Support the Weetabix strikers!

by New Worker correspondent

London trade unionists were out leafleting and collecting for the Weetabix strikers outside Sainsbury’s on Kilburn High Road last week.
    Some 80 engineers at the Weetabix plants in Kettering and Corby are taking industrial action against new ‘fire-and-rehire’ contracts, which would leave them up to £5,000 per year worse off.
    It began with two-day mid-week walk-outs in September following the break-down of talks in the summer between their union, Unite, and management. Now the strikers have stepped up their campaign, moving to a four-day stoppage each week.
    Weetabix is the largest cereal manufacturer in the UK, exporting to over 80 countries, and has production facilities in Europe, North America, and East Africa with a combined global workforce of 1,800 employees. It was taken over by an American company, Post Holdings Inc, in 2017.
    Weetabix Management claim the dispute has nothing to do with fire-and-rehire – but this was dismissed by Unite leader Sharon Graham this week. “These attacks are totally unjustified,” she said. “They are a serving of corporate greed. And what’s more, although Weetabix deny it, we have irrefutable evidence that they are using ‘fire-and-rehire’ strategies.”
    Last year Weetabix turnover grew by five per cent to £325 million and profits leapt by almost 20 per cent to £82 million.

Fight for the NHS!

Corbyn says Centene out!

by New Worker correspondent

Jeremy Corbyn joined a protest against GP practices being taken over by a US health insurance company last week. The former Labour leader, along with East London MP Apsana Begum, joined demonstrators outside the London headquarters in Westminster of Operose Health – a subsidiary of the giant Centene corporation –to protest against NHS privatisation.
    Corbyn told the crowd to “fight for the NHS until hell freezes over” at the protest called by Doctors in Unite (DiU), a campaign led by the biggest union in the country.
    Unite, with 100,000 members in the health service, has hit out at “a culture of Tory cronyism that is rapidly enveloping the NHS”, and called for an urgent independent inquiry into the ever-expanding lobbying scandal engulfing the NHS and its impact on the accelerating pace of health service privatisation.
    The call for an inquiry – with its recommendations cemented into law – follows on from the revelation that Tory health secretary Matt Hancock met former prime minister David Cameron and financier Lex Greensill for a private drink in 2019 to discuss a new payment scheme for the NHS.
    Doctors in Unite chair Jackie Applebee said: “Ministers and senior NHS executives have repeatedly mouthed the mantra that the NHS is not being privatised.
    “But now we have the case of a huge swathe of English general practice, including the data of nearly half a million patients, being handed over to US health insurance giant Centene – with a breath-taking lack of transparency and openness.
    “Tory politicians and their outriders in the media roll out the tired old trope that all general practices are private, but this is disingenuous and they know it.
    “There is a world of difference between a multinational corporation that operates to make a profit, often by cutting staff and services, so that it can pay dividends to shareholders, and local GPs who are very much part of the NHS ‘family’ and provide services from a budget fixed by the Treasury.
    “The public needs to wake-up to the fact the NHS that they so value and which has been the lynchpin of the successful vaccination programme is being steadily sold off to profit-hungry healthcare companies – in this case one whose headquarters is in America.
    “This is another prime example of the accelerating privatisation of the NHS by stealth and Unite is spot-on to call for an independent inquiry into the wider lobbying scandal engulfing the NHS which emanates from a desire by profiteers to get their hands on lucrative health service contracts.
    “Now is a time to draw a line in the sand to preserve and cherish the NHS as an organisation free at the point of delivery to all those in need. If we are not vigilant, these founding principles of the NHS in 1948 will become pale shadows of themselves.”

Pickets out in force in London!

