Covid-19, capitalism, and socialist organising - Zoom meeting 26/3/20
Martin Thomas introduced, summarising some of the ideas from Solidarity 540. He then invited a number of comrades still in their workplaces to report.
Below is a write-up from handwritten notes from the session. It'll be checked by the participants over the next day or so, so may contain errors or omissions, but we've posted it as soon as we can to get the basic story out.
LOCAL COUNCILS
R: My union branch, Lambeth Unison, organises three main groups of workers - workers for Lambeth council, support staff in schools in Lambeth, and workers in Elis Laundry. We also have some members in smaller private-sector workplaces.
Our first step, and early on, was to win full pay for all workers in the council following public health advice, or staying home for childcare because of school and nursery closures, early on. For absolutely all workers in council workplaces, including agency workers and zero-hours workers.
The next battle was in the libraries. On 20 March the library workers walked out, citing Section 44 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, which entitles workers to distance themselves if they see a "serious and imminent danger" in the workplace. The council quickly backed down and closed the libraries, and has agreed not to reopen them until we have an agreement to do that safely.
We've been campaigning for full pay for workers in the laundry to follow public health advice. That is much more difficult, because we have no union recognition there. Also, many of the workers there do not have internet access.
We've set up WhatsApp groups and telephone trees, printed posters, and done a petition. Both the local left-wing Labour MP, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, and (in fact, more quickly) the (right-wing) Labour councillors have backed this petition.
We have talked with the council about expansion of domestic violence services during the epidemic, and help for the homeless. The council is mass-renting hotel and hostel rooms, and has set up a team to house the homeless.
Only a minority of council workers are now in the workplace rather than working from home or self-isolating. For those still at work, both management and union are doing their own risk assessments for each workplace.
Generally, in the offices, there's no big problem about adequate social distancing. The biggest issue has been with council workers who visit care homes. The workers want PPE.
We've found some social workers wanting to withdraw from visits to vulnerable families. The union has argued against withdrawing.
NHS WORKPLACES: FULL PAY FOR ALL FOLLOWING PUBLIC HEALTH ADVICE, PPE. CARE WORKERS
S: At my workplace, the East London NHS Foundation Trust, we've been putting together information on pay for workers following public health advice.
There are many zero-hours and contract workers in NHS buildings, and it wasn't clear what they would get. We did a couple of weeks' agitation among all the workers in my workplace - of all grades - and had a prolonged to-and-fro with senior management.
At the end of that we discovered that the Trust already had a policy of full pay if following public health advice for all workers in the building, and then that NHS England had put a policy saying the same thing on 2 March.
We've done a public information campaign in my workplace and everywhere else we can reach in the NHS - set up a website at elftworkerssolidarity.org/ from which you can download posters, promoted an open letter to NHS chief executive Simon Stevens on the issue.
There's an issue with home care workers. I've been told by my management that I, as a community mental health nurse, should limit face-to-face contact with my patients, but I know that private-sector carers are still visiting those patients (who depend on the visits) with little protection.
A: I'm a nurse in an acute hospital. I've been self-isolating, but our union branch has been functioning online.
The policy of full pay while following public health advice for zero-hours and agency workers is not being followed by our Trust. Apparently there is a more recent NHS England document which is equivocal on the issue. The posters have been useful for campaigning on the issue.
The other big issue in our hospital is the shortage of PPE.
Al: I'm an ambulance worker, so my workmates and I don't work within a building, and since we have fairly high density in the service we don't have many zero-hours or contract workers. Our cleaners, for example, are all in-house, and are getting full pay like the rest of us.
If there's an issue there, it's been a bit of a push-back from management on the theme that "too many" of us are self-isolating. (About 15% have been off).
Shortage of PPE is a big problem for us, too. We also have an issue about numbers in patient transport vehicles: we say that to minimise risk of infection there should be no more than one patient in each vehicle.
There is a huge problem with home carers. Generally they have no PPE.
SCHOOLS: OPERATING PARTIAL OPENING
D: I'm a primary school teacher. Two or three weeks ago we were discussing with other left-wingers in the union the slogan of closing all schools straight away, and we were against it because of the impact on children of key workers, free-school-meals children, etc.
