Monthly Archives: May 2020

THE FURLOUGH scheme, where currently 6.2 million workers who are not working during the coronavirus crisis are getting 80% of their wages paid by the state, is to be extended until the end of October, Tory Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced in Parliament yesterday. Sunak, in announcing the measures, gave a...

THE RAMALLAH-based Al-Haq human rights organisation has condemned as ‘misleading and inflammatory’ a recent publication by the Israeli Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs of a report entitled ‘Legal Assault: How the ICC Has Been Weaponised Against the US and Israel’. The report, published last week, was written by a former...

PM JOHNSON’S drive to return workers to work, despite the coronavirus epidemic, announced in Parliament on Monday at 3.00pm has met with a split response in the trade union movement. The RMT’s General Secretary Mick Cash warned: ‘The government’s “return to work” policy from Wednesday morning risks unleashing total chaos...

‘SO WE ARE at real risk, without any coherence without any safeguards, that the infection could have a second surge,’ warned Chaand Nagpaul, Chair of the Council of the British Medical Association (BMA) yesterday, heavily criticising Tory PM Johnson’s push to drive people back to work. ‘If we have another...

WORKERS should be allowed to down tools if their employers fail to provide them with masks and other protective gear in line with the national lockdown level 4 regulations aimed at curbing the spread of coronavirus in the workplace says South African labour federation Cosatu. The Confederation of South African...

BORIS JOHNSON’S address to the nation on Sunday night about ‘relaxing’ the lockdown rules has been widely criticised by the leaders of the Labour Party and trade unions as being too vague and confusing. In fact, far from being vague, the clear message sent out by Johnson is that the...

‘WE SAID you should work from home if you can and if you can’t work from home not to work. We have now changed that message: if you can’t work from home we are now saying that you should go to work,’ Boris Johnson told the nation yesterday evening. He...

‘We are quarantined but not silent. The millionaire cut to public education moves us to take the space, ours, the house, the neighbourhood, the bus stop, etc. because without education there is no future,’ said students from the University of Cuenca in Ecuador. Demonstrations took place at universities across the...

THE CORONAVIRUS crisis is smashing up the US and world capitalist economy at a tremendous rate. The latest casualty is the electric car firm Tesla which has been ordered to keep its main plant in the US closed, as the State of California grapples with a serious coronavirus outbreak. Chief executive...

THE TUC on Friday published a joint statement that was sent yesterday evening to the Secretary of State for Education, on behalf of unions with members in the education sector, outlining the measures needed for the safe reopening of schools. The statement from GMB, NAHT, NASUWT, NEU, Unison and Unite...

‘WE invite other heads of state to come to Minsk for the Victory Parade,’ Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko said as he talked to the media, BelTA has learned. ‘I publicly invite leaders of all states, at least those of the former Soviet Union, to come to Minsk and to attend...

THE BANK of England’s latest report, released on Thursday, has revealed the full extent of the catastrophic crisis of capitalism, now writhing around in its death agony. The shocking BofE report states that capitalism is facing its ‘deepest recession since 1706’. The report did not say that capitalism was facing its...

THE BANK of England warned yesterday that the UK economy is heading towards its deepest recession on record, shrinking by as much as 14% in the sharpest annual contraction since 1706. The economic impact report outlined how the coronavirus was ‘dramatically reducing jobs and incomes in the UK’. Bank governor Andrew...

THE UNITE union, has accused Blue Handling at Stansted, which provides services to Ryanair, of cruelly sacking over a hundred workers instead of using the government’s job retention scheme. In March, the company wrote to 110 staff to terminate their contracts and a second letter was sent out confirming they...

ON WEDNESDAY, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo emphatically denied to reporters that the US had any involvement in the failed attempt by a mercenary force to invade Venezuela last weekend. Pompeo stated categorically: ‘There was no US government direct involvement in this operation’ which begs the question –...

FIREFIGHTERS yesterday slammed the government and building owners as an HCLG Committee cladding survey highlighted widespread safety failings. The Housing, Communities and Local Government (HCLG) Committee has published the findings of a survey into the progress of remediation work to improve fire safety in residential buildings. The survey highlights significant...

