Lorry Driver Shortage exposes Capitalism

I have copied this Facebook status from Nancy Taaffe here with her permission. It perfectly sums up the current lorry driver shortage, its causes and its effect. 

🙶The lorry driver shortage does reveal how wages were kept low by the neo liberal EU trading block for 20 years. These EU treaties wanted free movement of labour (not people) so they didn’t have to invest in training or pay workers a decent wage. They were all about cheap labour being moved around for the bosses’ profits. The bosses don’t want to create conditions in the industry where young workers with families can do it — the current lorry driving crisis reveals this.

NHS: GP Provision Crisis in Thames Ward, Barking

With thanks to Pete Mason, Chair of Barking Reach Resident's Association

The Thames View Health Centre was designed for the original Thames View housing estate around Bastable Avenue, but in recent years, more housing has been built, both in the original estate, and on reclaimed land to the East and South, but there has been no new health provision.

Our GPs cannot overcome a desperately underfunded NHS, whose staff are underpaid and have just rejected by some 80% an insulting 3% pay offer, a situation exacerbated in Thames Ward, Barking, by the huge increase of the population in the area, with no additional NHS facilities.

There are thousands of new residents of the Barking Riverside estate and surrounds, soon to reach 10,800 homes in addition to the original Thames View Estate, but there is no new health centre, nor any additional provision at Thames View Health Centre.