By New Worker correspondent

Pickets were out in force at RATP’s London United bus depot in Harlesden last week after peace talks broke down over proposed attacks on conditions and real terms pay cuts.
    The London United dispute is a result of RATP seeking to use the coronavirus pandemic as cover to slash the pay and conditions of drivers. Following four days of negotiations Management made an offer for the outstanding pay increases for 2019 and 2020 and also sought to introduce new contract clauses. The pay offer fell well below the expectations of members and the proposed changes to conditions had not been previously discussed, and as such Unite was unable to propose the offer to members at this stage.
     London United is owned by RATP which is Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens, a French state owned company which has branched out from running most of the public transport in the Greater Paris area where it carried about 3.3 billion passengers per year before the pandemic.
     It presently operates in 13 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the United States, notably Texas, with 64,000 people, claiming to be the world’s fourth largest public transport company. Despite claiming that last year was one of successive crises the company’s turnover was £4,700 million. Christine Chardon, the chief executive of their London based operation, saw her pay dramatically increased from £196,000 to £363,000. Three cheers for equal pay!
     Originally both Stamford Brook and Hounslow Heath depots heavily voted for industrial action but turnout was too low to legally join the action already underway at London United’s five other depots at Fulwell, Hounslow, Park Royal, Shepherd’s Bush and Tolworth garages. These five depots were on strike on Wednesday and will be joined on the 16th by the two latest recruits. As a consequence they had to be re-balloted.
     Unite the union say negotiations broke down last week when the company’s proposed pay offers to resolve the 2019 and 2020 pay claims were well below expectations and at the same time Management also attempted to alter drivers’ contracts.
     Unite regional officer Michelle Braveboy welcomed the result saying: “This is a significant and welcome development, the strike action will now intensify.
     “The drivers who have been considered key workers throughout the dispute are rightly asking how on earth RATP believes it is acceptable to cut drivers' pay in real terms and undermine their conditions, when they have gone above and beyond the call of duty to keep London moving”.
     She concluding by lobbing the ball into RATP’s court by saying “If increasing disruption to bus services is to be avoided then RATP must make a significantly improved pay offer and end its attempts to undermine its workers’ conditions”.
     Other RATP subsidiaries such as London Sovereign have seen drivers reluctantly voting to accept a pay rise of 1.25 percent and a one-off payment of £500 which is only 0.5 per cent bigger than the first offer. Over at Quality Line drivers voted in favour of a pathetic one per cent pay rise. Why does Unite not coordinate its action across the whole of London or better still across the country?

 

Support London bus drivers!

Picket of Park Royal garage

 by New Worker correspondent

London bus drivers took industrial action following the break-down of talks between RATP and Unite the union last week. Drivers working for RATP’s three subsidiary companies, London United, London Sovereign and Quality Line, went on strike over pay and conditions. RATP, a French state-owned transport company, is trying to impose new contracts that would cut drivers’ wages by some £1,500 a year.
    The fresh strike action follows a number of strikes held in February in protest at RATP’s “modernising” proposals. In a divide and rule approach, RATP is attempting to treat workers in each subsidiary differently and play one set of workers off against the other.
    Directors and shareholders line their own pockets while expecting their workers to take pay cuts lying down. Picket placards point out that the company’s highest paid director got £363,000 last year (an increase of £167,000 from the previous year), and £1,800,000 in dividends were paid out to shareholders.
    Support for the strike is solid in London United’s depots. With only nine out of 200 buses in operation, they are causing significant disruption. They’re also receiving lots of support from the community and notably from Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary Jim McMahon.
    Unite regional officer Michelle Braveboy said: “Bus drivers at RATP are resolved that attacks on their pay and conditions will be abandoned and that they will secure a meaningful pay rise.
     “It is simply disgraceful that RATP is using the cover of Covid-19 to try to force through these cuts.
     “London’s bus drivers have kept the city moving through successive lockdowns but have also suffered a terrible penalty, through very high numbers of Covid deaths, as a result of their dedication and sacrifice.
     “This strike action is being taken as a last resort. This dispute is a direct result of RATP failing to treat its workers reasonably and fairly.
     “RATP is attempting to boost its profits by cutting workers’ pay, either directly or in real terms. Further strike action can still be avoided and Unite is prepared to enter into negotiations to resolve this dispute at any time”.

 

London Workers’ Notes

by New Worker correspondent

In the good old days of the 1970s when trade union membership was twice what it is today, Tories frequently complained that trade unions would go on strike at the drop of a hat to get a pay rise. With few exceptions at present, trade unions are equally active but their energies seem to be almost entirely devoted to attempting to save jobs or prevent wage reductions that bosses are attempting to impose under the cover of the COVID-19 crisis.

