Unemployment and Covid rising
The crisis is not over
Fight for jobs and safety
Berkay Kartav, South west London Socialist Party
The beginning of a mass vaccination programme has raised hopes of an end to the Covid crisis.
But in their determination to put profits first, the Tories have mismanaged the health and jobs crisis from day one.
Working-class people and the poorest in society have paid the highest price with our lives and livelihoods, and the bill keeps going up.
The Tories have no plans to vaccinate against the huge job losses and desperate rise in poverty that is already underway - and set to get worse.
Even the House of Lords economic affairs committee has said the government is "sleepwalking into an unemployment crisis".
More than one million jobs in hospitality and the retail sector are on the line, with many already losing their jobs before Christmas.
A dire situation exists, especially for young people who are entering the labour market. Youth unemployment is expected to reach its highest level since the mid-1980s.
Children are going to bed hungry, two million families are destitute, and the Tories won't even commit to maintaining the £20-a-week increase in Universal Credit!
Rich get richer
The super-rich have got richer during the pandemic, while the burden of the crisis is offloaded onto the shoulders of working-class people.
'Thin deal' or 'no deal', the outcome of the Tories' Brexit trade negotiations with the EU will only add to the economic misery - and once again it will be workers and the poor who suffer the most.
The Lords' report echoes what the Socialist has been arguing for months - that job and training support measures, including the Kickstart scheme for young people, are completely inadequate.
We are fighting for a mass programme of government investment in socially useful job creation, with trade union rates of pay. We are fighting for free training schemes for skilled work, with a guaranteed job at the end.
We are campaigning for union leaders to lead a mass fightback to defend every single job, as well as to defend health and safety in workplaces and schools.
Companies that threaten redundancies or closures should open their books to workforce and trade union inspection. If companies genuinely cannot maintain jobs, then they must be nationalised under democratic workers' control to defend jobs and incomes.
But securing a decent future for all means also fighting to get rid of capitalism - a system based on an endless pursuit of profit - and replacing it with a socialist plan of production to reorganise society in the interest of the working-class majority.
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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 click here to donate to our Fighting Fund.
In The Socialist 16 December 2020:
News
Unemployment and Covid rising - the crisis is not over - Fight for jobs and safety
Mass testing - we need trade union oversight and full pay for all
Rich countries hoarding vaccine is danger to us all
No to Tories' new anti-protest law
Maternity unit deaths - democratic, public ownership needed
Met police investigate British mercenary war crimes against Tamils
No surprise, poverty is rising
Education
Cancel exams for class of Covid
Welsh schools close for safety after union pressure
Effective testing and properly funded safety plan needed in schools
East London shows the way: strikes are how to fight for state education
Determined strikers at Leaways school
Workplace News
Openreach and EE: Massive vote for action
PCS union conference stripped of powers by NEC
Unite launch ballot over sacked London bus rep
Christmas redundancy shock at L&Q housing association
Stop 'fire and rehire' at British Gas
New Technology
Can green technology and AI save capitalism?
Engels
'Socialism - Utopian and Scientific' by Engels
Reports & campaigns
Protests in solidarity with Indian farmers
Book: The national question - a Marxist approach
School boy assaulted by police in Tottenham
TUSC relaunch in the north west
Protest against immigration enforcement centre in Newham
Tremendous fighting fund reflects confidence
Quiz
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