COMMENTING on the publication of the Education Policy Institute’s ‘catch up plan’ for disadvantaged pupils during the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr Mary Bousted, Joint General Secretary of the NEU, said: ‘These are new times with massively more numbers of families dropping under the poverty line and we are going to need...

THE EUROPEAN Commission yesterday issued a dire warning that Europe and the EU is suffering ‘an economic shock without precedent since the Great Depression’ and forecast that any recovery will be ‘incomplete’. The EU economy commissioner Paolo Gentiloni called for the EU to rise up to this crisis by making...

VIRGIN Atlantic is to cut a third of its staff in the UK and will keep its operation at Gatwick closed in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the airline giant run by billionaire Richard Branson announced yesterday. Virgin is cutting 3,150 posts and the jobs will be lost across the...

MAYORS representing the Ile-de-France region, which includes the city of Paris, have called on President Emmanuel Macron to delay the reopening of schools until after May 11. They have denounced the plan as a ‘forced march’ out of the country’s coronavirus lockdown. In an open letter to  Macron published on the La...

SUCH is the crisis of British capitalism more than half of the adult population, 27 million people, have had to be financially assisted by the capitalist state, with Chancellor of the Exchequer Sunak warning on Monday night that his ‘furlough’ scheme will soon cost as much, or even more...

‘THE GOVERNMENT is trying to say: “You take the risk to the staff, and you take the risk to the passengers, it is on your heads”,’ Mick Lynch, assistant general secretary of the RMT union said yesterday, underlining that train and tube drivers will refuse to work if the...

BELARUS ‘cannot’ call off the WWII Victory Day parade on 9 May, despite the coronavirus pandemic, because thousands of people are looking forward to the event, including veterans, President Alexander Lukashenko said on Sunday. ‘I must say that we cannot cancel the parade. We simply cannot. I have been thinking...

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump is seeking a scapegoat for the inevitable deaths of millions of people following a forced return to work while the coronavirus pandemic still rages. In an increasingly desperate attempt to place the blame for the pandemic, which has claimed the lives of more than 245,000 people...

OVER 60 signatories comprising Palestinian human rights groups and non-governmental organisations have sent a joint open letter from Ramallah to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), urging it to take action to protect the rights, livelihoods, and dignity of Palestinian workers during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. ‘During Covid-19,’ the letter...

ACCORDING to the Johns Hopkins University count, the coronavirus pandemic has infected more than 3,402,400 people worldwide and has claimed the lives of at least 242,000 people. In the United Kingdom, the Covid-19 tally has surpassed 183,400, with over 28,200 fatalities. Britain is heading for second position after the USA...

‘THE Government has five tests it has said must be met to ease lockdown – the first of which is “making sure the NHS can cope”,’ said BMA Council Chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul yesterday. ‘Six weeks into this crisis,’ he continued, ‘how can the government be confident that this condition...

RYANAIR is planning to make 3,000, 15% of its workers in Europe, redundant and is also planning 20% pay cuts for employees. Unite national officer for aviation Oliver Richardson said: ‘This is another premature announcement, especially while the government’s job retention scheme remains fully up and running. ‘Ryanair has significant cash...

‘TODAY is a great victory from which we will draw strength for the battles ahead,’ chair of Palestine Solidarity Campaign Kamel Hawwash said yesterday, responding to a landmark Supreme Court ruling against the UK government. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) won a landmark legal victory against the British government on...

RYANAIR is to cut 3,000 jobs representing 15% of its workforce, it was announced yesterday. British Airways is to cut up to 12,000 jobs and said it may never reopen operations at Gatwick even after the coronavirus pandemic comes to an end. Billionaire Richard Branson has demanded taxpayers cough up half...

Statement by the News LIne Editorial Board THE NEWS LINE Editorial Board sends its May Day greetings to the working class and the poor of the world who are confronting a bankrupt capitalist system gripped by the greatest economic crisis in its history. Our special May Day greetings go to the...

THE KIMBERLEY Region of the NUM (National Union of Mineworkers) has expressed its disappointment and concern following the decision by Gwede Mantashe, South Africa’s Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, to allow mines to operate at just 50% capacity. According to a statement issued by the NUM, since that announcement...