Covid crisis in schools: we need safety measures now
The way to keep children safe and stop the disruption is not to abandon mitigation, but to go for a strategy to stop Covid ripping through schools.
After Hancock, Tory corruption is here to stay
Beyond the headline-grabbing kiss of the Tories’ latest scandal is a series of personal relationships which the former Health Secretary turned into lucrative professional appointments and government partnerships. Gus Woody writes that this type of corruption is isn’t going anywhere while the Tory party remains in power.
The Paris Commune: Rent Strike!
rs21 members present three new translations from Le Cri du peuple (The Cry of the People), the leading newspaper of the Paris Commune.
Berlin Rent Cap overturned, but housing movement has bigger plans
The Rent Cap in Berlin has been overturned by the Federal Constitutional Court. But the policy was created by centre left politicians to undermine a renter led movement to expropriate the cities’ largest landlords. How did this policy come to be? What did it attempt to do? And what does it’s defeat mean for renters and radical housing struggle in Berlin?
Queen Mary University of London – stop evicting students now!
A statement from the QMUL Rent Strike Campaign from early April 2021 opposing evictions from Queen Mary University of London student accommodation.
Revolutionary Reflections | New Frankfurt and the Housing Question
1920s Frankfurt, in the wake of the 1918 German Revolution, established integrated housing, healthcare and education that is still impressive today.
Govanhill: ghettoisation and exploitation in modern Glasgow
Slum housing, hyper-exploitation and racist demagoguery are alive and kicking in the Scotland of 2021 – along with the basis for internationalist solidarity and resistance.
Are the Tories really reversing NHS privatisation?
The Tories’ new proposed health reforms grab more power for ministers – but that doesn’t mean an end to health privatisation.
Combatting unsafe workplaces: an interview with Janet Newsham
Every workplace is a Covid frontline, as employers try to force workers into unsafe situations. We interviewed Janet Newsham of the Hazards Campaign, which is fighting back.
Next steps in the fight for safe schools
The government’s retreat on school closures won’t last forever. Education workers need to go on the offensive.
Let them starve – food and class in Tory Britain
The Tories and their cronies will let working-class children starve. We don’t just need food for all – we need to take over the food system.
‘As cold as charity’: repression and the ‘speculator state’
The government’s right-wing reform of public services continues apace – and NGOs and charities are being used as cover.
A Universal Credit inquiry | Part 1
Millions of people out of work due to Covid are experiencing the cruelty of the Tories’ reformed welfare system for the first time.
Big Pharma: saints or sinners?
Free-market ideologues claim that ‘Big Pharma’ has saved the day with its Covid vaccines. But pharma companies don’t drive innovation – they simply hoard its benefits.
NEU: preparing for the fight of our lives
Supporting teachers to refuse unsafe work is the NEU’s immediate and overwhelming priority, but we also need to learn the lessons from last June and ballot for strike action.
Behind the spin: how effective are the vaccines?
Looking at the science behind the Covid vaccines provides real grounds for optimism – but we can’t pin all our hopes on a single silver bullet.
Why schools must prepare to run remotely until half term
The government’s mass testing plan will not make schools Covid-secure. Schools cannot fully reopen safely until case numbers have been brought down.
A psychologist’s view: Tory blame games hurt our mental health
The government’s blame games and their failed Covid strategy have helped to turn the pandemic into a full-blown mental health crisis.
Scotland: education workers move towards strike action
Workers at all levels of Scotland’s education system are preparing to fight for workplace safety and job security.
‘We have a right to stop’: interview with a socialist nurse
Whereas the first wave of Covid-19 was an occasion for government-sponsored jingoism, the second wave is seeing health workers abandoned and left to manage the unmanageable.
The exception as the rule: Toronto’s social reproduction organising
In Toronto, community organisers are battling Covid in the shadow of colonial racial capitalism.
The power of tenants’ organising
There is a renewed surge of tenants’ organising, but opinions are split on the best way to build power. What kind of organisation can hit back against landlords?
It didn’t have to be this way
This second lockdown was avoidable. It is critical that we understand the choices made by those in power that led to this, and organise to take management of this crisis out of their hands.
Autonomous space in Berlin: Liebig34, eviction, and gentrification
The violent police eviction of Berlin’s iconic Liebig34 space is the latest event in a never-ending battle between the city’s radical-left counterculture, and the forces of state-aided gentrification.
Building power in a crisis
Covid-19 is a medical crisis, but also a social one. Amid the devastating social impacts of the crisis, we’re also seeing determined new initiatives of resistance.
Covid on campus: rent strike at Bristol university
Universities have brought students back to expensive accommodation and subjected them to inhumane living conditions, with Covid-19 still a risk on campus. rs21 spoke to Connor Nicol, a first-year student involved in organising the Bristol University rent strike.
Zero Covid is possible
Through serious nationwide action that puts public health above profits, the infection rate can be brought down to zero. So why is demand for a Zero Covid strategy so low?
To beat Covid, we have to fight for safe schools
While politicians squabble over degrees of lockdown, Covid is spreading in educational settings. Education workers must force the politicians to make their schools safe.
‘I can’t fathom how bad it’s going to get’
The Covid-19 pandemic is combining with further government attacks on the health service to push the NHS, and its workforce, into unprecedented crisis.
Video: Fighting back and building power during the Covid crisis
Three separate activists draw lessons from fights to defend working-class lives and livelihoods inside and outside the workplace.