The Workers Solidarity collective: “One thing we know about COVID-19, is that its impact both medically and economically, is global. Workers are fighting for the same things everywhere – and we are stronger together. On April 7 this year, 32 unionists and working class representatives from 11 different countries got together on a call. We started discussing the possibility of developing a Global List of Workers’ Demands in the COVID-19 Crisis. The list below, is that proposed list. It’s not set in stone, and Workers’ Solidarity is interested in your views and opinions about them. If workers across the world don’t agree with these demands, there’s no point in having them. This same group of unionists and working class representatives is getting together again soon, and we will vote on these demands. Your opinions, dissent, agreement, amendments and counter proposals will be very welcome, and they will be discussed.” Click through and find the list of demands on page 7, then send any feedback to we.are.workers.solidarity@gmail.com.

The Forge argues for Bargaining for the Common Good as the strategic basis for our coronavirus response: “There are moments in history when the world teeters on a razor’s edge–where we can simultaneously imagine a world remade based on equality, justice and collective liberation and yet risk descending into a dystopian world of disaster capitalism, hyper inequality, exploding racism and patriarchy and political repression. We believe we are in such a moment. While emergency funds trickle to communities, we know on the other side of this pandemic, we will face massive calls for austerity, attacks on the public sector, pension crises, cuts to important social programs, and calls for public and private sector unions to make contract concessions. The question for our movements and our communities is this: Is our goal to return to the ‘normal’ pre-pandemic world of inequality, racism, and corporate domination or to imagine, organize, and fight for the world we want to create and deserve? … We have the power to transform our world and Bargaining for the Common Good is an essential tool in that effort. The time has come for us to stand together to do everything in our power to fight for the common good.”

The Financial Times has lurched to the left [$]: “[T]o demand collective sacrifice you must offer a social contract that benefits everyone. Today’s crisis is laying bare how far many rich societies fall short of this ideal. Much as the struggle to contain the pandemic has exposed the unpreparedness of health systems, so the brittleness of many countries’ economies has been exposed… Despite inspirational calls for national mobilisation, we are not really all in this together. … Countries that have allowed the emergence of an irregular and precarious labour market are finding it particularly hard to channel financial help to workers with such insecure employment. Meanwhile, vast monetary loosening by central banks will help the asset-rich. Behind it all, underfunded public services are creaking under the burden of applying crisis policies. … Radical reforms — reversing the prevailing policy direction of the last four decades — will need to be put on the table. Governments will have to accept a more active role in the economy. They must see public services as investments rather than liabilities, and look for ways to make labour markets less insecure. Redistribution will again be on the agenda; the privileges of the elderly and wealthy in question. Policies until recently considered eccentric, such as basic income and wealth taxes, will have to be in the mix.”

Tim Dunlop: “One of things we have to unlearn in the wake of the coronavirus moment is the idea of what we might call efficiency, as both an economic goal and a social philosophy. Much of the logic of our current economic systems is based on the idea that if we can cut the ‘fat’ out of the way in which corporations and, just as importantly, governments operate, we will end up with much more efficient systems and we will all be better off. The idea has some appeal, even some merit, in good times, but it is ultimately a false god. When a crisis inevitably appears, our worship of efficiency, no matter how well it may have seemed to be working in the good times, leaves us ill-prepared for the bad times. … [W]e actually need to build some fat into the system so that it is better insulated when the inevitable shock, or crisis, comes. … We have to presume that risk, at varying levels, is inherent in any system as complex as an economy or a society, and we therefore need, to some extent, to act in the good times as if we were living in bad times, even if that means governments can’t be as efficient market theory demands. Because if we think COVID-19 has brought the world to its knees, what exactly do we think climate change is going to do?”

The United Workers Union’s Tim Kennedy: “[A] wage guarantee … should be a right. Your income support should not be predicated on how privileged you were before the crisis. The problem with only focusing on a jobs guarantee — a danger the union movement could fall for — is that it entrenches the divide between workers who were in secure work before the crisis and those who weren’t. This speaks to our other demands, including a moratorium on rent and mortgage payments. We are supporting calls for a rent strike. We also want to open Medicare up for everyone in the country and introduce an amnesty for workers without a visa. And we want to raise the tax-free threshold, so that lower-income earners can cope. … The system is broken and it’s not good enough to patch it up and sail on through. We’ve seen these crises keep coming; after 2008–9, they said it was a once in fifty-year thing. Ten years later, a pandemic knocked capitalism over very quickly. … And on top of it all, we’ve got a climate crisis that keeps ratcheting up every year, which also threatens the system. … Our challenge is to use the moment to really press for change. We need to take action now. … Now is the time to fight for it.”

