London’s New Rough Sleepers
This is a powerful, well-researched and heartbreaking article in the Guardian (27.04.20) written and researched by Amelia Gentleman. It deals with a new generation of rough sleepers in London, made homeless in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis.
These newly homeless workers mainly worked in pubs and restaurants - the hospitality industry. Their workplaces closed and they were brutally dismissed. The important point to grasp is that they had no legal protection against arbitrary dismissal. Most seem to have been agency workers, an entirely legal scam which means that the bosses who actually employ them can dispense with their services at will. This is the consequence of ‘labour market deregulation’ and ‘flexibility’, a major aim of the Tories in the era of neoliberalism. These honeyed phrases really mean putting workers under the hammer.
The government has promised that nobody should be turned out of rented accommodation as a result of the virus. These promises seem from the article to have been empty. Landlords have just summarily ejected these workers on to the streets in the interests of their profits.
Even the Tories recognise that the pandemic is no respecter of persons and people who may be infected on the streets are a threat to themselves and everyone else. The conditions on the streets are horrible. Since day centres have all been closed the homeless have no access to showers or toilets – a humiliating experience. The lessons of this miserable tale are:
· We are NOT all in this together
· We must never allow the situation to go back to what it has been. All workers are entitled to human dignity and legal protection of their employment rights.
· The Tories will claim that the debts built up during the lockdown must be paid back by a new round of austerity, We must say NEVER AGAIN.
