Workers on zero-hours contracts and other insecure jobs are twice as likely to have died of Covid-19 as those in other professions, according to a report from the Trades Union Congress.

 The research reveals stark inequalities in the workplace.

Those on the frontline of the pandemic, such as care workers, nurses and delivery drivers, were at a higher risk of death. It said many of these key workers were in insecure work, such as zero-hours contracts and agency employment, landing them with a “triple whammy” of no sick pay, fewer rights and endemic low pay, while having to shoulder more risk of infection. Insecure jobs were defined using occupations with a higher proportion of workers employed on contracts that did not guarantee regular hours or income, or low-paid self-employment.

Covid-19 mortality rates among male workers in insecure jobs was 51 per 100,000 people aged 20-64, compared with 24 out of 100,000 in more secure work. For female staff the rate was 25 per 100,000, compared with 13 per 100,000 in higher-paying secure work.

Sectors such as care, leisure, and occupations such as labouring, factory and warehouse work have the highest rates of insecure work, compared with managerial, professional and administrative roles, which have some of the lowest. Insecure workers account for one in nine of the total workforce, with women, disabled people and BAME workers more likely to be in precarious roles.

The union body said the lack of proper sick pay was forcing those in insecure jobs to choose between protecting their lives and putting food on the table. The UK has one of the lowest rates of sick pay in Europe and nearly 2 million workers, including many in insecure work, do not earn enough to qualify for it.

Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the TUC, said the government had failed to bring forward an employment bill promised in 2019 to bolster workers’ rights and legal protections. She said urgent action was required to tackle insecure employment practices and support low-paid workers.

“Lots of them are the key workers we all applauded – like social care workers, delivery drivers and coronavirus testing staff. This must be a turning point,” she said. “If people can’t observe self-isolation when they need to, the virus could rebound. No one should have to choose between doing the right thing and putting food on the table.”

Workers in insecure jobs twice as likely to die of Covid, TUC research finds | Zero-hours contracts | The Guardian

As part of Wall Street’s “relentless push to influence decision-making” in Washington, D.C., the powerful financial sector spent a record $2.9 billion on campaign donations and lobbying in the 2020 election cycle, according to Americans for Financial Reform (AFR). The spending detailed in AFR’s report likely does not represent Wall Street’s total contributions, the organization noted, because $1.05 billion in dark money, with unknown original sources, was spent on the 2020 federal elections.

 The historic sum was spent by Wall Street executives, employees, and trade groups, and included campaign contributions as well as lobbying expenses was to ensure lawmakers pass “policy that makes the already wealthy richer, and the rest of us poorer,” regardless of which party is in power. 

Wall Street Gave More Money During 2020 Election Than Any Campaign Season in US History | Common Dreams News

 nearly 362,000 people have died of Covid-19 in Brazil, trailing only the United States with its 565,000 deaths.

 Doctors Without Borders denounced what it called the Brazilian government’s “failed Covid-19 response,” warning of a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

“After accounting for over a quarter of global Covid-19 deaths last week, Brazil does not have an effective plan in place to deal with the pandemic,” the international medical charity, known by its French acronym, MSF, stated in a blog post. “The pandemic in the country has become politicized, and the government has not adopted science-based measures to try to bring it under control.” 

MSF international president Dr. Christos Christou said that “public health measures have become a political battlefield in Brazil. As a result, science-based policies are associated with political opinions, rather than the need to protect individuals and their communities from Covid-19.” 

“The lack of political will to adequately respond to the pandemic is killing Brazilians in their thousands,” said MSF. “Last week, Brazilians accounted for 11% of the world’s Covid-19 infections and 26.2% global Covid-19 deaths. On 8 April, 4,249 deaths from Covid-19 were recorded in a single 24-hour period, alongside 86,652 new Covid-19 infections.”

“Last week, intensive care units were full in 21 out of 27 of Brazil’s capitals,” said MSF. “In hospitals across the country there are ongoing shortages of both oxygen, needed to treat patients who are severely and critically ill, as well as sedatives, needed to intubate critically ill patients. As a result, our teams have seen patients, who may have otherwise had a chance at survival, being left without appropriate medical care.”

Pierre Van Heddegem, emergency coordinator for MSF’s Covid-19 response in Brazil, said that “not only are patients dying without access to healthcare, but medical staff are exhausted and suffering from severe psychological and emotional trauma due to their working conditions.”

