THE TURKISH government has shown itself to have reacted irresponsibly once again, leaving its citizens to deal with the situation themselves.
Tens of thousands of people were left alone in the rescue work, trying to dig up tons of debris with their bare hands. As time goes by, hope for the rescue of those trapped is fading away.
In addition to tens of thousands of people killed, lost or injured, hundreds of thousands are affected materially as well. Past experience indicates that these people will recelve nothing from the government but undelivered promises There has been very lite state co-ordinated rescue work, and almost all of this has been concentrated on the navy base in Golcuk while the ordinary people in many earthquake-hit areas have received no help. This too raises suspicion as to how the aid received by the government is to be distributed.
Therefore it is very important for the people of Turkey to get support directly from the people of other coun mes Please contribute to our hardship fund.
Nursing staff in Quebec and several Canadian provinces have been embroiled in a succession of bitter strikes, in defiance of anti-union laws. The most sustained action was the month-long strike by Quebec nurses, which began on June 26 and was wound up by the leadership of the 22-union Quebec Federation of Nurses with a sell-out deal which left nurses facing individual penalties as high as $7,000.
47,500 nurses had backed the walk-out, i demanding pay increase of percent over 3 years, and a 10 percent pay adjustment to move towards parity with teachers and social workers. The claim was almost immediately reduced by union leaders to 6 percent over 2 years -but this was still well above the Quebec government's target of holding public sector pay increases to just 5 percent over 3 years.
Nurses' anger was fuelled by more than just wages, however, and there were demands for the filling of a growing number of nursing vacancies, and for much of the rising tide of overtime worked by health staff to be conpurpose, in need. London N16 8PR. verted into new full-time jobs. Less than half of Quebec's health and social service staff are fulltime employees. Quebec's nurses are the lowest paid in Canada, earning between $30,000 and $44,000 a year. Strong public support for the strikers rested also on the recent record of cuts and under-funding of health services in Quebec, where it is common to wait 2 years for an operation, and where A&E units are overcrowded and cash-starved hospitals have resorted to bed closures to balance the books. The Parti Quebecois government, which has squeezed health budgets as part of its Thatcherite drive to cut taxes and hold down public spending, took a hard line from the outset. It insisted that it would demand the unions and their members face the full draconian penalties for their unlawful strike. For each day on strike a nurse would be docked two days' wages, while the automatic dues checkoff system would be suspended for WAPTO Every involved would additionally be fined $125,000 for each day of action: by the first four days of the strike the penalties added up able. The most needed iters are medicine, children's food, nappies, underwear, corpse bags, plastic bin bags, heavy work gloves, etc. All goods and funds will be delivered to the relief committees set up by democratic mass organisations in Turkey with a lorry hired for this These organisations, which include human rights organisations, trade unions and community groups, can guarantee that all aid received will go directly to people Please make your cheques payable to Day-Mer Migranet 2 and send them to Day-Mer, Turkish and Kurdish Community Centre, Former Library, Howard Road, If you are able to donate goods please also bring them to the above address between 10 am and 7 p.m. any weekday. Any help you can give, big or small, will make a real difference to those in need. We thank you for your support. This appeal is endorsed by Day-Mer Turkish and Kurdish Community Solidarity Centre.
to over $14m. Despite the very narrow approach of the QFN leadership, which consistently avoided any move to link up with other sections of health workers, the strike remained remarkably solid: only days before the final sell-out deal was agreed by the union's council, 75 percent of members had voted to reject a similar sell-out. H owever the QFN leadership did succeed in demobilising the action by imposing a suspension of the strike for a "truce" period while their proposed deal was put to the vote, and the dispute suffered a body-blow when staff at the well-organised Sacré Coeur Hospital in Montreal -seen as a bastion of rank and file militancy - were led back to work even after voting against the sellout. But just as the elitist nursing union leaders refused to build thrown together in defiance of building regulations which would have cut the profit margins of the construction companies by requiring stronger materials or sounder building methods.
Buildings constructed from bricks have survived for centuries in earthquake zones but the materials are more expensive and labour intensive to construct.
Buildings made from poured concrete should be strengthened by the use of reinforced steel if they are to stand a chance of withstanding tremors, but government inspectors have turned a blind eye to these breaches of health and safety regulations.
If this wasn't outrageous enough, less than a month ago the Turkish government announced that it would be reaching a final decision in the next couple of months on any broader alliance against the government, leaders of Quebec's other public sector trade unions deliberately held back from giving any practical support or solidarity despite general recognition that defeat for the nurses would set back the prospects of any public sector workers challenging the 5 percent pay limit.
The Quebec nurses ensured that throughout the strike emergency cover - equivalent to weekend staffing levels - was provided to deal with emergency admissions, Intensive Therapy. Unit patients, maternity cases and dialysis services.
Similar tactics were employed earlier in the year by striking nurses in Saskatchewan, who also defied anti-union laws, risking nationals who were also caught.
Kurds
But the majority of those affected were working class and poor, including many Kurds as well as Turks - so they have been left to their suffocating fate. It remains to be seen whether the increasing anger at this indifference can be turned into an organising potential, as happened after the massive earthquake in Mexico City in the 1980s. One of the bases of that movement was to fight the corruption that meant that much of the money raised to help those affected by that disaster was siphoned off by corrupt officials and gangsters. It is with that in mind that we publish the appeal below from Day-Mer. possible jail sentences for contempt of court, fighting to demand action to deal with massive staff shortages and parity with nursing staff in other Canadian provinces.
In what almost seems like a dress rehearsal for the bigger Quebec strike two months later, 8,400 nurses were left deliberately isolated by other public sector unions, including the Service Employees International Union which scandalously postponed a strike by 10,000 health workers.
•urses have also been toba and Newfoundland, and have compelled the government in Ontario to spend an extra $375m taking on an extra 10,000 nurses.
But the impact of the sell-out in Quebec could have more widespread and lasting consequences.
Press pundits and union officials had been playing up the prospect of a "hot autumn" of confrontation involving 400,000 public sector workers challenging the 5% pay limit.
90 percent of the Quebec Federation of Labour's 55,000 public sector members had voted for strike action if necessary to win a bigger increase - with inflation running at 3 percent. Teachers were lining up to follow health and social service staff.
Now that the nurses have been cynically hung out to dry by common consent of the various trade union bureaucracies, the chances of sustained and united action must have been set back.
That is just what the union leaders and the Parti Quebecois wanted to see.