When one talks to people about unions, if they have heard of them, they generally think of them running campaigns to get more money for members. This is indeed one of their key functions. However, a good trade union should be doing considerably more than just this.

One of the major things that unions do is campaign for health and safety. Some prioritise this significantly more than others. In a world where people must sell their labour power to live, at a minimum they should not lose their lives at work. Yet every year thousands of working people globally go to work and never come home.

When you work in the transport industry, health and safety is something you need to be aware of every minute. As a bus driver you are responsible for getting hundreds of passengers safely to their destination each day. Drivers must navigate busy narrow streets, and try to avoid hitting cars, pedestrians, and whatever other obstacles the city tries to throw at you.

Early in my time as Tramways Union President, it became clear that there were some significant health and safety issues the union needed to champion. When incidents happened in the city, media reports tended to automatically blame the driver or imply the bus driver was to blame. If someone runs out into the road without looking, is it really the bus drivers’ fault that they couldn’t break in time? It was clear that bus drivers needed a voice, and the union needed to be that voice.

In 2009 the bus company ordered several new buses. Investment in the fleet was of course welcomed by everyone. Initially there was a degree of consultation with drivers about the design and layout of these vehicles, but when drivers started asking tough questions this soon stopped. New buses were ordered with dashboards which were significantly higher than in the older ones. In earlier buses you could see 2.5 meters in front of the bus from the driver’s seat, in the newer buses the dashboard meant you could only see 3.2 meters ahead. The design was taken from long haul truck and coach vehicles but was totally inappropriate for urban driving. Tramways Union Vice President Chris Morley was particularly vocal about this having been one of the drivers to first raise it. Eventually, the buses with these higher dashboards were retrofitted with mirrors so drivers could see the space blocked out by the high dash.

In a city with narrow streets and generally poor road layout, cyclists are a hazard. Inner city cycling is immensely popular these days and they have vocal lobbyists. Former Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown used to cycle to work and told a National Radio reporter that the city needed to “civilise the bus drivers.” Aside from the middle-class contempt for low paid workers, this showed a considerable lack of understanding by the Mayor as to what the issue was. A decision was made by the council to allow cyclists to use the bus lanes. So 5pm, on a dusky late autumn evening, you are driving up a bus lane past the Wellington Botanical Gardens. You go around the corner and there is a cyclist in the middle of the lane, not wearing reflective clothing and not moving fast. On your right there are cars and there is extraordinarily little room to get around the cyclist. If you stick behind them the bus will run late, but when you overtake the cyclist, they scream blue murder and get irate that you got too close to them.

In 2010 I was part of a bus drivers and cyclists forum where the goal was for each group to get a better understanding of the others perspective. The Campbell live clip of this can be viewed below:

One of the major health and safety issues, aside from the design of the vehicle was the design of the city streets. In 2010 Wellington City turned a pedestrian Mall in Manners street into a main bus carriage through the city CBD. The city planners felt this shouldn’t create any major problems, especially as they lowered the speed limit to 20km per hour.

Within a week of the Manners Street bus carriage opening there were 3 people hit. At first drivers were accused of speeding. This was proved false when those signs showing drivers speeds were put up through the route. The trolley buses, being electric were notoriously quiet, and because they were going under 20km per hour pedestrians did not notice them. Also, after 30 years of Manners Street being a pedestrian mall, old habits die hard and people continued to walk through the street.

I issued a statement saying if the council did not put adequate safety measures in place, drivers would boycott the route. This threat got significant media attention.

Eventually after the council transport team agreed to meet with the union. From this and continued pressure, some safety measures were put in place – such as barriers or additional signage.

Earlier posts in this series:

Why Trade Unionism

“Its a shit job, it pays shit money and if you don’t like it you can fuck off” – My introduction to bus driving

Tramways Union: From new driver to union president in 18 months

Go Wellington bus driver lockout 2008

Earlier Blog posts about Nick:

School uniforms and the young Nick Kelly

Why the Labour Party

Radical Socialism

University and Student Politics

The Iraq War

Student Fees

VUWSA Campaigns

Blogs and the Political Establishment

The Student Union Building

VUWSA President – the realities of leadership

Post VUWSA Executive

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that COVID-19 has so far made a “soft landfall” in the continent of Africa – with nearly 100,000 cases throughout and a relatively low number of deaths. Compared to other regions, Africa has been spared high infection and mortality rates.

