From the No Safety, No Work campaign
The ruling class’s representatives in Parliament have continued with their usual response to the presence of Covid-19 in workplaces and society as a whole. The wealth of the few, greedy and sociopathic capitalists has been prioritised over the health and well-being of the numerically superior working class. The minimal legal protections against a dangerous, contagious disease have been, or will be, removed. They will be replaced with advice. One has to ask oneself who will listen to the advice emanating from a proven, serial liar? We are being told to just get on with it and live alongside Covid-19 so that the bosses can flog us more stuff that we don’t really need and which is destroying our planet.
All of the mitigations which are generally accepted as curbing the spread of Covid-19, like self-isolation, mask wearing in enclosed public places, social distancing and hand sanitisation, are things that we should to do as responsible individuals rather than things that we must do as law abiding citizens. That is the bosses take on self-determination and liberty. Mitigations are things which individuals are ‘free’ to choose to do. The working class, though, has a more collective existence and can only hope to survive and thrive collectively. The capitalists know that and one of its main purposes over the years has been to undermine collective action, as with their trade union laws. For the ruling class, the only relationship which it wants with the working class is a master/servant one.
The ending of self-isolation support is not good for our class. Workers who do not receive occupational sick pay will be forced to go to work or starve, or be made homeless, when they have Covid-19. The clinically vulnerable members of working class communities will be forced to self-isolate forever as a result.
From April 1st, even the sham protection which a Covid-19 risk assessment affords workplaces will go. Free lateral flow tests are also for the chop.
There is a very real danger that the ending of legal requirements will provide Covid-19 with an environments which allows for the development of new, more deadly and more contagious strains.
Covid-19 infections are still very high. The NHS is still at breaking point. People are still dying unnecessarily and the ending of free testing will hide the true death toll. The boss class has got away with mass, social murder and is now covering its tracks by removing the source of data which shows the extent of its crime.
The requirement to “live with Covid” is a death sentence for a lot of working class people and will impoverish more of our class than it kills. Our choice is not the freedom to choose which the bosses preach but the choice between death or a living death.
We at No Safety? No Work! Demand that if we are to be forced to live with a Pandemic, then our class must have:
- The continuation of the £500 self isolation support
- An increase of Statutory Sick Pay (SSP)
- Free Lateral Flow Tests
- Increased funding for the NHS
The boss class has done well out of Covid-19. It can easily afford to compensate the working class for keeping their horror show on the road.