• WHILE the coronavirus has engulfed us all, trade unionists in Islington are getting active by keeping in contact via social media.

We have expressed sympathies to those workers who have lost lives on the front line, including laying flowers at Holloway bus garage, and in sympathy with those who have lost lives at Whittington Hospital and all front-line workers.

April 28 each year marks International Workers’ Memorial Day in which we remember those that have lost lives at work.

This year will be marked for those workers who have died as a result of coronavirus, including NHS staff and health workers around the world. We will be laying flowers in a dignified way, while social distancing to pay our respects, at strategic landmarks in Islington.

As well as paying respects for those who have died, we must fight for the living.

Islington Trades Union Council, and all unions in Islington are demanding the following:

– That all front-line workers, especially NHS workers, and those that work in social care, together with other key workers such as transport workers and refuse disposal workers, are immediately provided with personal protective equipment, and are fully tested for the virus without further delay.

– That government needs to fast-track payments to those workers, including self-employed, on the government’s job retention scheme, (a scheme that unions pushed the government in taking action in the first place).

– That other local authorities follow Islington Council’s lead with a “no evictions” policy, while families face hardship during these times; and that housing associations who evict tenants as a result of the pandemic be exposed as bad social landlords.

– That all construction sites should be shut down, with compensation for workers in the industry during this period, as it is impossible to work while socially distancing. The construction industry is not a front-line service as Michael Gove and others in the Tory cabinet would have us believe.

This is just a list of the few of the points raised at our online meeting. We had well over 50 people in attendance including our special guest, Jeremy Corbyn, who raised concerns including the lack of speed in the government’s response to the pandemic.

When we come out on the other side of this, there needs to be a full public inquiry into the government’s handling.

The Tory government will want to claw back on public expenditure in the form of further austerity. We have already paid the price for these cutbacks in the last 10 years, especially in our NHS.

The time has come to not just clap for our NHS but to fight for it.

MICK GILGUNN, Chair
GEORGE SHARKEY, Secretary
Islington Trades Union Council