The relatively low levels of infection are a combination of luck and good management. Many African nations implemented lockdown measures early, having seen the results of the virus spreading in countries like Italy or the UK. That Africa was not one of the early regions to suffer gave it time to take preventative action. Its leaders also had the good sense not to call COVID-19 “a little flu”, and subsequently not take appropriate action and condemn many of their citizens to death.

One of the factors that may have made a considerable difference in Africa is the actions of the African Union currently chaired by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. Under his stewardship, the African Union have worked closely and effectively with the WHO on measures to stop the virus spreading throughout the region. They have also worked closely with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) to push for debt restructuring in response to the global economic crisis this pandemic has caused. Unlike the European Union, the African Union has proactively helped the 55 nation members work together to combat this virus.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has stood out as a leader during this pandemic, implementing one of the toughest lockdowns in the world to stop the virus. His act fast, act hard policy has been widely praised as showing decisive leadership that has saved lives.

 

Ramaphosa has no doubt learnt from his predecessor Thabo Mbeki’s abysmal response to the HIV crisis in South Africa where inaction by the government caused the virus to spread quickly. Sadly it’s through these sort of deadly mistakes that politicians learn the importance of prevention in public health.

The picture isn’t all rosy in Africa. As virus numbers rise, South Africa is warning it could run out of ICU beds in June. There are also grave concerns for the state of the South African economy as a result of the lockdown, given it was already struggling before this crisis.

Issues in South Africa pale in comparison to the issues in Tanzania, where the government is suspected to have covered up the infection rate and death toll. President John Magufuli has led a crackdown on anyone who criticises the government handling of COVID-19, and opposition politicians have had their phones tapped. Tanzania has been an exception in Africa where most governments have implemented a shutdown. In Tanzania, the president has fired health experts and refused to implement a lockdown. Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has urged the Tanzanian government to share data on COVID-19 infection rates and remains worried at the lack of data coming out of the country to date. Kenya has closed its border with Tanzania apart from cargo traffic and imposed testing measures on Tanzanian truck drivers after more than 50 of them tested positive for the virus in a single day.

Tanzania is the outlier, with most other African nations acting responsibly and listening to WHO guidance. 100,000 cases of COVID-19 out of a population of 1.216 billion throughout the African continent is a very good result. Africa is the poorest continent on earth, and only a few decades earlier suffered from European colonisation. HIV and Ebola have added further suffering to a war-torn and impoverished region. The actions of the African Union, and the majority of its member states to prevent the spread of COVID-19 could well be a turning point for Africa. While much of the continent remains economically deprived, Africa has now shown the world that its leaders can take decisive action to save lives and prevent suffering. If crippling debt imposed on African nations by better-off countries (who in many cases were former colonisers of the region) can be written off, this region has a real chance to develop over the coming decade.

 

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the fore the longstanding policy failure in UK social care. The UK has the second-highest COVID-19 death toll on the planet, and this is in no small part due to the virus spreading rapidly through residential care homes. But the problem in the care sector is bigger than COVID-19, this is a sector which has suffered decades of neglect and indecision by policymakers and the result has been deadly.

As levels of testing for coronavirus in the UK remain abysmally poor it is difficult to give precise figures. It is estimated that nearly half of the 36,000 COVID-19 deaths in the UK have occurred in residential care homes. Thousands of carers and those needing care have contracted the virus, though many still have not been tested. Some providers estimate that of those showing signs of coronavirus fewer than 25% have been tested. Of those who have been tested, many have had to wait days for their results to come back. In certain parts of the country such as Cumbria, care staff have been told they need to travel two to three hours to the nearest testing centre. Given all this, and the woeful lack of PPE given to care-workers, it is not at all surprising that the virus has spread in the residential care homes so quickly.

To be fair to the government, once the crisis hit the were prepared to spend money, but it hasn’t got to the right places. The government pumped £3.2 billion into the adult social care to support the sector during this difficult time.  Just this week, the government announced an additional £300 million would be given to funding infection control, specifically testing and contact tracing. As Care England CEO, Professor Martin Green pointed out when giving evidence at the Health & Social Care Select Committee this week, the money isn’t going to where it is most needed. In the UK, local authorities are responsible for managing social care. Recent government funding has been given to local councils who are then expected to pass this onto care providers, unfortunately, this has not always happened. As Martin Green explains, both local councils and care providers are very stretched right now, and the underlying problem is they are trying to manage an unsustainable social care system.

