Solidarity 551, 10 June 2020

Big-name mainstream economists like Nick Stern and Joseph Stiglitz have championed a “green recovery” from the current economic slump as good for “the economy” as well as “the environment”. Many politicians have said similar. Yet the vast majority of the huge rescue packages to prop up industries and companies are being poured into the fossil fuel economy, without environmental conditions attached. The Guardian (6 June) estimates that $509bn (£395bn), more than half a trillion dollars, worldwide, will go into high-carbon industries with “no conditions to ensure they reduce their carbon output”...

I was in the mess room when the shouting started. I paid no attention at first. I knew the demo in central London [3 June] had been big, but didn’t really twig whether people would be out on a Wednesday afternoon and how they would get there and get home. “Jay, I think you should come out here”, F, who is covering on another station, radios through. I get into the ticket hall. It’s not normal peak-time busy, but its busier than normal. Yeah, people are shouting, but it’s not an aggressive protest in the station. The manager obviously feels differently and is rushing to try and close some of...

This week has been a slow one, taking us only from £3,125 to £3,207 towards our target of £10,000 by 22 November. Only a few small donations this week, but several more promised for the next week! As more and more places now become card-only, why not get your change jars paid in and send the money to us? We’ve been selling literature at the Black Lives Matter protests while trying to maintain covid- distancing, collecting cash payments in collection boxes rather than by hand, and using portable contactless card payment machines (until demos get so big they overwhelm the mobile phone networks...

There was a discussion at our National Executive Committee of PCS about the Black Lives Matter protests in the USA. There was overwhelming support for the struggle against racism and police brutality. Some comrades did raise safety concerns about mass gatherings at a time when the threat from the virus is still high, and BAME people have been disproportionately affected. The issues will be discussed further within the union, as we want members to be able to protest safely. Racial inequality is an industrial issue in the civil service. As well as the virus disproportionately impacting BAME...

The Observer (7 June) relayed reports from charities that “trafficked and unaccompanied children are going missing in ‘significant’ numbers from the UK’s care system” during lockdown. It says that it is “too early” to estimate figures, but that the government’s move under the Coronavirus Act (via Statutory Instrument 445, 23 April) to remove or weaken councils’ legal obligations on vulnerable children is probably a factor. A report from the IPPR think-tank (4 June) reckons that by the end of 2020, 300,000 more children will be living in poverty because of the effects of the lockdown and job...

The government has dropped its plans to reopen primary schools to all year groups before the end of term in July, but will allow shops to reopen from 15 June, and pubs, hairdressers, cinemas, etc. from 4 July at earliest as long they meet covid-distancing rules. Face-coverings will become compulsory on public transport from 15 June. Britain’s lockdown-easing policies are more erratic than in other European countries. So far, as in those other European countries, the curve of cases and death is still moving downwards, but in Britain the movement is slow. There is no good reason for the labour...

A radio interviewer asked David Nabarro, World Health Organisation special envoy on Covid-19, what he’d say to the interviewer’s (or Nabarro’s) young adult children about the Black Lives Matter protests. Nabarro replied: “Yes, of course, you go [to the protests]. Because it matters. This is so important. “But you wear a mask, and you keep it on properly. You keep physical distance, and it can be done...” He added: “It’s probably on the transport going to and from [the protests] that the risks are greatest”. The (mostly) young people who have gone on the streets against racism are right to do...