
The Socialist 6 May 2020
Bosses push to lift lockdown - they only care about profits

Bosses push to lift lockdown - they only care about profits
Bail out the real wealth creators, not the rich
Homes needed to end overcrowding
Homeless left on streets during pandemic
Pay full fees for virtual courses? - No way!
Your donations can keep the Socialist going
Test and trace: workers need a real plan
Tories using pandemic to shift lab testing out of NHS
Nationalise British Airways to stop 12,000 redundancies
Postal workers force Royal Mail back
No increase in transport capacity without adequate safety precautions for workers and passengers
Unsafe Workplace? "It's up to you" PCS tells reps and members
Further protests in Ireland against Debenhams closures - UK fightback needed
Rolls Royce threatens 8,000 job losses
EDF Energy workers furloughed on 100% pay
India: Fighting the curse of capitalism and coronavirus
US: Trump's public health cuts have condemned thousands worldwide
Trump puts profit before safety (again)
The Tyneside apprentices' strike during WW2
Going viral: Socialist comments and letters on the corona crisis
TV Review BBC Panorama: PPE shortage - how many lives will be lost?
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Them&Us
Amazon exec resigns over worker persecution!
The vice-president of Amazon has resigned over the sacking of workers who had organised against the company's unsafe working conditions during the coronavirus pandemic. Tim Bray called the firings "chickenshit" and "designed to create a climate of fear."
"At the end of the day," Bray said, "the big problem isn't the specifics of Covid-19 response. It's that Amazon treats the humans in the warehouses as fungible units of pick-and-pack potential. Only that's not just Amazon, it's how 21st-century capitalism is done."
Amazon made more than $33 million an hour in the first three months of this year. Chief executive Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, has seen his personal fortune grow to $145 billion.
On May Day, Amazon workers across the US took part in a "sick-out" to protest against lack of PPE, safety measures and sick pay.
- See also 'Coronavirus: Amazon workers threaten revolution' at socialistparty.org.uk.
US airlines spent 96% of cash on share buybacks
The top airlines in the US - now begging for bailouts to prevent bankruptcy - spent an average of 95.8% of their free cashflow in the last decade on share buybacks, calculates Bloomberg.
When firms buy their shares back, they are handing money to those (former) shareholders. But this also increases the wealth of remaining shareholders, who therefore own a bigger proportion of the company. All the bosses win!
Airlines are among the worst, but firms across the 'S&P 500' top US companies spent an average of 53% of free cashflow on share buybacks in the last ten years. That's billions upon billions of money the bosses could have invested in new production, reserves against calamities like this, or wages for workers.
Half of all world's workers face imminent destitution
The 1.6 billion workers in the informal economy - casual workers, who make up half the global workforce - are in immediate danger losing their livelihoods, warns the UN's International Labour Organization. Worldwide, this section of workers lost 60% of its income in the first month of the pandemic alone.
In this issue
What we think
Bosses push to lift lockdown - they only care about profits
Coronavirus news
Bail out the real wealth creators, not the rich
Homes needed to end overcrowding
Homeless left on streets during pandemic
Pay full fees for virtual courses? - No way!
Your donations can keep the Socialist going
Test and trace
Test and trace: workers need a real plan
Tories using pandemic to shift lab testing out of NHS
Workplace news
Nationalise British Airways to stop 12,000 redundancies
Postal workers force Royal Mail back
No increase in transport capacity without adequate safety precautions for workers and passengers
Unsafe Workplace? "It's up to you" PCS tells reps and members
Further protests in Ireland against Debenhams closures - UK fightback needed
Rolls Royce threatens 8,000 job losses
EDF Energy workers furloughed on 100% pay
International news
India: Fighting the curse of capitalism and coronavirus
US: Trump's public health cuts have condemned thousands worldwide
Trump puts profit before safety (again)
Lessons from history
The Tyneside apprentices' strike during WW2
Obituary
Readers' opinion
Going viral: Socialist comments and letters on the corona crisis
TV Review BBC Panorama: PPE shortage - how many lives will be lost?
Related links:
Trump Twitter ban: only independent workers' voice can defeat right
USA in crisis - the need for a socialist alternative
Scrap fees, refund rents and pay a living grant
Bristol Socialist Party: Turbulent events in US politics
Steel site scaffolders strike for the 'rate of the job'
Books that inspired me: The Road to Wigan Pier
Vaccine confidence - a worker's response
Fight Amazon's anti-union spies
"Test, trace, isolate, support" - the Tories' scheme fails on all counts
The Tory blame game: scapegoating the working class - 100% pay for all now
Mass testing - we need trade union oversight and full pay for all