Waltham Abbey

Essential supplies of Brussels sprouts, port, cranberry sauce and Stilton in and around London could be at risk as a result of a planned Christmas strike. Twelve drivers, employed by Harper & Guy Consulting Ltd at Sainsbury’s Waltham Abbey distribution centre, have voted unanimously for strike action in protest at being paid £12,000 less per year than those directly employed by Sainsbury’s. As a result, deliveries to about 100 Sainsbury’s stores in London and the south east will be severely affected during the six days of strikes before and after Christmas.
    The driver’s union, Unite, said that Sharper & Guy had point blank refused to discuss the pay claim for 2020 and parity pay.
    Regional officer Paul Travers thundered: “What we have here is one of the most flagrant cases of pay parity injustice that I have been involved with, as our members are getting paid £12,000-a-year less than their counterparts employed directly by Sainsbury’s doing the same job at the Waltham Abbey depot.
    “You don’t have to be a mathematical genius to work out that 12 times £12,000 is nearly £150,000-a-year and that someone is benefiting from that figure – and it is definitely not our members.
    “Ironically, Harper & Guy Consulting Ltd has pay parity with Sainsbury’s drivers for all the agency drivers it employs at this depot which just adds insult to injury for our 12 members who are being treated appallingly.”
    The union’s national officer for road transport and logistics, Matt Draper, added: “This dispute further puts the spotlight on Sainsbury’s desire to pursue its misguided ‘race to the bottom’ strategy.” He also pointed out: “We have opposed the introduction of these lower paid ‘new generation’ contracts within Sainsbury’s. The way these drivers at Waltham Abbey are being contemptuously treated shows Sainsbury’s is implicated at arm’s length in the actions Zero Hours–Zero Benefits of Harper & Guy Consulting Ltd.
    “Sainsbury’s needs to remember a ‘key worker’ is not just for the present COVID-19 emergency, but for the long-term as a contented workforce improves productivity.”

London Airport

Tuesday saw workers at Britain’s main airport, London Heathrow, who are directly employed by Heathrow Airport Limited (HAL) mount a socially distanced picket as part of a long-running dispute over savage wage cuts imposed on the workforce through a brutal fire and rehire programme. In addition, an advertising van toured the area condemning “Heathrow’s super-rich shareholders are jetting off with workers’ wages”, in which Heathrow’s chief executive officer John Holland Kaye was portrayed as the “Heathrow Grinch CEO is stealing workers’ wages”.
    These actions come after workers voted by 84 per cent in opposition to fire and rehire policies that will result some workers suffering permanent pay cuts of up to £8,000 per annum or a quarter of their take-home pay.
    The targeted strike action involves workers who are vital to the operation of the airport and includes: firefighters, engineers, campus security, baggage operations, central terminal operations, landside and airside operations.
     Unite warns that despite the union representing thousands of workers who will still be at work, HAL has refused to discuss its contingency plans for keeping the airport open and as a result the union has raised serious safety concerns.
     Unite regional co-ordinating officer Wayne King said: “Workers face losing their homes and surrendering their cars due to the savage cuts being imposed on them.”
    The union notes that the pay cuts are all about greed and not needed: “HAL and John Holland Kaye are guilty of using the COVID pandemic as cover for forcing through long-held plans to cut pay. If this was genuinely about the pandemic any cuts would have been temporary.”
    He added that: “Unite have tried to negotiate temporary pay cuts but Heathrow were simply not interested” and cast serious doubts on bosses claims that “under its ‘contingency plans’ Heathrow can operate safely but despite seeking the evidence to prove this, that information has not been forthcoming, raising serious questions about how the airport will operate during the strikes”.
    Three further days of strikes are planned before Christmas.

