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From The Socialist newspaper, 15 April 2020
Collectively demanding safe warehouse working conditions
Warehouse, photo Trougnouf/CC, photo Troughouf/CC (Click to enlarge)
Connor O'Farrell, warehouse worker and Usdaw union member
In my workplace, the worry of deteriorating safety is becoming constant - and it is well-founded.
First, a long-standing worker was confirmed with Covid-19, and then a trainer who had close up contact with many workers during a recruitment drive by the employer. But with rotas of seven days in a row at least once a month, and the majority of union reps self-isolating, worrying is not enough.
In order to cut across the artificial divide of old vs new, and contracted workers vs agency, we are trying to co-ordinate a potentially depot-wide grievance campaign to include demands such as the sterilisation of all equipment, the opening up of all unused conference rooms to shop floor workers on breaks to aid social distancing, and for emergency pay to be maintained due to the vital nature of this line of work.
Individual grievances will be treated as just that by management. So, through the use of a mailing list, a programme, patience, and the understanding that we are the union, answerable only to the workers, we can raise their sights to fight back collectively.
So far, two workers have joined the Socialist Party, with more regularly reading the Socialist.
Working-class lives are being sent over the top for profit and this cannot continue. The vaccine for capitalism is socialism.
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Finance appeal
The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.
The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.
The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.
- The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
- When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.
Inevitably, during the crisis we have not been able to sell the Socialist and raise funds in the ways we normally would.
We therefore urgently appeal to all our viewers to donate to our Fighting Fund.
In The Socialist 15 April 2020:
Coronavirus news
MPs get £10k each for lockdown expenses - where's ours?
Dispatches from the front: NHS staff say give us PPE, not medals!
Johnson's hospitalisation: a tale of two treatments
Big pharma's profiteering holds back drug supply
Lockdown increases domestic violence calls - Tory money a drop in the ocean
NHS nurse: we're not wasting PPE - the Tories don't value us
Rapacious capitalism and the spread of coronavirus
What we think
Exit strategy? PPE and mass testing and workers' control of workplace safety
Fight back against the corona propaganda war
Transport
London Transport workers fighting private companies and TfL to secure health and safety
Workplace news
Unite opposes all cuts to domestic violence services
Passport workers forced back to offices as Home Office shirks its duty of care
Collectively demanding safe warehouse working conditions
Usdaw shop workers' union activists meet via Zoom
Coronavirus workplace news in brief
Labour
Sabotage - the inner workings of Labour's political machine exposed
Campaigns
Plymouth students discuss rent strike
Final push for May Day greetings
Socialist Party coronavirus crisis finance appeal
Join an online Socialist Party meeting during lockdown
The Socialist Party and socialist ideas are growing
Lessons from history
How the catastrophe of WW1 sparked revolution
Readers' opinion
Going viral: Socialist comments on the corona crisis
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2020