This May Day, the rights and voices of workers are more important than ever

Acting like a warm petri dish, the social conditions that governments and companies have caused have hastened the spread of the Covid-19 virus

This May Day we remember the dead and fight for the living. Covid-19 has shown society at large what many workers already know: that how we work, who is most at risk, and what forms of work are considered fundamental are structured by a sharply unequal economy.

From supermarket checkouts to Asos warehouses, care home staff at risk of being fired for raising concerns about personal protective equipment (PPE) concerns, to the many NHS workers dying, Covid-19 is endangering workers. More than a dozen transport workers, including nine bus drivers, have died of the virus.

But these deaths are not caused by the virus acting alone. Acting like a warm petri dish, the social conditions that the government and companies have caused have hastened the spread of the virus. Non-essential workplaces kept open to keep profits turning; inadequate PPE and handwashing facilities provided by employers; and workers’ lives being put at risk. The solution is a more democratic workplace.

This May Day, the rights and voices of workers are more important than ever. Covid-19 is making a decades-long transference of risk visible. This large-scale transference of risk, from companies to ordinary workers, has had profound effects. Consider the risks already taken on by gig-economy delivery driver: they have to buy their own car or motorbike, and often have no choice but to register as self-employed so employers can avoid their own responsibilities. And it is many of these workers who are now facing some of the biggest risks to their health during the pandemic: three Uber drivers have died in London alone.

The butt of every boring joke for the past few decades, health and safety are now fundamentally workers’ issues. People’s lives quite literally depend on their workplaces being safe, on their jobs not making them sick. But right now, workers are being laid off and those still employed often falling sick at work, and all facing extraordinary amounts of everyday stress during a pandemic.

We know exactly what comes next: we face a major economic downturn due to a public health emergency and a potential second wave of infections. The immediate challenge remains a secure and fair economic hibernation for all bar essential – and better protected – workers.

But when hibernation eases, and recovery begins, we can’t just return to the old ways – workplaces of sharp asymmetries of power and wealth, of companies excluding labour’s voice in governance, and of insecure employment for many workers. We can change what happens next, defying the stale line that “there is no alternative.”

The alternative we must propose is a democratic one. For social care workers, delivery drivers, doctors and nurses; teachers about to go back to school; those working in unventilated kitchens with handmade masks, and shoulder to shoulder in Amazon warehouses – what these people all lack is decision-making power in the workplace. They lack the ability to decide collectively on the precautions and priorities in the companies that they work for.

On a May Day shrouded by a public health crisis and in a downwardly-spiralling economy, we need public bailouts that give power back to workers. If companies are going to receive public funds, we must not allow that money to be used to enrich those at the top, funnelling cash to shareholders and executive management in the form of dividends, share buybacks and share-based pay awards.

We need to prepare for an ambitious reconstruction of our economy, based on a new politics of work: properly valuing care work and the work of the foundational economy; rewriting company rules to make the democratic and sustainable by design; and new forms of voice and security, including collective bargaining and generous, universal social security.

For the first time ever, a majority of the UK public now support a Universal Basic Income, according to a new YouGov poll released earlier this week. That’s along with 72 per cent support for a jobs guarantee and 74 per cent support for rent controls. The government’s Job Retention Scheme, which took up many recommendations laid out by the TUC, is a promising sign that unions will be a part of the recovery process going forward.

But there is no guarantee crisis will create a better world of work. Austerity 2.0, disaster capitalists, mass unemployment – the risks of the moment are terrifying, but how things develop is still pliable and very much up for grabs. We can build a more democratic workplace and recover better.

This May Day, we need a plan to win – for workers and our collective future.

Amelia Horgan and Josh Gabert-Doyon work with the independent think tank Common Wealth