Camden

Amongst the workers most affected by the COVID-19 crisis are casual workers on zero-hours contracts. Just one example of this comes from the north London borough of Camden, where staff who have given years of service at the Kentish Town Sports Centre, which is presently closed, have been told they will not be receiving any furlough pay.
    The centre is managed by notorious contractor Greenwich Leisure Limited (GLL) on behalf of the Labour-run council.
    An investigation by the local Camden New Journal newspaper discovered that staff working for five or more years were still on zero-hours contracts. One was Deena Mostafa, who has in the sales and reception team for five years, who had her weekly pay packet stopped in September. She said: “I am down £600 a month. We don’t qualify for things like free school meals, and life has come to a standstill.” This was because casual staff did receive furlough support based on their average weekly hours in March, but this is not the case now.
    Another member of staff added that: “We have been struggling. Due to this second lockdown I was hoping the furlough would continue, but they said only full-time will receive it. We are all casuals working full-time hours. It’s unfair. Most of my colleagues been working there for years but treated as if it didn’t matter.”
    Mostafa added: “What annoys us is that GLL haven’t even acknowledged we are staff. It is like we do not exist. It is unethical to leave people in a position like this. The only reason to keep us on these contracts is to save money and to be able to get rid of us when they want to.
    “They say they have no obligation to give us hours, and we have no obligation to take them – but that’s simply not true. We are obligated, as we need to earn a wage.”
    A local Unison branch organiser said the union was on the ball, and suggested the contract should be brought in-house to put staff on the same terms and protection as council staff , adding that the case “is another example of why zero hours should be scrapped. The council’s official stance is their contractors should not be using them – so this needs to become an iron-clad policy.”
    A Camden Council spokesman meekly said GLL would furlough employees who had a role to return to but that: “Very sadly this has meant some of the roles previously occupied by GLL staff on flexible hours have been reduced, meaning these staff will not have roles to return to.
    “The government must now provide councils and our partners in the charity sector with the necessary funding to support residents who lose their work back into employment or training.”
    GLL, which is a ‘not-for-profit’ spinoff from Greenwich Council, has form in this area. Founded in 1993, GLL runs leisure centres in more than a dozen London boroughs, as well as libraries in Bromley and Greenwich. It has over 50 local authority contracts and employs 14,000 staff nationally – with about 70 per cent of these workers on casual contracts. The ‘not-for-profit’ bit means it does not make pay-outs to shareholders, but to compensate it pays high salaries to senior managers.
    It was recently forced into a union recognition agreement by Unite at the south London borough of Lewisham. Unite regional officer, Onay Kasab, said: “Local authority leisure services, whoever the providers, face dire financial circumstances. It is a matter of public record that we want services in-sourced,” adding: “But where services are outsourced, the minimum requirement must be that trade unions are recognised.”
    GLL modestly describes itself as “an award winning charitable social enterprise which cares for its staff and local communities alike”. As can be seen from events in Camden, the reality is quite different.
    In the early stages of the pandemic it ‘generously’ offered its library and leisure centre workers across London an offer of six-months unpaid leave in return for the promise of a job when they returned. At the time Unite said it would subsequently lead to “drastic” cutbacks in work offered to those on casual contracts.
    The union accused the company of being in “real financial trouble” and said the “simple and straight forward” answer was for the service to go back into public ownership.
    “Local authorities must not wait until the company goes bust with all the unemployment and disruption this will cause to council services. Instead, they must act now to save jobs and much-appreciated public amenities.”

Safety Battle Won

 by New Worker correspondent

London’s bus drivers have won what has almost been a year-long battle to secure an improved air conditioning system on the buses. Unite, which represents over 20,000 London bus workers, say the changes will greatly reduce the risk of drivers being exposed to the COVID-19 coronavirus whilst driving because the new air conditioning systems ensure air entering the driver’s sealed cab comes directly from the outside and does not pass through the passenger area of the bus.
    The first concerns were aired (so to speak) in February to Transport for London (TfL) and the private operators, even before the first lockdown. They were backed up by a University College London (UCL) report on the exposure of bus drivers to COVID-19.
    Initially the installation of the new air conditioning system was due to be finished on all buses in January, but it has already been completed.
    John Murphy, the union’s lead officer for London buses, said: “This is a major victory in Unite’s continuing campaign to improve the safety of London buses during the pandemic.
    “Unite highlighted its concerns about the air conditioning system when the first cases of COVID-19 began to emerge and it was instrumental in ensuring the air conditioning was turned off and a replacement system introduced.”
    But he warned that: “While this was a positive development, Unite will not rest on its laurels and is continuously ensuring that drivers’ safety is maintained and improved throughout the second wave of the pandemic.”
    London bus drivers have been greatly affected by COVID-19, with 30 drivers having tragically died of the disease during the pandemic.