The number of people needing social care has been increasing in recent years. It is predicted there will be a 33% increase people living till 85 or older over the next 20 years (and many of these people will be living with long term health issues), so the demand for social care will continue to grow. Despite this clearly looming large as a policy area in need of attention, the response from successive UK governments over the last twenty has been to duck the issue.

The fundamental problem is that unlike the National Health Service (NHS) which is free at the point of delivery, social care is not. At present, anyone who has more than £23,000 in assets must pay the full cost of social care if they or their family members need it. The UK social care arrangements are a legacy of the English poor laws. When the Beveridge Report of 1942 was produced proposing to create the welfare state, there was no assumption that people would start living longer into retirement, often requiring ongoing care. When the NHS was established a few years later in 1948, a National Care Service was sadly not created as an appendage to it. Worse, no government in the intervening 72 years has thought to extend the NHS to cover social care, despite it quite clearly being part and parcel of the public health system.

As already explained, local authorities are responsible for providing social care in their communities. Through local government, there are publically funded social care services for people who have no ability to pay. However local government struggle to meet the demand, especially over the last decade of austerity where funding to councils from central government has been cut drastically. At the same time demand continues to grow. According to The King’s Fund 400,000 fewer older people have access to publicly funded social care than in 2010.

When people need social care, whether this is residential care or support in their own homes, it can cost them and their loved ones many thousands of pounds a year. Many are forced to sell their homes or spend their life savings to cover this cost.

Most care providers in the UK are contracted through private providers. During the COVID-19 crisis, many of the smaller operators have struggled to keep going due to empty beds (either due to COVID-19 deaths and people being reluctant to move into care facilities). The situation at present is that many of the current providers are struggling to keep going, and additional funding from the government is said to not be getting through to care providers. At the same time already stretched local authorities are facing ever-increasing demands for social care in their communities. Add to this the cost of purchasing PPE which remains scarce and expensive.

The other major challenge in the care sector is the lack of investment in staffing. Working in adult social care is not well paid, and people in the sector complain about a lack of parity with staff working in the NHS both in terms of pay and status. Social care workers will often be inaccurately described in the media as ‘low skill’ when nothing could be further from the truth. There are approximately 100,000 vacancies in the social care sector at any given time, and poor pay and stressful working conditions are seen as major contributing factors. The UK government points-based immigration system will likely make it harder care providers to recruit migrants, despite the care sector relying of overseas labour at present.

It would be wrong to suggest that the social care sector in England and Wales is completely broken. In Greater Manchester, the council under Mayor Andy Burnham has established a partnership between the NHS and social care to facilitate joined-up thinking and improve service delivery. The council signed a devolution deal with the government and is now responsible for the health and social care spending in the Greater Manchester area. Initiatives such as this are to be commended, however, there shouldn’t be a postcode lottery as to whether there is a well functioning social care system linked to the NHS.

After the 2019 election, when the Conservatives secured a large majority, Prime Minister Boris Johnson called for a cross-party consensus on how to solve the social care “crisis”.  Social care has been a political football in recent years. In the 2017 election the Tories had to back down on their “dementia tax” policy to pay for social care. This policy was deemed to be an additional tax on those with dementia or those needing long term care, and was very unpopular with the British electorate. Prior to this in government, the Conservatives had passed the Care Act of 2014 based on the principles in the 2011 Dilnot whereby after a lifetime contribution cap, individuals would be eligible for full state support in receiving social care. The Tories in coalition with the Liberal Democrats passed the bill in 2014, but in 2015 once governing alone announced a delay in funding the provisions in the Care Act, and this delay continues to this day. The bizarre situation of the government passing a law, only to then not fund or implement it would be quite funny were it not for the many thousands of people needing social care who have been left in limbo by this action. Social care has been placed in the too hard basket by politicians and clear decisive leadership to resolve the crisis has been sorely lacking. A cross-party consensus would be great as this would provide certainty to the sector, but this would still require making tough decisions, something that has been a distinct lack of to date.

