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Tubeworker — 27/05/2020: Stand Firm Against Threatened Cuts

28 May 2020 |

Tubeworker

The latest edition of Tubeworker , a socialist industrial bulletin for London Underground workers, by London Underground workers. Click here to download the PDF.

Video: Crime and policing

27 May 2020

"Crime and policing" is the intro by a Workers' Liberty activist in the second of a five-part series of meetings "The state, crime, prisons and the police". Upcoming meetings in this series and beyond can be found here . Part one here . Video: */ See Workers' Liberty's channel for other videos and...

What is the state? An intro by Matt Cooper

Video: What is the state?

27 May 2020 |

Matt Cooper

"What is the state?" an introduction by Matt Cooper. This is part of "The ABCs of Marxism" series of meetings, and also the first in "The state, crime, prisons and the police" series of meetings ( part two in the latter series here ). Upcoming meetings in both series and beyond can be found here ....

Videos: Socialist commentary on the Covid-19 crisis

27 May 2020

Watch videos giving socialist commentary on the Covid-19 crisis below. Many are subtitled. Click in the top right of the video, for the contents of the playlist, and to watch other ones. See Workers' Liberty's channel for other playlists and videos. */ See upcoming meetings here . Many of the videos...

Migrant labour, racism and class struggle in Singapore

27 May 2020 |

Sara Lee

With migrant workers making up the vast majority of recent Covid-19 cases in Singapore, there are renewed calls for the government to reduce Singapore's dependence on migrant labour. On the surface, this appears to be a progressive proposal, given that it is being made in response to the cramped and...

Make the schools safe!

26 May 2020 |

Editorial

The government’s aspiration to partially open schools on 1 June is likely to be largely unrealised. While we all want children back in schools, as soon as safe enough, that is good. Success in resisting unsafe reopening is dependent on union strength on the ground. We must fight for rank-and-file...

Push Johnson backwards

26 May 2020 |

Ben Tausz

The Conservatives’ Immigration Bill passed its second reading in parliament on 18 May. It will proceed to committee scrutiny, expected to run until 25 June. The Bill would end free movement with the EU and write a blank cheque for the Home Secretary, who will be able to create a new immigration...

Labour: restore accountability

26 May 2020 |

Sacha Ismail

Labour’s National Executive Committee has agreed to cancel the party’s annual conference, which was scheduled to take place in September. Labour NEC member Alice Perry says that “a policy conference can take place online instead”, but with no details of what this means. The mainstream media has...

Fight coming council cuts

26 May 2020

Without an urgent cash injection, sweeping cuts of 20% could be seen in local authorities right across England. So the Local Government Association has reported. In real terms, the net funding shortfall from the pandemic emergency is estimated at £10 billion. Labour-held Stevenage Borough Council...

Cancel rent!

26 May 2020

A new group, Labour Tenants United, is supporting calls for rent cancellation already made by groups like the London Renters’ Union and the New Economics Foundation. The government has legislated for a “holiday” on mortgage payments during the emergency, and looks likely to extend it. • For more on...

Call for action on social care

26 May 2020 |

Mohan Sen

Late May has seen significant developments in the fight around social care. After months of refusing to even address the issue of sick pay and isolation pay for care workers, the Tories have announced a £600m “infection control fund”. Guidance for the fund states that part of its purpose is to...

Organise against university cuts

26 May 2020 |

Maisie Sanders

Coronavirus is intensifying the fault lines in UK higher education, and huge cuts are coming to our universities. Universities are announcing job cuts and hiring freezes to mitigate the huge predicted loss of income from international students’ fees. Staff on casual, fixed-term or hourly paid...

Demanding bigger things

26 May 2020

Abbie Clark is Secretary of Stevenage CLP and a candidate for the National Coordinating Group of the Labour left group Momentum (nominations open 28 May, election 16-30 June), on the Forward Momentum slate - elected onto the slate as part of Momentum Internationalists. She spoke to Sacha Ismail....

No return to "full CO2 spewing"!

26 May 2020 |

Zack Muddle

The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare our vulnerability as humans, as societies, in the face of “the forces of nature”; our biological, molecular, physical environment. We face threats of even greater crises in the future driven by climate change, as Covid-19 was in part. Environmental impacts of this...

Children, parents, school workers: stand together!

26 May 2020 |

Katy Dollar

The education unions are right to say schools should not accept further mass return of pupils until the five tests are met. We should fully support any school workers who will take action on health and safety grounds from 1 June to keep their workplaces open only to vulnerable and key workers’...

Tories dig in for hard Brexit

26 May 2020

New polling commissioned by liberal anti-Brexit campaign Best for Britain and anti-far right campaign Hope Not Hate says 59% expect the Brexit transition period will be extended. Unfortunately that may be naive. The government is digging in further and further, saying it will not under any...

A shorter working week with no pay cut!

26 May 2020 |

Janet Burstall

Janet Burstall argues the case from an Australian perspective. The same basic ideas are applicable in Britain and elsewhere. The most optimistic assessment by the Reserve Bank is that it will take a “few years” to reverse “much” (i.e. not all) of the increase in unemployment from the Covid-19...

Safety inspection shut down

26 May 2020

Britain’s official Health and Safety Executive responded to the virus danger in the many workplaces still operating throughout the lockdown, by… suspending its workplace inspections. It phased out everything that couldn’t be done by its staff working from home. Between 9 March and 7 May, the HSE...

Construction update

26 May 2020

According to Construction News (22 May), the percentage of big construction companies’ employees laid off on the British government’s furlough scheme is 22%, down from 30% in late April. A return to work on construction sites, which began well before 10 May, is continuing, but slowly and partially....

Scrap health surcharge for all

26 May 2020

Nadia Whittome MP tweeted straight after Johnson u-turned on charging migrant health and care workers to access the NHS: “Glad that the government has caved on the Immigration Health Surcharge for NHS and care staff, but nobody should have to pay extra for the NHS on top of the taxes they already...