“The Brazilian authorities have overseen the unmitigated spread of Covid-19,” Christou pointed out. “Their refusal to adapt evidence-based public health measures has sent too many to an early grave. The response in Brazil needs an urgent, science-based reset.” Driving home his point once again, Christou added: “I have to be very clear in this: the Brazilian authorities’ negligence is costing lives.”

‘Humanitarian Catastrophe’: Doctors Without Borders Slams Brazil’s Covid-19 Response | Common Dreams News

 Four more talks from March 2021 –

‘Fame and Fortune‘, Mike Foster, 5th March 2021

‘FAQ Leaders and leadership‘, introduced by Paddy Shannon, 10th March 2021

‘Technocracy – Swerving A Revolution, Unless We Get There First’, Carla Dee, 12th March 2021

‘What is post-scarcity?‘, introduced by Adam Buick, 19th March 2021

(This is a discussion based on Peter Joseph’s podcast on ‘post-scarcity’. Due to technical problems the podcast recording failed, and the start of the discussion wasn’t recorded. The original podcast can be found here).

 Drivers at  Hermes, one of the UK’s largest delivery firms, say they are having to work for free for several hours a day.

 Couriers in several areas of the country say they feel compelled to “muck in” with the parcel sorting process in understaffed depots because they cannot start earning any money until it is done.

“People should not be working for free and people should not be exploited into working for free,” said the GMB union’s national officer Mick Rix.

Drivers came forward to describe the “impossible choice” they regularly face, explaining that as they get paid per delivery, they are entirely dependent on the sorting process being completed before they can start their working day. Many depots are routinely understaffed, they said, meaning the process can sometimes be lengthy. As a result, many feel compelled to go in early and help with the sorting without pay because their alternative would be to start late in the day and work until well after dark to get their deliveries done and keep up their earnings.

“There is this relationship that you find that exists in the gig economy where you think: how far do the norms go before it becomes accepted? What seems to be the acceptance here is that people are sorting parcels to ensure that they can get their deliveries out and they’re doing it for free,” said Rix.  “Sometimes you’ve got to wonder: is the success of companies such as Hermes in some respects because they can charge such a low price to clients and customers, because there’s a workforce that’s subsidising that price?” he said. “We think that is part of the model that has now got to change for the future. You can’t say you are decent companies if you are not treating people and looking after people well. People are just not going to wear that any more.”

 Meanwhile, new research by the Living Wage Foundation suggests that two-fifths of UK workers are given only short notice of their working hours, research has revealed, with lower-paid staff suffering the most during the pandemic, in a sign that precarious employment practices are widespread across the economy.

 38% of all workers – representing about 10 million people in the UK workforce – were being given less than a week’s notice of shift patterns by their employer.

In research exposing the scale of precarious work, the figures suggest that chaotic employment practices and just-in-time arrangements extend well beyond roles in hospitality, retail and warehousing into typically higher-paying professional jobs.

Short-notice periods were even more pronounced for those in jobs with variable hours or shift work built into their contracts, with 62% having less than a week to prepare for their schedule. At the extreme, 12% of this group – amounting to 7% all working adults – had less than 24 hours’ notice. Low-paid, full-time workers from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, and those with children, were also disproportionately affected.

Laura Gardiner, the director of the Living Wage Foundation, said lack of clear notice of shift patterns meant millions of workers were being forced to make impossible choices on childcare, transport and other important aspects of family life.

Some Hermes drivers working for free for hours a day, union says | Hermes | The Guardian

Almost 40% of UK workers ‘get less than a week’s notice of shift patterns’ | Gig economy | The Guardian

 — Four chemical conglomerates—Bayer (German), BASF (German), ChemChina (Chinese) and Corteva (U.S.)—control more than 60% of the world’s commercial seeds market.

— Tyson Foods and three other U.S. poultry firms control 60% of the U.S. poultry market. Three global giants—JBS (Brazil), Tyson (U.S.) and Smithfield (China)—control 85% of the U.S. beef market and 71% of the pork market.

— Four multinational grain-trading powers—Cargill, ADM, Bunge and Dreyfus—control 90% of all grain (corn, wheat, rice, etc.) marketed in the world.

— John Deere and Italian conglomerate CNH Industrial control nearly half of the U.S. market for tractors and other farm machinery (even using their monopoly clout to prohibit farmers from repairing their own machines, forcing them to travel to expensive authorized dealers for repairs).