Natasha Heenan and Anna Sturman identify five orientations to the Green New Deal: “We characterise pro-market orientations to the GND as opportunistic attempts to reinvigorate capitalist accumulation using ‘green’ rhetoric. … Right-wing, nationalist approaches invoke the GND as a popular front for nation-building and the concentration rather than diffusion of power… predicated on binary framings that consistently position the citizen against an external threat, including but not limited to climate change. … Keynesian approaches incorporate a wide variety of elements, but are typically unified in centering policy development by experts (i.e. technocratic managerialism), and emphasising top-down implementation of state-led action on climate with the aim of restoring economic growth. … Critiques of the GND from the Left include the anarchist and degrowth objections that … place the GND within centuries-old debates about reformism versus revolution and emphasise the need to build power outside of the state and abandon economic growth and increased material throughput.  … An ecosocialist orientation to the GND emphasises the class antagonisms baked into the climate crisis, and therefore the need for a strategy based in class struggle to win a just transition. It is a rejection of pro-market, right-wing and nationalistic orientations to the GND in favour of collective and democratic ownership, climate justice and internationalism.”

The racist aspect of Australia’s coronavirus response — beginning with Peter Dutton quarantining Chinese-Australians on Christmas Island, before personally bringing coronavirus with him from America, and likely spreading it at a Liberal fundraising event — has reached a new and dangerous level. Caving to union pressure for a wage subsidy to protect jobs, the Government has excluded all temporary visa-holders (other than Kiwis) from support. They are also excluded from welfare payments, and are trapped here due to travel restrictions. Matt Kunkel of the Victorian Migrant Workers Centre says, “In the past few days, we’ve heard from nearly 1500 workers who’ve lived in Australia for years, have family here, pay tax here — who now have nowhere to turn. Scott Morrison is creating an underclass of workers during a global pandemic, who will be left without a roof over their heads and limited access to healthcare. This spells disaster as we face the worst of COVID-19.”

Paddy Manning: “Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s instincts are more autocratic than democratic, more corporate than official. The new National COVID-19 Coordination Commission (NCCC), chaired by former Fortescue Metals chief Nev Power, will coordinate advice to the government on ‘actions to anticipate and mitigate the economic and social effects of the global coronavirus pandemic’. What Power would know about managing a pandemic is unclear, but what is obvious is that the handpicked mining executive will be unconstrained by the codes and traditions of the public service, and will owe his loyalty to the PM alone.” Alex White: “There is a genuine and urgent risk that the crisis will be used by Morrison and the corporate elite to restructure our economy. As we’ve seen already, major and seriously regressive changes have already started to be implemented — the attack on superannuation is just one example, as are the ‘no strings attached’ bailouts of airlines. Cuts to various taxes on business are also at risk of being made permanent — a change that would structurally change our state and federal govt. revenue system and achieve the long-term right-wing goal of ‘starving the beast’.”

This is awful: “More than 2 million Australians could be out of work, with unemployment expected to soar as businesses begin shutting their doors and standing down or sacking workers because of the coronavirus pandemic. Queues of laid-off staff snaked around blocks in Melbourne and Sydney on Monday in scenes reminiscent of the Great Depression. Under unprecedented sudden demand, the Centrelink website crashed and phone lines jammed.” As Greg Jericho points out, this context “highlights the absurdity of the actual term [‘unemployed’]. To be unemployed is to be ‘actively looking for work’. But just what work is there to look for right now? Not only are businesses not hiring, many are being forced to not operate. Around 10% of job vacancies each month are for retail trade and 7% are for accommodation and food services, and another 1.5% for arts and recreation. None of these industries is hiring — other than a few supermarkets looking for some extra staff to help pack shelves.” Yet the government has only suspended so-called mutual obligation requirements for a week, until its website is accessible again!

Please: The Australian Unemployed Workers Union does an excellent job representing and campaigning for the rights of unemployed people — everyone who remains in work should join as a supporter and set up a recurring donation.