Wanted: A Scargill to lead health service
N. FOWLER, Secretary of State for Health.
Thas ordered the first manpower cuts in the NHS since its foundation. struggles! ARTHUR Scargill's refusal to compromise on pit closures offers a few basic lessons for other public sector unions, not least NUPE's Rodney Bickerstaffe and COHSE leader David Williams.
For while they publicly praise the miners battle, they have steadfastly refused to give any real leadership to health workers, who face major attacks on their jobs and conditions, and who should be out fighting alongside the NUM against the government.
Already weakened and ravaged by five years of Tory cuts, health workers are now facing the devastating reality of privatisation in the ancillary services — designed to wreck the union structures, run down the public sector and open up the NHS to profiteers while eroding the welfare state.
At the time of Norman Fowler's deadline for District Health Authorities to submit timetables for putting hospital laundry, catering and cleaning vices out to competitive tender, only seven DHAs in the whole of England had failed to comply. Three DHAs which had previously rejected the government instruction Islington, Haringey and Hampstead — collapsed
M. THATCHER, PM. assured the voters during the Election that the NHS was... Safe in our hands. By JANE GOSS in the few weeks prior to the September deadline. Others seem certain to follow suit.
The result is that tens of thousands of ancillary jobs and the wages of hundreds of thousands of mainly women, mostly black ancillary workers are under threat right across the country, as private contractors prepare to move in offering 19th century wages and 17th century conditions, and hospital managements draw up their own "competitive" in-house tenders at the expense of ancillary staff.
Despite the pay defeat of 1979 and the sellout of 1982, health workers are prepared to fight back. During the summer months London alone has had four major battles at the same time Barking and Hammersmith Hospitals have been the scene of long-running strikes against privatisation, while two hospitals, St Leonards in Hackney and South London Hospital for Women, were occupied to halt their closure
In Bradford, Thornton View Hospital was celebrating its first anniversary Socialist Viewpoint, No. 1, Autumn 1984. Page 5
N. LAWSON, Chancellor of the Exchequer is forcing through a massive squeeze on NHS finances - {140 million lopped off
hospital budgets within a month of the Election. in occupation, while two hospitals in Hillingdon remained open because in October 1983 they had been occupied by their staff.
But still at the NUPE and COHSE conference this year resolutions calling for action were slammed by the leadership as "unrealistic" because "the membership won't fight".
The lack of enthusiasm from the leadership for any real fight in defence of the NHS can best be seen in their approach to privatisation. COHSE nationally has already virtually given up: its official policy is to encourage union members to submit in-house ten-
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ders — thus effectively doing away voluntarily with jobs and making management's task much simpler. COHSE has spent money on elaborate and largely useless legal advice on the precise status of government instructions to DHAs, and substituted a few glossy posters and stickers for any strong coherent campaign for action to beat
NUPE, as usual, appears on the surface to have a more militant approach; but once the surface is scratched, COHSE's position. NUPE is publicly opposed to in-house tendering, but again they give no clear strategic plan to the members on how to fight. Almost everything produced by the unions about privatisation is restricted to explaining what it means and how bad it is: it says nothing about how to oppose it
The only way to win is through industrial action. Most rank and file workers now recognise neither COHSE nor NUPE leaders are keen to urge their members out on strike.
The incredible strength of the Barking women (on strike since March) and, following their example, the Hammersmith strikers (out in June), puts the union bureaucrats to shame. NUPE's lack of commitment to fight for supporting strike action to back up the Barking strike - despite an overwhelming mandate to do just that from this year's NUPE Conference - is a major scandal; and it will in turn make it more difficult to persuade other health workers to strike against privatisation if it means 7 months isolated on the picket line.
NUPE's feeble excuse is that until more NUPE support is seen in the Redbridge Health District itself, then members in other parts of the country won't
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take supporting action. Yet the London Day of Action — mobilised for, mostly by the rank and file - produced as many members on strike as at any time during the 1982 pay dispute: not something that NUPE has publicised.
The officials are more anxious to negotiate a settlement than they are to work for industrial backing to ensure the women win. The position in Hammersmith is much the same. Massive support has been expressed for both struggles up and down the country by health workers who recognise they are not isolated disputes but the first battles of the war against privatisation. And there can be no negotiated solution to privatisation.
Meanwhile the tactic of occupying hospitals to prevent closure is being Union officials have always been very hostile to occupations because they lose control just as management do Thornton View is mentioned continuously by Bickerstaffe and Williams -most recently at the TUC — yet it is despite their inaction that the occupation has continued for so long.
However the most cynical betrayal of health workers has been over the occupation at St Leonards Hospital this summer. NUPE, when faced within 2 days of the occupation injunctions, because of the cowardice of the local official, withdrew official support from the occupation on only day 4 — leaving 200 NUPE members stranded. COHSE, never quick off the mark, was spared this embarrassment by simply refusing to back it from the
Management, quick to respond, seized upon the fears of workers whose union was refusing to back their fight, and began to intimidate and threaten staff. While NUPE bickered internally Socialist Viewpoint, No. 1, Autumn 1984. Page 6
about whether or not to fight a blanket injunction denying the whole union the right to picket St Leonards, management struck again, raided the hospital to oust the occupier, and suspended two major union figures in Hackney. The two were charged with "gross misconduct" for "Defying a DHA decision" — (to close the hospital!) and one has already been summarily dismissed
This — with other harrassment of militants in other Districts - marks the start of a 1979-style campaign to victimise NHS activists who lead strikes and occupations.
The Tories, throwing most of their energies into fighting the miners, could be beaten. Their monetarist policies dictate that they must privatise continue to cut back NHS facilities — just as they must close pits.
This is the very time when unions should be urging health workers to strike, occupy and fight back. Solidarity with the miners is more than just empty rhetoric and donations from central funds: it means making common cause with them against a common enemy. Pit closures hospital closures and privatisation are the issues which link up the two groups of work-
The next 6 months will be crucial to the future of unions in the NHS. If Fowler and his handpicked lackeys on the DHAs get away with their victimisations and privatisation schemes, and if the union leaders continue to straddle the fence and refuse to extend struggles where they develop the outlook
We should take a leaf ouf of the NUM's book. They do not negotiate on pit closures: we should not negotiate on privatisation or hospital closures, participate in management's job-cutting tenders.
Violence and the British trade union
movement By Harry Sloan "