In the departure lounge

 By New Worker correspondent

At London City Airport in Docklands workers are up in arms about how they are being treated in the present crisis that has seen air travel drop to almost nil.
    The grievances include the lack of a fair and transparent system for implementing the airport’s current redundancy programme, concerns that long-term employees and union members were being unfairly selected for redundancy, incorrectly paying notice pay when workers are made redundant. In addition, bosses failed to halt the redundancy programme and furlough workers after the job redundancy scheme was extended until the end of March and using the Job Retention Scheme (JRS) to prevent potential employment tribunal claims.
    Their cause has been taken up by the Labour mayor of Newham Rokshana Fiaz, who has condemned Robert Sinclair, chief executive of the airport, for refusing to have a transparent redundancy process and for refusing to discuss matters with Unite the Union.
    Unite regional officer Mercedes Sanchez said: “It is to be hoped that senior management take heed of the growing disquiet about their actions and actively engage with Unite to ensure that workers are treated fairly during the redundancy process and their basic rights are not diminished,” warning: “If City Airport does not take account of this letter and does not alter its procedures then Unite will be forced to consider all legal and industrial options to defend its members.”
    The airport announced in September that it was making more than a third of its staff redundant and consultations began over up to 239 job losses in what it called a restructuring plan to safeguard its future.
    It now only has 17 routes and on Monday Logan Air announced it was transferring the vital Isle of Man to London route from the City Airport to Heathrow. It does not expect to get back to normal until 2024. In September Robert Sinclair claimed: “We have held off looking at job losses for as long as possible, but sadly we are not immune from the devastating impact of this virus.”

Danger Money

 By New Worker correspondent

Another dispute is brewing in Hackney, this time as part of a national campaign to secure a decent wage increase for local government workers.

After the rejection by Unite members of the 2.75 per cent wage offer for local government workers in England and Wales, local pay battles are now taking place. These individual battles are seen as pathfinders in the hope that local victories will persuade other local authorities to fall into line. This is the first skirmish, of what is called a “pathfinder” strategy.

Those involved are 32 drivers and passenger escorts on the borough’s school buses for disabled children in Hackney. The aim is to secure a one-off £500 payment and an extra day’s holiday for risking their health working through the pandemic. One of the reasons for choosing Hackney was that the Labour council had earlier reneged on an earlier local deal that would have given them a lump sum and made agency workers permanent employees.

Unite’s regional officer for London, Onay Kasab, said: “The national cost of living rise for 2020 has now been settled and this has been reluctantly conceded by our members.

“However, we feel that many of the issues in the national claim, such as the working time and annual leave elements, remain outstanding – and that there is scope for negotiations with local council employers.”

He also noted that there were serious concerns about Covid-19 measures on buses – specifically because buses with a capacity of 30 have over 20 children on them. No social distancing is possible and the ‘bubbles’ that are in force in schools are broken on buses where new ‘bubbles’ are formed.

This is part of a national campaign for a one-off £500 payment for frontline workers as compensation for the added pressures of working throughout the pandemic, a reduction in the working week to 35 hours from 36 with no loss of pay, and an extra day of holiday.

 

On the Tube

By New Worker correspondent

Britain’s bosses and unions are increasingly at war over a possible return to work. It also seems that a considerable number of the public are eager to get their teeth into health-giving McDonald’s burgers once again. Some bosses, such as the notorious Sports Direct, were even trying to force workers furloughed at taxpayers’ expense to work one day a week in the warehouses.

      The trinity of rail unions, ASLEF, RMT and TSSA, have denounced plans to run more trains in a letter to the Prime Minister and leaders of the devolved assemblies. The unions point out that they have worked during the crisis to ensure key workers are able to get to work and to move essential medical and food supplies. They demand that company profits must not come before people’s lives however, and the lockdown should not be lifted until it is safe to do so.

In particular, they warn “that attempts by operators to increase service levels sends out a mixed message that it is okay to travel by train – despite official advice suggesting otherwise” will lead “to the public flouting the rules on travel and work”. They also note that there is no agreement on actually how services can be increased whilst protecting workers and passengers, warning: “We will not accept new working patterns that put the lives of railway workers and passengers at risk.”

A leaked report from Transport for London (TfL) shows that if social distancing were to be imposed on the London Underground system it could only carry 15 per cent of its capacity. This means that even with a 100 per cent service, only 50,000 passengers could board every 15 minutes, compared with 325,000 normally boarding every 15 minutes at rush hour peak prior to lockdown. At present, the reduced service can carry 30,000 passengers boarding every quarter of an hour.

Unsurprisingly, TfL said: “Whatever happens over the coming weeks and months, everyone who can work from home must continue to do so for some time yet. Our intention is to progressively build up service levels, but it is clear life simply won’t be returning to what it was before.”

