Solidarity 565, 30 September 2020

Diary of engineer: the compressor is burning

Underneath the plant turbine is a concrete basement where most of the noisy machines operate. One of those is the air compressor housed inside a large blue box in a locked iron cage. I‘ve been working with an electrician (A), the other apprentice (L), and a contractor for Simms, who manufacture the compressors. We can’t hear each other, but we can smell the compressor burning. A explains to the contractor that the two air compressors operate in phases; one compressor will build up pressure in its cylinder and then release it onto the plant; while the air flows out of one compressor the other...

Tube contractor cancels cleaner sick pay

At the beginning of the pandemic, RMT won an agreement from TfL and cleaning contractor ABM that any cleaner who needed to self-isolate, or take time off sick due to Covid, would be paid in full. Normally cleaners only receive Statutory Sick Pay of £95.85 per week, well below their usual weekly rate...

Kino Eye: Labour conformity

Laurie Becker’s article on the Labour Connected conference in Solidarity 564 set me thinking about a film which might capture that sense of conformity and dullness described in her report. Instead of a film, I would recommend two BBC dramas by Dennis Potter: Stand up, Nigel Barton and Vote, vote, vote for Nigel Barton . Both were broadcast in 1965 as part of the Wednesday Play series. We follow Nigel Barton, from his youth in a mining village to Oxford University where, unsurprisingly, he struggles to fit in. Later, Barton stands as the Labour candidate in a safe Tory seat, where he comes...

Southbank workers fight 70% cuts

Southbank Centre [in London] is cutting its staff headcount by 70%, but this will only reduce the payroll by an estimated 38%. The lowest-paid staff with minimum hours contracts in the Visitor Experience and Ticketing teams are to be cut entirely, as there is no prospect of the Royal Festival Hall fully reopening to the public until April 2021. The Exhibition Hosts at the Hayward Gallery, who’ve spent the past month reopening the gallery in a new Covid-secure way, have also been told that they will be made redundant when the current exhibition closes on 31 October. In 2018-19, the Chief...

Scrap "conditionality"! (John Moloney's column)

The Group Executive Committee for our members in the Department for Work and Pensions met on Tuesday 22 September to discuss the results of a recent indicative ballot of Job Centre workers, which returned a big majority for industrial action against extended opening hours and other unsafe working conditions. Although a final decision has yet to be made, there are now active discussions about moving to a formal, statutory, ballot for action. The general picture, in terms of civil service bosses’ “back-to-the-office” push, has changed since new restrictions were brought in and the Prime Minister...

Labour: fight back for democracy and policies!

Josh Lovell outlines priorities which Momentum Internationalists will fight for as the leadership swings Labour to the right. It is now one year since the Labour Party’s 2019 national conference — arguably the most radical Labour Party event in decades. Delegates passed resolutions committing the party to 2030 decarbonisation as part of a worker-led just transition, to support the abolition of academies and private schools, and to defend and extend free movement, ensure voting rights for all UK residents, abolish No Recourse to Public Funds, and to close all detention centres (to name but a...

Trump bunkers down for November

A president refusing to leave office if they lose an election is something to be expected of a dictatorship. A bizarre scenario of the two main candidates turning up in Washington on Inauguration Day next January, both expecting to be sworn in, could depend on which way the permanent unelected state institutions will swing. Trump’s first presidential term draws to a close with three major “achievements” — tax cuts for the rich, billion dollar bailouts for corporations and packing the federal judiciary with over 200 right-wing judges, including two in the constitutionally all-important Supreme...

To curb the virus: social solidarity!

Effective covid-distancing and virus-curbing requires social solidarity. In a socialist world, pandemics like Covid-19 would be less likely, because there would be fewer destructive irruptions into environments of the sort that led to the virus leaping from another species to humans. And when pandemics still happened, the social means to curb them would be much ampler. Even in this capitalist world, countries with a greater element of social solidarity — of people looking out for each other, of care for the worst-off and vulnerable — have done better than those where the “all for me” spirit of...

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.