THE FIRST hospital 'workin' of the 1990s - to save threatened bedsat London's University College Hospital - has produced an important victory.
The action - given official support by both COSE and Saturday 13/ Sunday 14 March 1993 South Camden Community School formerly Sir William Collins School, NW1 Speakers include: Alain Krivine Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (France) Francois Vercammen Parti Socialiste Ouvriere, France Plus Fourth internationalists from Italy, Germany and India §12 waged, 56 unwaged/student.
Special ticket price 25% off for cheques received before 1 February.
For tickets write to: Socialist Outlook, PO Box 1109, London N1 2UU. Dec 92- Jan 93 No. 34 direct challenge to manage. ment pians to close surgical beds as part of their draconian package of spending cuts.
So damaging were the cuts that consultants and other medics joined forces with nurses, support staff, patients and relatives in a powerful alliance against management.
Staff balloted in favour of strike action, but maintained emergency cover, and focused their enorts on keepins the threatened wards open and treating patients.
After five days, management caved in to union pressure and withdrew their closure plans.
This rictory for militant acencourage hospital staff everywhere to musat back against a rising tide of cuts, But the Socialist Workers Party is doing health workers no favours by trumpeting the UCH fight as the only way to win.
The occupation arose out of an extraordinary combination of factors - the harshness of the cuts; the division between management ana key consult ants; the immediacy of the militant activity of staff in UCH and the nearov Middlesex Hospital; and the official support from the main health unions (especially COHSE, which immediately made the action official and has encouraged its branches to fight for jobs and services). Unusually, even NUPE gave official However desirable occupations might be, SWP members in leading positions in other hospitals know full well that without this kind of combina. tion of circumstances it is unlikely that an occupation can be achieved: even strikes can be hard to get.
Health workers, like other trade unionists, can frightened of the consequences of going on strike, especially when over 20,000 jobs are already under threat in London's hospitals.
This is why the SWP are so wrong to sneer at those who carry out broader campaign work inside and outside the malan designed tane militancy resistance among health workers and demonstate me nuce potenti support they would win if they Indeed the SWP draw precisely the wrong lessons rom UCH, falsely claiming that the action was carried out against the opposition of union bureaucrats, and then insisting that only such action, and only at rank and file level, can win. This leads to them effectively proposing the ultra-left line of a general strike from below - while SWP activists fail to use the opportunities available to raise demands for concerted action within the health Far from attempting to head off rank and file militancy, COHSE is now embarking upon a campaign to stole up health workers gainst the Tory 1.5 percent pay limit.
The combination of pay and cuts has been key to previous battles in the NHS, notably the 1988 strike wave.
Leaflets and stickers calling on nurses and support staff to bust the pay freeze are being distributed by COHSE in LOndon, urging branches submit pay daims above the limit and prepare for action.
NALGO, has voted to challenge the 1.5% limit in the NHS, and to ballot for action if While the slogan of 'two, three, many UCHS may seem over- ambitious, systematic campaign work inside and outside the hospitals and health unions could yet make it a reality.