Obviously this will apply not just to the London tube but to buses and trains across the country, meaning that few people will be able to travel any distance to work. RMT’s General Secretary Mick Cash commented: “The report leaked this morning to the BBC exposing the impact on passenger numbers of maintaining Government social distancing guidelines on the tube is a wake-up call to all those tub-thumping for a jacking up of transport services from May 18th without properly assessing the consequences.”

Also on the London tube, cleaners employed by cleaning contractor ABM are being treated as second-class citizens by being denied staff travel cards that allow travel across the TfL network despite other tube workers receiving this benefit, according to their union, RMT. It also points out that furloughed cleaners are also only receiving 80 per cent of their pay whilst other Tube staff are receiving 100 per cent.

     In addition to refusing to give the cleaners staff travel cards, TfL refers to them as “non-core”. After hearing the Mayor of London praise the cleaners to the sky, RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said: “The hypocrisy towards tube cleaners is breath-taking. On the one hand they are told by the Mayor and others they are doing an amazing job and they’re vital to the fight against coronavirus, then in the same breath they’re told you can’t have all the same basic conditions of employment as other tube staff, not even free tube travel”...

 ...and On the Buses

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has said he wants more buses running, but Unite the Union demands that should not be before certain conditions such as risk assessments are undertaken and fully applied and social distancing measures to protect drivers are preserved. In particular, Unite demands that drivers’ protective screens are sealed, seats around the driver cordoned off and non-cash payments implemented. Restrictions on overloading will need to be introduced.

Unite assistant general secretary Diana Holland said: “The increase in services must be underpinned by safety and maintaining the confidence of bus workers and passengers at all times. Unite is in regular discussions with the government on these issues.

“It must also be recognised that a considerable number of drivers cannot currently work and that this should not result in the remaining drivers being required to undertake excessive hours, which risk their health and safety.”

Unite also represents the taxi trade, so she added that: “The government should remember and fully utilise taxis in the return to work. Purpose-built hackney carriages are designed for social distancing and they should play a full role in helping workers to return to work.”

One branch of London buses where Unite unsuccessfully demanded suspension of services after the death of a driver is the Dial-a-Ride service for elderly and disabled residents who have mobility issues and who cannot otherwise use public transport. This call was made in the aftermath of the death of a driver, Patrick David, who died after 17 years service.

At present, such buses carry only one passenger per vehicle at any one time and drivers are now being provided with sufficient PPE [personal protective equipment] for each customer. But as drivers also help passengers onto vehicles, fasten them in, and help them in and out of their home, it is impossible for social distancing to be achieved at all times.

In place of the service, Unite is calling on TfL to ensure that the elderly and disabled service users are supported through the many community initiatives that deliver food and medicines to vulnerable people during this crisis.

Speaking of the suspension demand, Unite regional officer Simon McCartney said: “This was a very difficult call for our members to make as many of them have dedicated their lives to working for Dial-a-Ride and they appreciate the service is a lifeline for many of its users.

“Once the service is suspended, Unite is committed to working with TfL to introduce measures to get it up and operating again as quickly as possible.”

Bob the Builder

by New Worker correspondent

In the construction industry there are at present many battles over safety issues, including many concerning the rights and wrongs of actually working at this time. At the site of a new gas power station near Scunthorpe workers successfully demanded to be sent home because they were being forced to use fingerprint machines to clock-in to the site, which would spread coronavirus. Further north, construction unions Unite and GMB are demanding that Balfour Beatty furlough workers at the TeesREP renewable energy site in Teesport and other sites.

Many employers are trying to get around the rules. The bosses of Balfour Beatty insist that redundancy consultations for more than 60 workers at the site will continue during the lockdown and that the staff are not eligible to receive 80 per cent of their wages under the government’s job retention scheme. They justify this by claiming that redundancy consultations were planned before COVID-19 shut down the country and that registering the workers would go against government eligibility guidance for the scheme.

This excuse was described as “paper thin” by Unite the union, who point to the fact that other major construction contractors, such as Bilfinger and Altrad, have furloughed workers whose redundancy consultations were scheduled to take place during the lockdown.

Unite’s national officer for construction, Ian Woodland, said: “Balfour Beatty must reverse its decision not to furlough workers at the TeesREP site, as well as those at the Crossrail site in London and elsewhere. At best Balfour Beatty’s actions are misdirected and heartless, at worst they point to a cynical financial calculation that the firm will not have to pay out advance wages for these workers while the government’s financial support comes through.”