There needs to be a National Care Service connected to the NHS, which is publicly funded to a level that nobody who needs care misses out due to financial hardship or a lack of appropriate care services. The cost of implementing this would not be cheap, and there would need to be an honest public debate about this being funded through general taxation. However, NHS figures showing the number of people admitted to A & E due to lack of social care and the cost and pressure this places on the health system would highlight the need to fund social care. Millions of pounds are spent each month treating dementia patients or others who end up in hospital when they really need social care to remain safe and healthy. In Scotland the devolved government has introduced free social care for people aged 65 years and over, there is no reason other parts of the UK can’t do the same.

That it has taken a global pandemic, where deaths in residential care homes have meant the UK has the second-highest COVID-19 mortality rate in the world, for policymakers to really sit up and take notice is a disgrace. Now is the time for making bold decisions to address the many challenges in adult social care.

 

 

 

One of the more bizarre twists during the COVID-19 pandemic has been how the crisis has unfolded in Brazil. The country’s populist right-wing government has failed to implement social distancing measures, leaving the gangs to implement them in the poorest urban areas.

The response of Brazillian president Bolsonaro to the virus has been to describe it as “a little flu”, and encouraged people to keep going to work. There has been no official government lockdown in Brazil, and the country’s Health Minister was sacked by Bolsonaro for advocating social distancing. Current COVID-19 figures from Brazil are that 193,838 people have caught the virus, and 13,618 have died – meaning the country has the sixth-highest coronavirus infection rate in the world and by far the worse in South America.

To paraphrase Aristotle, power abhors a vacuum and the presidency of Bolsonaro certainly failed to provide leadership during this crisis. In the absence of the government taking responsibility, it has been left to the drug gangs to implement social distancing measures in the favelas. These gangs have been using WhatsApp and other social media tools to send out messages to people living in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. Below are a couple of examples:

“Whoever is caught on the street will learn how to respect the measure. We want the best for the population. If the government is unable to manage, organised crime resolves,”

“We are on the streets taking risks so that you can sleep in peace, we leave our families to protect yours, so, then respect the order we have given. If you are caught out on the street after 10pm, it will be bad”

What is the motivation for organised crime to take this action during this pandemic? Firstly it is good business sense to protect the lives of the people you make money out of. Mass death in the favelas is bad for business, as these are the people who buy your drugs.

The second reason is ethos (ethical appeal to convince an audience of someone’s credibility or character). These gangs are about building and maintaining power in their communities. One of the key things needed to gain and sustain power is credibility, mass support and appeal. The evidence is pretty clear from the WHO and the scientific community that social distancing is required to stop the spread of the virus. This is logical reasoning or Logos to win support. It is the poorest, most densely populated areas which will be worst affected by the virus spreading. People in these areas will feel vulnerable and scared, so a group providing leadership to save lives will gain emotional appeal or Pathos. So at a time when people fear the virus and science is clear on what course of action is needed to prevent its spread, the way to gain credibility or ethos is to take the logical and popular course of action that the government should have but didn’t.

The third reason is the age-old story of organised crime. Anyone who has watched Peaky Blinders will know that criminals in gangs are usually looking for a way to turn legitimate. Making money from illegal activities poses a significant level of business risk. Though the returns may be high, the cost of being arrested, shut down or murdered by rival gangs or law enforcement is considerable. Providing public health leadership during a pandemic is a great way to establish yourself as a community leader, and get into local politics. There is a well-trodden path from organised crime to mainstream politics and there are many transferable skills when switching from one to another.

It is certainly not an enviable situation where your local drug dealer understands power, politics and leadership better than the man elected to be your country’s president. Much worse is that these same criminals, who make their money off selling additive substances that destroy lives, have shown greater respect for people living in the favelas than the government.

People in the favelas face threats of violence and intimidation from these gangs if they leave their homes during the pandemic. This is a horrible situation to live in. Yet at the same time, the crisis provides an opportunity for the gangs to implement this level of power and control with a level of legitimacy they would have never gained in normal times.

The conditions in the favelas are such that even with social distancing, it is difficult to stop the spread of COVID-19. Houses are built in very close proximity, and often large families are confined into a small living space. In these sorts of environments, it is next to impossible to stop the spread of coronavirus. Attempts to implement social distancing are the best chance people in these areas have of slowing the spread and saving lives. Whilst it is highly undesirable that this preventative public health measure is being run by criminals, someone needed to.