ZERO COVID STRATEGY

Zero Covid Strategy is an aspiration based on the premise that there is no acceptable level of transmission of the virus.

Some argue that total elimination is impossible, that the virus is endemic. This may or may not be true. However, by pursuing the aspiration of Zero Covid we will put ourselves in the strongest position to combat small outbreaks as they occur.

We will also give the vaccines a much better chance of working effectively. Vaccines are part of a Zero Covid strategy, not a substitute for it. Vaccinations are threatened by the ability of the virus to mutate rapidly which in turn is encouraged by a policy which allows the virus to spread, ‘herd immunity,’ alternating with a policy of ‘containing’ the virus at an ‘acceptable’ level. This has led us in and out of lockdown.

There should never be dates set for a policy response to a pandemic. There should be precise targets about new cases, hospitalisations and deaths.

Vaccine rollout has been impressive and a tribute to our effective and efficient NHS. Nonetheless government and media spin suggesting that vaccination is a ‘silver bullet’ is misleading.

The privatised test and trace system is a failure. Billions of pounds have been directed away from the NHS towards private sector firms such as Serco, Deloitte, Sitel and many others.

Last summer Sitel showed how much it understands infection control; it’s own Scottish call centre became the site of a Covid 19 outbreak. Testimony given to the Scottish Parliament by Sitel workers described a catalogue of unsafe practices. Serco has a notorious record with its Conservative linked bosses wasting huge sums.

‘Contact tracing’ is a well-established response to disease outbreaks. Public health officials interview infected people and their contacts. They then stop the spread by isolating and treating people. In other countries health officials with the support of local public employees like supply teachers, librarians, medical students and others have achieved success. Privatised contact tracers have neither medical nor local knowledge. This failure is a scandal and is instrumental in producing Scotland and Britain’s appalling death toll.

We need to close all non-essential workplaces and schools until community transmission is driven down. For a fraction of the money squandered we could pay workers adequately to stay at home.

Other countries have shown the way. New Zealand has now lifted all restrictions, having reduced community transmission to zero. Vietnam, with a population of over 90 million and long land borders with several countries, has suffered 35 deaths. Taiwan with a higher population density than Britain has 7 deaths.

Australia is an important example for us. It shows that from a poor starting point, it is possible to shift to a successful elimination strategy. Transmission rates were as high as here a few months ago. By January they were recording 8 new cases in a week. They are now able to use public health effectively to combat new local outbreaks as in Melbourne recently.

All of these countries have shown that a Zero Covid strategy is both feasible and effective. Let us join with the academics, experts and trade unionists who have set up the Zero Covid campaign. There is no acceptable level of ‘managed death.’ We cannot live with this virus but we can die from it.

John Swinburne, Edinburgh

A CAREER OF SERVICE

I really enjoyed the article by Sheila Hay, in the SEJ of February 2021, “A Career of Service.” Like Sheila, I went to Craiglockhart College of Education, straight from secondary school, at the age of 17. I graduated in 1971 and started teaching in a primary school in Lanarkshire, just after my 20th birthday. I was given a class of 38 pupils in Primary 4, in a class where the desks were still sloping, wooden ones attached to the seats. My headteacher welcomed me to the school, handed me the register and said I had 2 weeks to do the next year’s requisition! So much for mentoring

 I taught in a number of schools over my 35 year career and was a member of the EIS from student days. I, too, remember the various actions that were taken in order to obtain decent pay and conditions for teachers, sometimes in the face of hostility from management and fellow union members. However, it also brought together many people who had never considered how poorly paid, and unfairly treated, most ordinary teachers, especially female ones, were.

If the pandemic and the resultant changes in society’s behaviour have opened the eyes of the general public to the importance of learning and teaching, then a valuable lesson will have been learned. Still, I would urge young teachers to join a union, work within it to support themselves and their colleagues and be vigilant about changes demanded by those who have left the classroom.

I retired ten years ago and I’m glad I went when I was still fit enough to enjoy retirement. I’m also very glad not to be teaching in the present circumstances. My thanks to Sheila for a wander down memory lane – and the warning to be “aware of the rights of…colleagues.”

Mary Shand Elgin, Moray

SOLIDARITY MATTERS

As FELA once again faced up to the need to take action to defend members against a threat to their professional status, I am particularly aware of the importance of solidarity from other trade unionists in any struggle. In this regard I am heartened by a recent experience of mine.

I first heard of IKEA’s sacking of Richie Venton, the USDAW union shop steward and convenor at their Braehead store, in late August, when it hit the front page of the Daily Record.

It transpired that Richie had been fighting for his job and livelihood since the end of May 2020, after being suspended and sacked in silence, despite over 12 years of exemplary service. An unbelievably stressful struggle for anyone to face.

As the elected union convenor in a workplace with over 500 staff, Richie had opposed and fought IKEA’s decision to withdraw wages from any worker absent due to COVID-19 from June 2020 onwards. It was this defence of union members that led to Richie being subject to disciplinary proceedings.

He had argued, reasonably, that anyone sick or in self-isolation should be paid their full average wage, not punished with penalty absence points and in some cases disqualified from company sick benefit, forced to survive on £95 a week Statutory Sick Pay. Richie warned this could pressurise people into going to work through financial hardship, despite having COVID-19, and a very real risk of spreading the deadly virus to both colleagues amongst a workforce of 540 and indeed IKEA’s customers.

He did what any good trade unionist would do; he informed members of what IKEA were about to implement and then communicated to his employers the wholly understandable opposition of union members to any such moves.

For that, he found himself victimised and sacked by a multinational company which in 2019 made £11.2billion profit.

After decades of organising solidarity with other workers in struggle, including EIS FELA and ULA members, Richie evoked the solidarity of hundreds of union reps, activists and officials from right across the spectrum of trade unions – not just in Scotland but across the UK, Ireland and indeed countries abroad.

About 10,000 people signed the online petition and hundreds attended an Online Rally; an Early Day Motion was signed by 51 MPs from 5 parties at Westminster; and the First Minister responded to a question in the Scottish parliament on Richie’s sacking by reminding employers union reps have the right to carry out their duties without detriment.

3 months of trade union solidarity and action compelled IKEA to reverse their policy and start paying any worker off sick with COVID-19 their full contract hours, without any absence penalty points or exclusions.

That in itself is a huge victory for about 12,000 IKEA workers in Britain and Ireland. A victory for the vibrant solidarity campaign. Unfortunately, despite the campaign, Richie did not win back his job, but after submitting his Employment Tribunal case for unfair dismissal and victimisation IKEA conceded a settlement in November 2020.

Richie was quickly elected, however, as Coordinator of the newly formed Scottish Workers Solidarity Network, which operates on the basis of an injury to one being an injury to all.

EIS FELA will be able to rely on the new Network as well as broad support from the trade union movement as we take forward our action to defend lecturers.

John Kelly, EIS-FELA National Salaries Convener