GMB national officer Steve Kemp added: “Balfour Beatty needs to urgently re-think their decision – it flies in the face of any kind of fairness. Other construction companies have taken a totally different view on how to proceed in very similar circumstances.”

House builders Persimmon, Barratt and Taylor Wimpey have stopped work, but Redrow and Cairn Construction have not. Last week two Tory ministers were confused about the issue, with Health Secretary Matt Hancock saying any worker who could not do their job from home should go to work to “keep the country running”. But Michael Gove said that only construction workers doing jobs “critical to the economy” should go in, adding that builders should not be going into people’s homes. The next day Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick said that work in people’s homes was allowed if it was done safely.

As for the two main trade bodies, the National Federation of Builders, which represents small-to-medium sized contractors, said builders could work on sites if they followed safety guidelines; but the Federation of Master Builders said only emergency work should be carried out.

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith agreed that builders should only attend to emergency requirements. Andy Burnham, Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester, deplored the fact that the decision to allow non-essential work appeared to have been made for “economic reasons”, saying: “When you're in the middle of a global pandemic, health reasons alone really should be guiding all decision-making.”

Construction workers are “angry and unprotected” at having to go work and others report being under pressure from employers to go in.

Many are officially self-employed and fear loss of income if their employers shut down.

The industry is notorious for sub-contracting and fake self-employment. Thus, Taylor Wimpey said it was looking at how to support around 2,000 directly employed staff but washed its hands of its “self-employed” freelancers on its sites. The boss Pete Redfern said on the BBC’s World at One that: “They are generally not actually operating for us, they are operating for a sub-contractor” so he was nobly going to “support our subcontractors by paying them on time or in advance”.

Trade journal Construction News has also said the industry has taken up the cause. It deplored the activities of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) being suspended. Construction News noted that: “While the HSE is understandably right to protect its inspectors and their families from the virus, the lack of oversight may mean that basic site safety regulations are no longer being adequately adhered to.”

Construction News also noted that in the industry it was near-impossible to stick to social distancing rules, citing the example that in order to comply with distancing regulations workers would have to lift heavier loads than they should tackle alone.

A director of one sub-contractor pointed out: “The measures that are put in place are then not compatible with the existing health and safety best practice for work on-site.

“We’re a risky industry, we [suffer] quite a lot of incidents and accidents. And now, when you’ve got limited or reduced supervision, the amount of accidents has the potential to go up. So we’re just going to be a bigger draw on already scant resources in the NHS.”

The journal also warns that the absence of HSE inspectors on-site could mean that there is little incentive for firms to ensure that workers make the right safety decisions or to raise the alarm when unsafe conditions occur.

To make matters worse, there is a global shortage of face masks. Moldex, one of the largest suppliers of PPE [personal protective equipment] has stopped taking orders in Britain. It will prioritise first responders, the health sector and critical services when more stock becomes available.

Level three filtering face-piece (FFP 3) masks essential for dust protection are being sold on eBay for around £20 each, before the crisis they were only £1 – roughly 20 times the pre-crisis cost.

In January there was dramatic increase in demand, at time when Asian manufacturers stopped exporting. To make matters worse, the Germans banned exports of certain FFP masks within the European Union. Moldex reports that the number of sometimes desperate enquiries from doctors, hospitals and aid organisations is still increasing. It’s hoped masks from Asia will begin to arrive on the market soon and help to relieve the situation.

Last Friday Unite called on the Government to appoint a minister concerned exclusively with the delivery of adequate PPE to protect workers from COVID-19, specifically mentioning the lack of supplies for the NHS and bus drivers. It claims that a lack of central government co-ordination is hampering efforts to deliver safety equipment on the scale and with the urgency needed.

Steve Turner, Unite’s assistant general secretary for manufacturing, pointed out that: “Household name businesses like JLR and the Royal Mint have released stock, provided and produced raw materials, designed, shaped, cut and assembled everything from face masks to visors, googles and medical gowns to gloves and hand sanitiser to deep cleansing materials.” Some gin distilleries have already been converted to deal with the last item.

“Like the generals of the First World War directing the troops from the safety of horseback far from the front, we now see a failure to lead from the front from today’s generals in Cabinet. We encounter competing interests, factional and departmental tensions and disjointed messages when what is desperately needed right now, not tomorrow or next week, is for government to act as one in the national interest.”