Solidarity 547, 12 May 2020

Workers in every industry and workplace must fight for the maximum degree of workers' control over the conditions under which any “return to work” takes place and under which services are resumed and increased. While this will necessitate “working with” employers in the sense of meeting with them to present our demands, and scrutinise their proposals, the basic stance we must fight for our unions to take is one of militant distrust and hostility to our bosses. This doesn't require a belief that every individual manager is a moustache-twirling villain, desperate to plot ways to harm workers; it...

Above: the youngest school children are returning in Queensland, Australia A provisional “lockdown rollback” checklist compiled by researchers at Oxford University bit.ly/ready-rb puts the UK fourth from bottom among all the world’s countries for readiness to roll back lockdown measures. The detail of the list is unreliable, but daily deaths have gone down less than in other European countries which are “rolling back”. Daily new confirmed cases aren’t really going down. Supplies of PPE are still inadequate in the NHS and care homes, let alone in other places. Isolation pay rights are patchy...

Fire Brigades Union activist and National Officer Riccardo la Torre (pictured above on an FBU solidarity delegation to Calais - on the left with his fist up) spoke to Sacha Ismail. Yesterday we had “Victory in Europe” day, and a lot of nationalism. What are your thoughts on it? Well, first off I’m angry that workers are dying because they’re at work and aren’t given proper protection, and yet the same “leaders” responsible want us waving Union Jacks. There’s immediate reasons to be angry too, because the day itself created a lot of unsafe conditions. I’ve seen blokes out selling Union Jacks...