Joint statement on health, work and workers' rights

JOINT STATEMENT OF COMMUNIST AND WORKERS' PARTIES

A year has passed since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which also acted as a catalyst for the deepening of the capitalist crisis, bringing much suffering to the working class and other popular strata all over the world. More than 100 million people fell sick, more than 2 million people lost their lives, millions more are faced with the dramatic deterioration of their living conditions and the social impasses of capitalism, such as unemployment, the sharpening of exploitation and repression.
    The Communist and Workers' Parties signing this Joint Statement would like first of all to express our solidarity with those affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, those who have lost loved ones, those who have fallen sick, and to send our warm thanks to the doctors and nurses, the staff of hospitals and health units who, for a year now, have been fighting this battle, facing great difficulties.
    During this period, the acute problems in primary health care and hospitals, the shortages in medical and nursing staff, Intensive Care Units, and necessary protective means, due to the underfunding, the commercialisation and the privatisation of public of National Health Services and of the medical and pharmaceutical production, which as a trend is expressed throughout the capitalist world, have manifested themselves in a dramatic way. At the same time, monopoly groups and pharmaceutical companies, which have increased their profitability, reap billions, while medicines, medical supplies, vaccines, and research are in the hands of big capital become the subject of profiteering, sharpening inequalities among countries and geopolitical contradictions. The sharpening of competition for the production and distribution of vaccines and medicines, the delays in the necessary vaccination, the exclusions and the non-disclosure of the contracts with the pharmaceutical industries, express the impasses of the capitalist exploitative system that operates on the basis of the profit of monopoly groups. The importance of the struggle for the rights of the workers and peoples, of the necessity of Socialism, which can put contemporary scientific and technological potential at the service of popular needs, is highlighted.
    The Communist and Workers' parties welcome the struggles of the healthcare workers as well as of the workers, the farmers, and the self-employed that demand measures to support their income and protect their health.
    We denounce the governments that in pandemic conditions legislate new anti-popular and anti-labour measures, which once again put the burden of the crisis on the workers' and peoples' shoulders and at the same time suppress their struggle with authoritarianism and in a police-state manner.
    We, the Communist and Workers' Parties, continue our struggle. We demand in each of our countries, public-free and universal health services and substantial measures to address the epidemic, to protect the health and lives of the peoples:
    Immediate strengthening of public health services with state funding, recruitment of permanent medical and nursing staff with full rights. Meeting of all needs in Intensive Care Units and infrastructure required for the full operation of public health care and research services.
     Faster vaccination of people in each country, with effective, safe and free vaccines, without exclusions in the supply of vaccines, as it happens at the expense of the peoples of the less developed capitalist countries. Abolishment of patents for vaccines and all other necessary pharmaceutical products that can help tackle the pandemic.
     Immediate public and universal provision of all the necessary means of precaution and protection (masks, gloves, disinfection gels, etc.), as well as diagnostic tests to the people by the state, free of charge.
     Providing support to the income and the rights of the working - popular strata. Protection of the unemployed, intensifying the struggle against capital and its political spokesmen, who are trying to further trample on wages and pensions, on insurance, labour and democratic rights. Measures to protect workers in the workplaces, public transport, schools and universities.
     No restriction of the democratic rights of the peoples under the pretext of the coronavirus.
     To intensify the struggle against imperialist interventions and to end immediately all sanctions and economic blockade measures, which in pandemic conditions are even more unjust and criminal, such as the criminals blockades against Cuba and Venezuela by US imperialism, and to withdraw the unacceptable action of the USA that places Cuba back on US list of the so-called “state sponsors of terrorism”.
     We say no to imperialist interventions and military exercises, such as those of NATO, and we demand that the necessary resources be provided and that the national public health and social security systems be adequately funded.

