Throughout this pandemic transport workers have brought citizens home, transported key workers to work and kept critical supply chains moving. But the inequality in access to vaccines and treatments is an existential threat to our safety and the recovery of our industries.

From aviation and seafaring to road transport and public transport, workers have been grounded, left stranded, faced shut-downs and shortages, and risked their lives to keep the world moving. This has put the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of workers across the global economy at risk.

The toll placed on transport workers has been immense. We have lost countless colleagues to the disease. We have been more than three times more likely to die from Covid. Millions of us have been cast adrift by self-interested governments. The treatment of seafarers, who have been effectively imprisoned on ships months over their contracts due to callous travel restrictions, is perhaps the clearest illustration of this.

But at the same time, the global vaccination programme has stalled because the UK, EU, Switzerland and Republic of Korea have chosen to safeguard the interests of Big Pharma corporations at the expense of our lives. This is not only criminal, it is self-destructive.

As long as corporate interests are put above our safety and the recovery of our industries, including German aviation, British road haulage and Korean shipping, will be disrupted.

Removing the major barrier to the production and supply of vaccines, treatments and diagnostics that fight Covid-19 is not only essential for our workers, but for the recovery of the global economy.

Every day of delay means more deaths, more lives lost, and more setbacks to the recovery of our industries and economies. You have no more excuses. You must pass the TRIPS waiver without delay. Our lives and our livelihoods depend on it. No one is safe until we’re all safe.

Signed in solidarity with all,

Transport workers of the world