Ending Lockdown: Health and Lives Over Profit
by Dave Murphy
The demand to end Lockdown isn’t coming from the bottom up, but from the top down.
Across the world, people are looking on in horror as Donald Trump’s administration drives forward with demands that the U.S economy be re-opened despite the continued spread of Covid-19 and the mounting death toll.
Rightly, he has been pilloried in the media for his blatant disregard for medical advice and his willingness to actually sacrifice the lives of thousands of workers to coronavirus. He is acting in the interests of big business and their pursuit of wealth, and against the interests of the majority of workers who in opinion polls favour the continuation of these health measures.
A price is being put on people’s lives, it is appalling, inhumane and grotesque. The 1% using the blood of the 99% to oil the gears of their economic system.)However, we’d be foolish to just say ‘Trump’s mad’ or write it off as happening ‘over there’ as if it is an exception. The exact same interests – those of big business – are driving to end the Lockdown here.
While the government and the capitalist class in Ireland are not as blatant and crass as Trump - you won’t see IBEC or Fine Gael blare Live and Let Die at a press conference – they are also willing to put workers and their families in mortal danger in order to ‘save’ the economy.
Playing the Blame Game
Though of course, big business won’t want to shoulder the blame if lockdown is lifted, workers return to unsafe conditions and the virus grows again. They have to hide their distinct interests behind the ‘needs of society’ or to create a patsy to take the blame.
That is why there was an attempt by some media commentators, a number of weeks ago, to highlight individual cases of people breaking Lockdown measures – it was part of a process of softening up the public for ending lockdown. It was designed to put the blame for the ending of lockdown on the working class, to have us blaming each other, rather than the ruling class.
A small uptick in traffic has since levelled off in the latest information released, and despite social media reports of some families and communities breaking the measures, the reality is that the vast majority of people have maintained, and can see their neighbours maintaining, disciplined social distancing.
Government and Big Business build pressure to end lockdown
There is now a concerted effort to prepare the ground for re-opening the economy. The government has published a ‘roadmap’ as to when restrictions can be lifted between now and August. However, the government’s plan contained a clause which allows other industries to open if they can show that they can do it ‘safely’.
This clause has been taken as an invitation by many business representatives to push for their sectors to be allowed to re-open early and effectively end the Lockdown, while Ministers have talked up the possibility of ‘skipping stages’. Incredibly, the drinks and pub industry have tried to say that they can re-open safely, while some of the large pub owners are planning to exploit a loophole by classifying themselves as restaurants. In recent days, we have seen how re-opening similar pubs and clubs in South Korea has turned into a disaster.
Hypocritically, IBEC – the mouth piece for big business in Ireland - have even attempted to portray themselves as a champion for workers! They are using people’s genuine fears over job losses to push for other sectors of the economy to open. IBEC haven’t undergone a Road to Damascus moment, they don’t care about workers’ livelihoods but are simply using it as a smokescreen– they can’t really come out and say that they want the economy re-opened so that big business can start to profiteer again, so they use workers as a pawn.
For their part the government is attempting to ratchet up the pressure on workers financially to force an acceptance of returning to work in unsafe conditions. Leo Varadkar and Paschal Donohue have engaged in sabre-rattling around reductions in the Pandemic Payment scheme – this payment is the only thing keeping many families afloat at the minute.
Leo Varadkar threatened that any worker who refuses to return to work would become ineligible for the Pandemic Payment. The removal of this payment, a safety net for hundreds of thousands of families, would be effectively an attempt to starve workers back into unsafe working conditions. It is a more subtle version of Trumpism.
Workers will pay the price
Just like in America where the lifting of Lockdown won’t put Trump or the Billionaire Class at risk, in Ireland, if the government and big business are successful in forcing people back to work in unsafe conditions it won’t be them that pays the price. Tom Parlon of the Construction Industry Federation, Danny Mccoy of IBEC or Leo Varadkar won’t be the ones forced back onto building sites, factory floors or forced onto packed public transport – instead it will be disproportionately working class people who get sick and potentially die.
In Britain this week, new statistics show that workers on building sites, factories and other manual labour sectors have a higher death rate than some medical workers! That’s how dangerous these workplaces will be. Despite this, Boris Johnson ordered people to go back to work if they couldn’t work from home – sending mainly low-paid workers back into danger to maximise profits for the 1% which he represents.
The experience of workers in meat factories in Ireland is a serious warning about what will happen. Despite remaining open, supposedly with social distancing and strict health and safety measures introduced there are now 10 new Covid-19 clusters in factories, 556 confirmed cases, and sadly one worker has died. This experience will be repeated on factory floors across the country if the Lockdown is lifted.
On top of this, the early experience from Germany, South Korea and China on the easing of restrictions shows the risks involved – new clusters of the virus have risen almost immediately, forcing them to increase restrictions again. Let’s not repeat their mistakes.
No return to work until it is safe
Naturally, people are worried about their finances, jobs and their family’s future, but we shouldn’t let these fears be exploited by the government and bosses to force us back to work. There should be no return to work until it is safe to do so.
This means that the Pandemic Payment should be maintained and extended to all who need it. All mortgages, rent payments and eviction notices, and debt repayments should be put on hold for the foreseeable future with no interest or debt accrued. Any extra supports which people and families need should be extended to them.
Before any return to work can be imagined the Covid-19 testing capacity has to actually be increased, with quicker turnaround times for results and the ability to contact-trace massively expanded.
Workplace safety cannot be left in the hands of the bosses to implement. The example of the meat factories shows that despite promises to implement safety measures, in reality they will ignore them.
If Lockdown is lifted, under the government’s plans each workplace will have a worker-safety representative – this person should be elected by workers and not hand picked by management. They should be protected against victimisation and pressure from bosses to turn a blind eye. ICTU should launch a network of all workplace representatives in unionised and non-unionised companies to prevent them from feeling as if they are acting alone, and mobilise their resources to provide assistance and to unionise the workplace.
If a workplace is deemed unsafe, or if individual workers feel the situation is unsafe for them personally (if they or a family member has underlying health issues or is immunocompromised), the company should be forced to continue to pay the wages of their workers. Workers shouldn’t lose out because bosses can’t or won’t provide a safe working environment.
The Health and Safety Authority needs to have its mandate expanded to give it legal powers to close workplaces immediately and have its resources increased so that it can inspect workplaces. If there are no inspections and there are no consequences for bosses breaching safety standards, how much meaning would such standards actually have?