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and finally...


Workers need power more than praise Decent pay cannot be left to employers’ whims, says Chris Proctor


F


or weeks on end, we’ve stood at our front doors clapping our hands, banging our pans and showing


deep gratitude to NHS workers, shop assistants, care workers, food processors, bus drivers and delivery workers. They are our heroes, our role models, our saviours and our friends. There’s been a huge change in our


attitudes towards work and worth that need to be remembered when we’re out and about again. Sadly, memories can be terribly short and the milk of human kindness can easily evaporate. This virus has given us an


appreciation of the meaning of the term ‘key worker’. In the past, we’ve treated it as a vague measure of goodness. Now we have direct experience. Essentially, it is someone who does a job that is important for society. Key workers are the ones who tend our sick and infirm, who care for the needs of our elderly in declining health, who deliver what we need, who make our meals, who serve us in our shops and who keep public transport and communications running. They are also the people to whom


we pay meagre wages, expect to work long, unsociable hours and generally ignore. Non-essential workers we treat differently. These are the people peripheral to our needs, whose absence from work most of us wouldn’t notice for years – the likes of bankers, barristers, stockbrokers, investment fund managers, estate agents and


company directors. If staff don’t open our food outlets, we’re out in the cold. If John Allan doesn’t show up to chair a Tesco board meeting, no one cares and nothing changes. Yet these non-essentials are the


people we award with magnificent benevolence. To them, we hand over the fat of the land on a plate. And proffer complimentary knives and forks.


Another group of workers who are key


to society is also being recognised – objective and assiduous news-gatherers. Our members. There has been a growing realisation of our worth during the lockdown. If social media had constituted our only information channels, we really would have been in trouble. We’d have believed that 1,408,526,449 Chinese spent their days swallowing warm bat blood with the vigour of a Friday night toper. We’d be convinced the virus would turn us into the Living Dead unless we gulped gallons of warm bleach as an antidote. We’d swallow tales of an evil strategy to halve the UK population. We’d all blame Bill Gates and - my personal favourite - we’d trace the origins of the pandemic to some grubby 5G aerial mast in a remote field somewhere. The logic was impeccable. The virus and 5G roll-out started around the same time. Ergo, one caused the other. Equally convincingly, the theorists could have linked the outbreak to the NATO gathering in Watford or Prithvirajsing Roopun’s election as president of Mauritius. But the 5G myth was believed by millions because there it was, written down in black and white.


The fact it was nonsense penned by


delusionists was not enough to stop arsonists targeting a mobile phone mast in Birmingham that served the emergency NHS Nightingale hospital. People need to be able to read


checked facts, not treated to idle and dangerous speculation. This is what we are trained to do. It is why we are key.


The public has gradually realised 23 | theJournalist


“ ”


There’s been a huge change in attitudes to work and worth. However, memories can be short and the milk of human kindness can easily evaporate


that serious reporting from the much-maligned Beeb and responsible papers, magazines and online outlets are central to limiting pointless panics and calming paranoia. At our best, we too are a vital public service. But there is more. Just identifying and applauding workers in essential services is not enough. It is a useful atmosphere in which to start talking about decent pay, training and recognition for key workers. However, leaving this to outside forces or trusting to the decency of employers means that nothing will happen. Workers need efficient, strong unions if their contribution is to be recognised. To plead gets you nowhere. To beg makes you a beggar. Perhaps coronavirus has forced us to consider our attitude to workers who are central to our wellbeing – but our sympathies and platitudes will get them nowhere. We’ll be grateful for a while and then forget them, content that we’ve given care workers a badge and the refuse collectors a round of applause. That’s not what they need. They don’t need a charitable handout or a temporary food bank.


They need a union.


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