• CP of Albania
• CP of Armenia
• CP of Australia
• Party of Labour of Austria
• Democratic Progressive Tribune - Bahrain
• CP of Bangladesh
• CP of Belgium
• Brazilian CP
• CP of Brazil
• CP of Britain
• New CP of Britain
• CP of Bulgaria
• CP of Canada
• Socialist Workers' Party of Croatia
• CP of Cuba
• AKEL - Cyprus
• CP in Denmark
• CP of Finland
• German CP
• CP of Greece
• Hungarian Workers' Party
• Workers' Party of Ireland
• CP of India (Marxist)
• Kurdistan Communist Party- Iraq
• Tudeh Party of Iran
• CP (Italy)
• Jordanian CP
• Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan
• Socialist Party of Latvia
• Socialist Party (Lithuania)
• CP of Mexico
• New CP of the Netherlands
• CP of Pakistan
• Palestinian CP
• Palestinian People's Party
• Paraguayan CP
• PKP-1930, the Philippine CP
• CP of Poland
• Portuguese CP
• Romanian Socialist Party
• CP of Russian Federation
• Russian Communist Worker’s Party
• CPSU
• CP of Swaziland
• Syrian CP
• Communists of Serbia
• New CP of Yugoslavia
• CP of the Workers of Spain
• CP of the Peoples of Spain
• Communists of Catalonia
• CP of Sri Lanka
• Communist Party of Sweden
• CP of Turkey
• CP of Ukraine
• Union of Communists of Ukraine
• CP of Venezuela

Other Parties

1. Union of Communists in Bulgaria
2. Communist Front (Italy)
3. Pole of Communist Revival in France
4. Galizan People’s Union
5. Party for Socialism and Liberation
6. Party of Communists, USA

Slow motion disaster

A GRIM milestone was reached on Tuesday when it was announced that that the death toll from COVID-19 passed the round figure mark of 100,000, a statistic proportionally amongst the worst in the world. Johnson got his retaliation in first by saying he took “full responsibility for the government’s actions”, adding: “We truly did everything we could.” At the same time, the Chief Medical Officer of Health for England warns that the death rate is likely to fall only “relatively slowly”, adding that the lockdown was only “just about holding” in lowering infection rates.
    On the same day, predictably dire unemployment figures were announced. One would have thought that an opposition party would be way ahead in the polls by now, but Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is not. This is because he has not been doing any of the opposition that is the duty of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, a fact that even Johnson made fun of when being “grilled” by Starmer in the Commons.
    Starmer does of course have other matters on his plate, such as persecuting his predecessor and his followers out of the party allegedly to make it more electable. This has not proved very successful. His opposition to demands from the education unions that schools be closed to stop the spread of infections did not do anything to distance him from the Tories.
    The Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has just resigned over his Government’s handling of the crisis that which has resulted in 85,000 dead. Donald Trump’s handling of the crisis was not exactly successful and did much to contribute to his electoral defeat, but Johnson survives in office. The fact that he almost became one of the 100,000 British fatalities might have done him some political good just as the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan boosted his popularity to unprecedented heights.
    Even former Tory Chancellor George Osborne has mocked Starmer for his ineffective opposition, whom he criticises for his constantly changing demands about who should be the top priority for vaccination according to whatever press release was issued that day. This is from a man who unsurprisingly welcomes Starmer replacing that “dangerous Marxist” Jeremy Corbyn, and who is critical of Johnson’s Government for having presided over a public health and economic disaster.
    Despite the fact that health matters are in the hands of the devolved assemblies, there have been only cosmetic differences in approach and with broadly equal outcomes as regards both the health and economic matters, despite the enormous public relations efforts made to convince us otherwise. The only positive achievement of the SNP Health Secretary has been to make the Tory one look like a genius in comparison.
    It is not always sensible to take every word of advice from doctors too seriously. After all, medical advice about eggs changes on an almost weekly basis from being a health food to a poison. This crisis is one of the occasions that medical advice needs to be listened to however, especially as they have more experience than even just a few months ago.

Outright deniers of the existence of the coronavirus and opponents of vaccination are mercifully rare in Britain compared with the USA, but the recent outbreak of violent protests in the normally boringly sensible Netherlands prove they are a factor to be taken into consideration and need to be opposed before they do any more damage. Those who cannot resist a good party are another danger and need to be dealt with.

For decades people have been fed rubbish by the bourgeois media, so in some cases it is not surprising that they do not always believe what comes from officialdom until it is too late. The task for communists is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and not leave it to ‘the great and the good’.