— Multibillion-dollar Wall Street speculators are the nation’s biggest buyers of farmland, jacking up per-acre prices beyond what family farmers (especially young people trying to get into farming) can pay; indeed, the largest owner of U.S. ag land is superrich tech mogul Bill Gates, who holds land in almost 20 states that would amount to a nearly 400-square-mile farm (bigger than four Seattles, the sprawling metropolis where he lives).

Opinion | To Bust Monopoly Power, Start With the Companies Controlling Our Food (commondreams.org)

 Back in July 2020 the Socialist Standard drew attention to the militarisation of many American police forces, turning them into heavily armed and equipped paramilitaries.

Left-wing commentator, Laura Flanders, once again draws attention to this development in an article on the Consortium News website.

But she compares this with the very obvious lack of commitment to “militarise” health-care and extend the medical services provided for veterans to the civilian population. 

The media indulges in many military metaphors in the “war” against Covid but fails to reach the logical conclusion that to defeat the virus enemy means putting the health servoces of America on to a “war-footing” with “military-grade” medical treatments. 

 Equality

There are royal commissions established,

Commons committees of earnest MPs,

 In “the other place” by ponderous degrees

They discuss how to achieve what is wished.

Concerned documentaries on TV,

Radio phone-ins squabble and blare,

The press agree, society’s not fair:

But all are committed to equality.

The days of deference are long since passed:

‘Black lives matter!’ All lives matter! And yet,

For all the rhetoric, all the cant,

By prestige and pomp a person’s still classed.

When a prince passes he’s specially blessed;

Some lives, and deaths, matter more than the rest

D.A.

 Just 3% of the world’s land remains ecologically intact with healthy populations of all its original animals and undisturbed habitat, a study suggests. Previous analyses have identified wilderness areas based largely on satellite images and estimated that 20-40% of the Earth’s surface is little affected by humans. However, the scientists behind the new study argue that forests, savannah and tundra can appear intact from above but that, on the ground, vital species are missing. 

These scattered fragments of wilderness undamaged by human activities are mainly in parts of the Amazon and Congo tropical forests, east Siberian and northern Canadian forests and tundra, and the Sahara.  Some scientists said the new analysis underestimates the intact areas, because the ranges of animals centuries ago are poorly known and the new maps do not take account of the impacts of the climate crisis, which is changing the ranges of species.

Thousands of abandoned oil wells dot the Permian Basin in west Texas and New Mexico, endangering humans and wildlife. With oil costs plummeting, they’re likely to proliferate. A growing body of research suggests that these sorts of leaks make oil and gas wells significant contributors to climate change – especially if they’re not plugged. Leaking wells also have the potential to poison sources of drinking water.

Oil companies are legally required to “plug” their abandoned wells to prevent exactly these sorts of hazards. Drilling a well involves puncturing through layers of dirt, rock, and water to reach oil and gas deposits. The walls of the well are reinforced with steel casing and cement, but as they age – or if they were improperly drilled – cracks may form in the cement and the casings could corrode. This increases the risk of methane seeping into the air and oil migrating into the surrounding groundwater. For this reason, an operator is supposed to plug a spent well by pouring concrete into the well and also clean up the surrounding area by removing wellheads, tanks, pipes and other unused equipment that could endanger humans or wildlife.

 Texas and New Mexico have already identified about 7,000 abandoned wells.  State officials estimate these will cost $335m to plug. The states define wells as “orphaned” if they don’t have an approved operator on record; additionally, Texas only includes wells that haven’t produced in at least a year. However, a healthy chunk of roughly 100,000 “idled” wells in those states could also eventually end up abandoned.

While officials have argued that oil prices will eventually rise, reviving inactive wells, environmental advocates and energy analysts say that the industry is in a downward spiral that will cause the number of abandoned wells to balloon. The uncertain outlook means that independent estimates of the cleanup costs of Texas’s wells alone have ranged from a conservative $168m to a mind-boggling $117bn.

States have not collected nearly enough money from operators to foot the bill. Though they force oil and gas producers to front substantial cash to cover plugging costs in case their wells are abandoned, these bonds only covered one-sixth of Texas’s cleanup costs in 2015. In New Mexico, these bonds would cover just 18% of plugging costs for all of the state’s orphan wells.

How Texas’s zombie oil wells are creating an environmental disaster zone | Texas | The Guardian