#KeepCorbyn: For a party that fights for workers

Uber Eats drivers protest over pay photo Scott Jones (Click to enlarge)

James Ivens

This has to stop, and we are going to stop it. This is the message of legions of workers fighting zero-hour contracts, poverty pay and the 'gig economy'.

Deliveroo drivers struck against their boss's grasping. He wanted to do away with hourly rates, and instead pay them per delivery. Just £3.75 an order.

"We can't survive on £3.75!" declared pickets, revving their bikes and battering drums outside HQ. The strike won.

Those drivers have now spread the fight to UberEats. Some workers have to gig for both to make ends meet. And their Uber brothers and sisters who deliver people instead of meals are organising against similar problems - no guaranteed hours or rates of pay.

Strike

Meanwhile, cinema workers at the Ritzy Picturehouse are again balloting for walkouts. After 13 strike days last year, they won a 26% raise. Just short of the London Living Wage. Management promised to discuss paying the full amount this year - but has refused.

This is casual labour. This is piece work. This is starvation pay. The bosses have taken us back in time, back to the 19th century. The Tories and Blairites abetted them.

That is why the anti-austerity movement massing behind Jeremy Corbyn's Labour leadership is so important.

His platform opposes zero-hour contracts, and promises a £10 an hour minimum wage. These and other pro-worker policies are why trade unions should support him.

And many do. One of the most enthusiastic is bakers' unions BFAWU, which has led victorious strikes against zero-hour contracts at Hovis.

Labour's right wing is so petrified of organised workers that it has suspended BFAWU's pro-Corbyn general secretary Ronnie Draper. Ronnie has been a Labour Party member for four decades! This open assault on democracy is an outrage. The Socialist Party condemns it, and calls for Ronnie's reinstatement.

Ronnie will join Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell at the National Shop Stewards Network lobby of this year's Trade Union Congress. All these crucial issues will be on the agenda.

Join fellow trade unionists and socialists on the NSSN lobby in Brighton on 11 September, 1pm in the Ashdown Suite, Holiday Inn, 137 King's Road (seafront), Brighton BN1 2JF.

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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.