On Tuesday evening we held an informal Zoom WFTC. 12 delegates joined in, and 2 wanted to, but couldn’t connect.
So here a few notes for your information.
Len Hockey Unite Sec for Bart’s Trust led off with a graphic description of the situation in Whipps Cross. He outlined how 30 years of neo-liberal polices had left the hospital in a woeful position to react to this crisis, with privatisation, outsourcing, marketization of everything, and the casualization of jobs.
His main worry was the scarcity of PPE. Although PPE is arriving, it’s not necessarily reaching some wards. Every discipline is scrambling around. Some days the full kit is there, other days it’s not; some workers are, understandably, holding onto “expired” masks for several days. He compared it to a game of musical chairs, and sometimes you are the one left standing!
All staff, though never flinching in their duty of care, are worried for their patients, for themselves, and for their families.… Read on ...

Please find below a mailing from the #CoronaContract campaign. Please share this widely and join their webinar this Thursday 9 April at 7pm.

Dear colleagues and comrades,
Apologies for this mass email. My name is Jordan, I’m a fixed-term postdoctoral researcher at Birkbeck, UCU member and one of the organisers of the #CoronaContract campaign to secure the livelihoods of precarious university staff during this crisis.
Will you please consider sharing this email with your members and relevant lists?
Our open letter has gathered over 1000 signatures and counting, and we were recently featured in a Guardian article calling out universities’ shameful treatment of casualised workers.
This Thursday at 7pm we will be hosting a #CoronaContract webinar, featuring UCU President Elect Vicky Blake and a host of inspiring anti-casualisation organisers. We’ll discuss the background to our campaign and the practical ways we’re going to exert pressure on our universities, unions, and the wider public in order to secure our livelihoods during this crisis and beyond.

… Read on ...