Paul Murphy: Urgent call to shut non-essential sites to protect workers
Paul Murphy urged immediate closure of non-essential workplaces during the coronavirus outbreak, warning they endanger workers and the wider community. He paid tribute to frontline health and essential workers, demanded pay for student nurses, and called for government action and social welfare for those who refuse unsafe work.
Tribute to frontline and essential workers
He praised nurses, doctors, porters, cleaners, paramedics, care assistants, home care workers and many others, and highlighted truck drivers, retail and postal workers, bin collectors, pharmacy staff and public transport drivers as essential. He said these workers keep society running yet are often substantially underpaid and undervalued.
Criticism of government underfunding
He argued that health and care sectors have been underfunded by successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments, leaving staff overworked and underpaid. He insisted student nurses must be paid immediately and noted the defence forces and other essential staff are also poorly compensated.
Non-essential businesses undermining public health
He condemned non-essential companies — call centres, non-essential retail, factories and construction sites — for putting private profit before public health and undermining social distancing. He referenced reports of retailers asking part-time and casual staff to work and said such non-essential outlets must be shut down.
Construction and factory safety concerns
He relayed accounts from construction and factory workers who say social distancing is impossible on large sites, hand sanitiser is unavailable, and many workers travel between multiple sites each day. He warned that high infection rates among workers could lead to hundreds of deaths and spread to families and the wider community.
Refusal to work and calls for government action
He noted examples of walkouts in ABP Meats and Moy Park in the north where workers refused unsafe conditions, and asked whether workers who refuse to attend non-essential work would be eligible for social welfare. He demanded immediate action and direction from the government to close non-essential sites and protect lives.
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I want to start by paying tribute to all of the workers who are putting their health and their lives on the line in the fight against the coronavirus above all that is everybody who works in the health service the nurses the doctors the porters the cleaners the paramedics the care assistants the home care workers and many others it's also everybody out there who's engaged in essential work the truck drivers bringing food to our shops the retail workers the postal workers the bin collectors the pharmacy workers the bus Lewis and train drivers bringing all those workers around the crisis is laying bare many realities about our society one of those is highlighting those whom are essential workers people can see in that list there's no CEOs there's no hedge fund managers there's no senior bankers the workers workers who are doing the essential workers who are doing the essential work in our society on the ground are workers who are invariably substantially underpaid undervalued working in sectors that have been underfunded by successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments for too long our health workers have been underpaid and overworked their calls for improvement in staffing levels in hospital conditions in wages were met with shrugs by the government now when they've been called on they put their shoulders to the wheel and went beyond the call of duty the same applies to the massively underpaid defense forces it applies particularly to student nurses today who need to be paid immediately and all of this must not be forgotten when the crisis is over those workers are added to all by all those workers who can't go to work who are making a huge effort to socially distance to protect themselves their families and society at large all the community groups all the community groups that have been set up to help each other out to drop food and supplies to older and vulnerable people to help people who are self isolating the very best of solidarity has been brought out in the vast majority of people unfortunately their efforts are being undermined by a small minority the non-essential companies which are still opening up the call centers the factories the construction sites stuff that is non-essential for the running of our society putting their private profit before public health endangering the health and lives not only of their workers but of people in the wider community I've been inundated by calls in relation to this a call yesterday from a guy about heatons and sports direct asking part-time and casual workers to come in and do work very evidently non-essential retail work mandate has good good work in highlighting it in protecting the interests of retail workers it must be shut down the most blatant has been in the construction sector and again I've been inundated talking to a guy yesterday on a major site in Dublin who says one it's simply not possible to socially distance on these big sites to there's no hand sanitizer available on the site I got a message yesterday from Niall who says I really feel we construction workers are being thrown under the bus I travel between three or four sites a day with a complete a combined workforce of about 1500 on them social distancing is impossible my wife is my wife is working from home my son is home from school then I go out all day and bring whatever I've been exposed to back into the house please fight for us people should go on to unite Twitter who've been doing Trojan work in exposing picture after picture of construction sites If up to half of them became infected if up to half of them became infected which is a percentage estimated by Paul Reid and 50% of them came ill and even if the current mortality rates of 0.6% applied in Ireland applied to those workers you're talking about 600 workers who could die as a consequence that doesn't include the risks to other people that construction workers come into contact with you can expand that out to factories I'm a worker who says he suffers from asthma he's living with his parents my father would be high risk as he's over 60 and his underlying health conditions he works in a factory that's not essential and will not close unless told told to do so I couldn't live with myself if I got infected and brought it home with me and God forbid passed it on to my parents so my query is can I refuse to go to work and if I do would I be eligible for the social welfare payment it's not essential work it's the only way it'll stop it's the only way to protect lives and health and health of those workers and the wider society if that doesn't happen well then workers will be left with no choice but to take similar action to which we've seen in the north in ABP Meats and in Moy Park where workers have simply walked out and said we're not prepared to continue to work in these unsafe conditions we need action and direction from the government now
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