. These people were “someone else” in messages directed to the “normal” population. Even now that it has become clear that everyone is in danger, disabled people remain more vulnerable, not...

The economics of "war"

Schools were shut down and requisitioned for other purposes. 140,000 patients were sent home from hospitals to “clear the decks” for a dramatic new influx. Millions of people were taken out of their ordinary jobs and sustained meagrely at government expense while not contributing to production. Alongside them, large numbers were unemployed, about 9% of the workforce. For the first six months unemployment rose because of the closing-down of many small businesses and the disruption of trade patterns. Other industries and services were run at emergency speed. The usual criteria of market signals...

Why still deliver junk mail?

Postal workers on strike - maintaining social distancing on the picket line - in Alloa, Scotland, over workplace safety and having to deliver junk mail (March 2020) The atmosphere in the workplace is strange. You can feel how on edge people are. There are markedly fewer workers in. I think between 50-60 people are off work. Non-driving staff were told not to come in, and people with underlying health conditions were told not to come in. However, some managers were coming in on Sundays, and were trying to get workers to come in on Sundays too to deliver backlogs of mail that had built up...

Diary of an engineer: Manual handling

This week I’ve felt like a thief going into work early on deserted streets. Workers are eager to chat (at a safe distance), getting in as much face-to-face human interaction as possible before we go home. One morning me and three operators spend an hour cracking jokes about the mysterious free pizza that came with the night shift’s takeaway curry. There have also been varying levels of anxiety, claustrophobia and fatigue. We’re on skeleton shifts – our teams reduced to one mechanic, one electrician and one apprentice, on 12-hour shifts, followed by three weeks off or on-call. The electrician...

The civil service in the crisis

We now have a civil-service wide agreement that all outsourced workers will be paid in full if their workplaces shut down, or they have to self isolate. We are awaiting confirmation they will receive full sick pay as well. The union has to be active in policing the agreement. There are agency staff in some government departments, doing processing and admin work, and the employer has agreed to furlough them on 80% pay if they have to self isolate etc. That’s better than nothing, as the risk was that their contracts would simply be terminated, but the union is pushing for those workers to be...

Work or full pay!

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

Empty the jails and detention centres!

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

Hunger in Italy

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

Bernie Sanders on the pandemic, 4 April 2020

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

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