on ambulance dispute
Tories aim
louble blov
at health
service
By HARRY SLOAN National union officials complain private- ly that a "settlement' of the ambulance dispute was within reach in secret talks, and was only broken up by the outbreak of strike action in West Sussex, on the eve of the TUC January 13 demonstra- tion.
We can only speculate: but to judge from every recent pronouncement from Health Secretary Kenneth Clarke, including the most recent (January 19) Department of Health press release - ("There is no more money on offer. There can be no question of a formula for the pay of ambulancemen and women. No talks will resume until the unions accept this") - any such settlement must have represented a substantial retreat by the unions.
Press speculation has focussed on pos sibities ranging from a pitifully small cash in- crease above the 9 per cent over 18 months, through localised deals that would threaten the national pay structure, to the possible accep- tance of a two-tier pay structure dividing emergency crews from lower-paid non-emer- gency workers, who may also face the linger- ing threat of privatisation.
National officials know that much of the rank and file pressure centres on perhaps the hardest demand for them to negotiate with Clarke: the call for a long-term pay formula linking ambulance pay with other emergency services. But in their efforts to get off the hook it is not unlikely that they are biding their time, waiting for a drop in morale that might enable them to ditch this in the search for a scitlement.
The five-month dispute has seen NUPE's Roger Poole and other union chiefs, along with private lobby consultants and PRad- visors, acting as arch-exponents of new realism. They have won all the media and public relations battles, but failed to dent the arrogant, class-war Tory cabinet. Their tactics have allowed the dispute to drag on to their
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own disad- vantage, and now the angry calls for strike action from many who have bome the brunt of the action reflect the frustration of the rank and file.
Seldom in the history of the Huge publie support for the ambulance crews: but no move from the Torles British workers' movement has an industrial action been as overwhelmingly popular as that of the ambulance workers. With opinion polls for Tory papers showing over 80 per cent backing for their fight, and an all-time record 4.5 million signature petition. the ambulance crews have been able to tap the rich vein of public support for the NHS as well as a growing reservoir of anti-Tory senti- ment.
The large 40-50,000 tumout on the TUC's poorly publicised and divisively organised January 13 demonstration was also the tip of a vast iceberg of potential support. Had the demonstration itself been open to all trade unionists and supporters, headed by uniformed staff, and not designed to reduce supporters to the role of passive spectators in Trafalgar Square, the tumout could easily have been