Wages and Coronavirus -3 March 2020

The boss of Greggs has announced that the bakery chain will pay workers their contracted hours if they need to self-isolate because of coronavirus infection.

Aside from the fact that this policy shows a level of employee care that's increasingly rare in late capitalism, it's a also a very good move from a public health perspective too, because who would want their food prepared and served by someone suffering a highly infectious virus, simply because they can't afford to do without a few weeks' wages in Tory austerity Britain?

However when it comes to the Tory government it's a completely different approach. When asked whether benefits claimants would be hit with draconian economic sanctions for missing DWP meetings during coronavirus self-isolation, the Tory health secretary Matt Hancock downright refused to answer the question.

Aside from the callous brutality of forcing seriously ill people to make their way to job centres to sign on, under threat of absolute destitution if they don't, the disastrous public health consequences of such wanton malice should be stark-staringly obvious.

Do we really want our streets and public transport networks filled with highly contagious people who have been left with no choice but to ignore the medical advice to stay in isolation, purely because they're terrified of being consigned to absolute destitution by the Tory government if they don't?

And then what of the job centre workers who will apparently be expected to conduct job search interviews and the like with highly contagious claimants?

Surely that's just a succession of lawsuits in waiting, because workers simply shouldn't be expected to expose themselves to such risks, purely because the Tory government is too malicious to just give vulnerable people a break, even when they're suffering a potentially deadly viral infection.

And just to add the glitter to the Tory turd, we've got Boris Johnson bragging about shaking hands with everybody at a coronavirus hospital, as if the whole thing is some kind of jolly jape to him.

The difference in attitude couldn't be more stark. The great employee care and public health concern shown by Greggs' senior management, contrasted with the shockingly callous attitude of the Tories towards benefits claimants and job centre staff alike, and their open contempt for public health.

The incompetent Tory handling of this potential pandemic is so bad that it's actually become quite reasonable to argue that we'd probably all be better off with Greggs staff running the country, rather than these malicious and incompetent Tory toffs.

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