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Bully bosses' zero-hour backdown
Socialist Party members out fighting zero-hour contracts with the Fast Food Rights campaign, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)
What does it feel like to feel worthless at work? Well it goes like this. You work very hard, undergo extensive training, gain additional educational qualifications in your spare time and go the extra mile every day as a learning support worker to support your students.
Then one day along come comfortable, senior managers who say that your job - with sick pay, holiday payments, a pension and half decent working conditions - is now only worth a zero-hour contract.
Your pay may not be brilliant but at least you have some basic security and you think your job is worthwhile. Wrong. It is not because they now value you as worth less than them. They even have the gall to say that imposing zero-hour contracts is fraught with moral and ethical dilemmas for them.
I spoke with our GMB union rep about the threat of zero-hour contracts. He met with management and was told that there are no proposals at present, there's nothing on the table and nothing in writing and that the contracts of all staff presently employed there are secure and will continue as normal. It's clear they have backed down as soon as they were approached by the union. It's also come to light that the agency the management was suggesting be used, Randwick, has just been ditched by the college we are merging with as 'not fit for purpose'.
The Socialist Party fights to scrap zero-hour contracts, and guarantee full-time hours and permanent jobs for all who want them. We back Jeremy Corbyn's pledge to abolish zero-hours if elected on 8 June.
A learning support worker, south London
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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 donate to our Fighting Fund.
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