Since Monday 21 March the schools have been partially shut, but kept open for those categories of children.
In my school I've raised the issue of pay for supply teachers - and got agreement on full pay for them - and of contracted-out school meals providers - where we haven't won yet.
Our union, the National Education Union (NEU), has done better than usual with the partial closures of schools, putting out clear guidance on the issues. But the school system is now fragmented (with academies, free schools, etc.), so management policies are different in different schools.
In our area, Lewisham, almost all staff were asked to come in on Monday, and then we made plans for the following days.
There are only a small number of children in school - no school has more than 20 - and we're reaching agreement on staffing, with staff coming in limited days. We will probably move to "hubs" - only some schools staying open for the limited number of children - rather than all schools staying open.
In some schools there are issues with management workload demands for online teaching, but that varies.
Generally, in schools, where the union is strong, we have been able to take a lead and push things. I'm told that NEU membership has increased in the epidemic.
We have a problem for which there are no easy answers, which is that it is very difficult to do social distancing with primary-age children. Especially so, since most of the children coming in to school are not children of key workers, but children from highly-stressed households, who may find the emergency conditions especially hard to cope with.
R - There's talk of schools staying open in the Easter holidays?
D - Yes. The union advice is to retain the staffing rotas we're now working out over the Easter holidays, but ensure that every individual gets two weeks off somewhere around that time.
My head teacher has a scheme to make that work. Others don't. But the unions is giving clear advice. An issue for the future which I've raised with my head teacher is that if the current operation continues through the summer, it will be difficult for school staff to start regular operations again in September without having had more than a short break.
TESTING. FACTORIES
M - A key campaign is for increasing testing, and to make sure that testing is free.
B - The talk of testing is about two types of test: one, to see if you have the virus, and another, to see if you have antibodies (i.e. have had the virus and developed antibodies to combat it).
R - I've read of threats of strikes in Italy about bosses' failure to close some non-essential factories. What about factories in Britain? Car factories have shut down, but it seems most others are still working even if they're not essential production.
UNIVERSITIES: AGENCY AND FIXED-TERM STAFF, STUDENT RENTS, PROSPECTS IN OCTOBER
C - Most universities are shut down other than their halls of residence for students who can't go home. So there's little workplace organising within the campuses. There are issues about remote working.
Universities have a range of policies, from good ones at Aberdeen and King's College London (which have told staff: do what you can, and you'll be paid) to bad ones for example at Sussex University, which is refusing to renew contracts for agency staff and fixed-term workers.
Whatever happens in the next few months, universities face a big crisis in the autumn because they won't have the international students on whose fees many universities depend economically. Some universities fear they may have to shut down, and there will be pressure on the government to bail out universities.
Some universities are still trying to enforce payment of rent for student halls of residence which are now closed down.
AGRICULTURE, KEY DEMANDS, COALITION GOVERNMENT, PAUSE BREXIT, MIGRANT RIGHTS
J - We should start discussing plans for actions and campaigns around agriculture, and for disputing the current operations of the meat industry. I've messaged Labour for a Green New Deal about that, but had no reply. Also, we should be putting political demands now such that if we win them it makes a basis for winning more later on. Demands such as emergency public control and full sick pay (or, rather, absence pay).
Br - Boris Johnson's response has shifted a lot, tailing public opinion. And yet his poll ratings have improved during the emergency. Some Tories are talking about a coalition government or some approximation to it. All the Labour Party's institutions are shut down, so it's not clear how to take that up.
Ma - Such issues can be taken up by social media (etc.) campaigns. That's obviously not as good as proper meetings, but, with the Labour Party hierarchy caught off balance, may have some effect. Labour for Socialist Europe is preparing a campaign about pausing Brexit.
A - Not all labour movement institutions are shut down. My union branch has been meeting online.
Ma - Indeed, it seems that some workplace-level union structures have become more active during the epidemic than before. But often the "higher" levels of the union structures have faded.
B - Solidarity 540 publicises the demands of the Migrant Rights Network. Migrant rights groups have also put demands on councils, and the Labour Campaign for Free Movement is campaigning on them. www.labourfreemovement.org/email-your-councillors-covid-19-and-migrants/
