Solidarity 546, 5 May 2020

Workers, and our unions, need to get out in front of any discussion or planning by the bosses to begin to reopen workplaces and bring workers back to work.

Reply by Will Sefton here . I agree with Sacha Ismail's argument in his survey of social care that the system needs radical reshaping – though we may disagree about the shape. For me, the focus of social care needs to be independent living. Our priority must be enabling people to have control over the care they receive, whether through direct payments or commissioned care. People should only be living in institutions where that is their genuine preference, and should be given whatever resources they would require to live in the community. The number of care home deaths during Covid-19 really...

The Ministry of Justice is treading a dangerous path in its response to Covid-19. Since early on in the pandemic prisons have received attention as potential hotbeds of contagion. They are cramped and unsanitary institutions, full of people with underlying health problems who receive inadequate healthcare whilst they’re incarcerated. Prisons also increase the rate of spread in the community due to the daily through-flow of families and service providers visiting prisoners, staff clocking in and out, and prisoners starting and finishing custodial sentences. Reported cases and deaths of...

On Tuesday 5 May the Uyghur Solidarity Campaign will coordinate a second wave of online protests against high-street companies whose suppliers used forced Uyghur labour in China. For those who don’t know, the Uyghurs are an ethnic group whose nation, East Turkestan, is held under Chinese control and ruled as ‘Xinjiang’ province (literally ‘New Frontier’). Last time the target of the protests was Apple – this time, Gap. 5 May is Karl Marx’s birthday (he would have been 202). If Marx was still around he would certainly have supported the Uyghur solidarity movement, for at least five reasons. 1...

The article below replies to a letter by WPUK , which in turn is a response to an article by Workers' Liberty activist Natalia Cassidy, 'Anti-trans feminists blinkered on Tories' , and refers to a video by Workers' Liberty activist Zack Muddle, 'Fighting for trans rights in today's labour movement' . The article written by Natalia Cassidy entitled 'Anti-trans feminists blinkered on Tories' was not, in fact, written with Woman's Place UK (WPUK) as an organisation in mind. It was written after seeing swathes of people on social media responding in celebratory fashion at the statement made by Liz...

Hannah Pollin-Galay (above right, in the white t-shirt, on a protest she helped organise blocking the entrance to the headquarters of Netanyahu's Likud party) is a supporter of Omdim B'Yachad (Standing Together), a left-wing Arab-Jewish social movement in Israel. She spoke to Daniel Randall from Solidarity. DR: The formation of a new coalition government is obviously a hugely worrying development in terms of the threat of annexation. What's your assessment of it? HPG: Saying “I told you so!” or, “things are already so bad, they can only get better”, are not productive responses to this new...

Woman's Place UK wrote to Workers' Liberty requesting that we publish the letter below. It is a response to an article by Workers' Liberty activist Natalia Cassidy, " Anti-trans feminists blinkered on Tories ", and refers to a video by Workers' Liberty activist, Zack Muddle, " Fighting for trans rights in today's labour movement ". Natalia Cassidy and Zack Muddle replied to the letter below, here . Workers' Liberty champion open debate, and we publish WPUK's letter in that spirit. For more on what we believe on trans rights, see for example " Support trans people's rights! " passed at our 2018...