There is one thing this government is good at…blagging. Whenever a Tory minister appears at the daily coronavirus briefing, there is a mountain of promises on offer. Whether it is ventilators, testing kits or PPE they can certainly talk the talk. But when it comes to action…well they can talk the talk.
The latest revelations in a leaked letter to a senior official at the Department of Health and Social Care from the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (Adass) highlight once again the gross inadequacies of this government. Mixed messages from the government, it says, have only created “confusion and additional workload”. The worst comment was for the provision of PPE, the national distribution and handling of which has been described by Adass as “shambolic”. Those on the front line in the NHS and in social care would no doubt be using even more industrial language.
No thought given to test roll-out
The early releases of PPE was described in the Adass letter as “paltry” and recent distributions “haphazard”. As for testing, the letter says “testing for care workers appears to be being rolled out without thought being given to who is going to be tested and what we are going to do with the result”.
The best part of a million people volunteered to help in one way or another during the lockdown – which is testimony to the ingrained solidarity of working class people. But most volunteers have been given nothing to do. The national scheme, the letter says, “diverted 750,000 volunteers away from supporting local communities and left hem with nothing to do for the first three weeks”, say it was “shameful” that there was no collaboration with local government. The letter doesn’t say so, but that might be because local government has been cut to the bone in the last ten years – even more than the NHS – leaving few, if any, available staff to manage a crisis like this. Not that the Tories care, so long as Matt Hancock or Dominic Raab can blag at the rostrum.
Promises, promises
All the Tory promises about protecting workers taken ill or in isolation are just as much unreliable as their other promises. A recent report has shown the huge extent to which workers are still being put under pressure – despite the emergency and us being, allegedly, “all in it together”. Dated a week ago, from the Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX), the report outlines that the pandemic “will raise the risk of exploitation for specific categories of workers who were already made more vulnerable to abuse by migration and social protection policies”.
“Research shows”, the report says, “that individuals in low-paid jobs spend most of their income on basic necessities, so they are less likely to have savings and therefore to be resilient to economic shocks affecting their incomes. In the UK, 56% of all people in poverty are in work. Among them are those working under insecure contracts or cash in hand in the informal economy where they have limited access to employment rights.”
The most vulnerable workers are those in historically low-paid sectors like agriculture, cleaning, hospitality, catering and the gig economy in general. This is despite the fact that it has become evident, and even admitted by this government, that many of these are “essential workers”.
Jumping through hoops to get Universal Credit
Two million workers are included in the ‘informal’ economy and they have not benefitted much from government measures for the self-employed or enhanced employment support. They might, possibly, get Universal Credit, if they can jump through all the hoops, but even this is unlikely.
Migrant workers, and particularly undocumented migrants, are at the greatest risk of exploitation and many are indeed being exploited as much as ever before. Greedy bosses will abuse such workers because they know their staff will be afraid to complain to any official bodies and many have nowhere else to make a living.
“Women workers”, the report says, “are disproportionately represented in low-paid and precarious work. They may face additional vulnerabilities related to gendered cultural and structural issues, such as discrimination related to pregnancy and maternity, and gender-based violence and sexual harassment at work”.
Workers still being laid off
As part of their survey work, FLEX interviewed a number of workers in the most vulnerable categories. They found that workers were still be laid off, having their hours cut or being unfairly dismissed, despite the lockdown and the workers’ inability to find income elsewhere. The East European Resource Centre was quoted as follows:
“The people we support, they work in low-paid casual jobs. This means they don’t have a buffer – they don’t have savings to fall back on under the current situation. We’re seeing widespread loss of work, including people who are being dismissed unlawfully. We had clients with severe respiratory problems being told they should no longer come to work because the company didn’t have protective equipment to protect them from the virus. The same thing is happening to pregnant women – they are no longer being called for jobs because they are at high risk of infection.”
Denied Statutory Sick Pay
The Latin American Women’s Rights Service also were quoted: “We’ve been getting calls from cleaners who are being laid off or having their hours cut now that offices and most businesses are closed. Most of them are in ‘bogus self-employment’ but even those who have contracts are being dismissed with no notice.”
FLEX also found out that despite being ‘frontline’ workers, many of these when they were forced to self-isolate, were being denied Statutory Sick Pay, quoting union reps and workers. “Managers and supervisors are rejecting self assessment certificates issued by the NHS and demanding sick notes signed by healthcare professions instead. With the many GPs discouraging patients from seeking medical assistance in person and others that have closed as result of the pandemic, workers who are unable to produce medical evidence are being threatened with non-payment of outstanding wages or SSP.”
Close contact with the public
The report describes how many essential workers, including cleaners, delivery drivers, couriers, security guards and supermarket cashiers were not being provided with sufficient information or given basic PPE like masks, disposable gloves or hand sanitiser, even though their jobs bring them in relatively close contact to high numbers of people throughout the day.
“A cashier at a large supermarket in London told FLEX that workers were buying their own masks and wearing them voluntarily, as their employer was not providing them with equipment or instructions on how to protect themselves from the virus.”
TU and Labour leaders must demand action
It is not only incredible that these things are going on, it is criminal. With a few admirable exceptions, the leaders of the big trades unions have kept a deafening silence during this pandemic. It may be that they are making statements that are ignored by the mainstream media and TV, but we suspect not.
Where is the leadership of USDAW that shop workers anywhere are being forced to buy their own masks? Where is the leadership of the GMB – so quick to jump to the aid of the Labour Party staffers back-stabbing Jeremy Corbyn in 2017 – when cleaners, warehouse staff and drivers are being put at risk?
These leaders should be shouting from the rooftops and, even with all the difficulties of organising in a lock-down, they should be threatening to bring workers off the job unless they are adequately protected. Their health and lives should not be put at risk.
As we wrote in an earlier Editor’s blog, Labour and the trade union leaders should be demanding:
* The abolition of Universal Credit and its replacement with a living wage equivalent of £300 a week.
* Full SSP should be available to all workers irrespective of their national status and SSP should be raised to a living wage.
* An end to fake ‘self-employment’ without sick pay, holiday pay and other statutory rights. ALL workers should have these rights.
* Anti-trade union legislation should be repealed and unions allowed by right to organise in all places of work.
April 16, 2020
