Health workers face crunch.
By Jane Goss THE crunch has come for the National Health Service. Privatisation is rearing its ugly head in almost every health district in the country. Only a few districts are still refusing to draw up a timetable for putting out to tender. into line by the DHSS via the Chairs of the Regional Health Authorities.
The full scope of what privatisation Tories are to force it through is nows. Many of them are retusing to just accept it, and are fighting back. There has never been a time when the mood to take action has been so widespread
Virtually every day there is a strike opposing privatisation. As well as a series of one-day strikes there has been a continuing strike at nersmith, and now a solid action a Addenbrokes in Cambridge.
What is readily apparent is that though they express the feelings of hospital workers, one-day strikes in scores of different areas are not the strategy needed to defeat a deterined national campaign by the government to axe jobs, smash the union structures and lower standards of care in the NHS.
The Tories have put all their weight and resources behind ensuring that privatisation is rammed down workers' throats. It is time that the trade union leaders put their full weight behind the workers, who are standing up in increasing numbers and refusing to accept private contractors or cuts in hours and jobs.
Health workers were beaten 1982 during the pay strike. thousands of workers it was a salutory lesson in the treachery of the TUC. It also provided lessons in the tactics not to be used in national disputes
The TUC Health Services Committee wore down the rank and file by using the tactic of one-day TUC, led by NUPE and COHSE "rolling of action".
privatisation
fought tooth and nail against the demands of the rank and file for indefinite action with emergency cover and strength of the NHS unions when idyllic, but the beginning oi the unity needed at hospital level to win both to the old system of different percenunity was cyncial treachery. six months after the settlement on pay • begin the procedure for puttin lomestic, catering, and laundry ser the tant sections of the service even more.
in For tion to health, social security strikes it will do to the welfare state.
But 1982 also showed the power demands. Nurses were on picket lines with ancillary workers for the same
There were still problems, and the pay dispute and the coming battles over cuts and privatisation was building on that, the TUC just forgot
1984 saw the reverting back tage awards for different groups, with no attempt to keep health workers
Under normal circumstances this waiting for ancillary workes through gave a clear indication from the TUC that the health service was fair game, 83(18), instructing Health Authorities vices out to tender in order to achieve
In fact, savings had nothing to do with it. Privatisation is a political strategy which is based around the monetarist theory of the Tories. It is part of their "free market" fetish. It is jeared to put money in the pockets oi destroy the most militrade unions, and to erode the health
Coupled with the ase alt on couch rate-capping, privatisation will remove all but the nost destitute from any right to state
Privatisation is the foundation for the Tory castle of capitalism in relabasic services such as refuse collection, meals on wheels, etc. If it is not defeated before it takes a foothold, it will take years to reverse the damage Socialist Viewpoint, No. 2, November 1984. Page 11
Norman Fowler
The NHS has never had the power of the industrial sector to hit profits and halt vital production. relative latecomer to trade unionism and has been hampered by the large numbers of part-time workers and the This also began to change after the mainly women, took action for the first time. They were usually at the forefront of the pickets and the content to fade into the background Many of them took a healthy interest in trade union issues and became stewards and branch officers. They were quick to realise that after the sell-out on pay the Tories would be luick to move on cuts and closures also the very workers
Instead of a quick response to the bureaucrats toyed around with inadeleaflets... and not much else. As the deadline for drawing up timetables looomed, no co-ordinated action was planned. Stewards were left to work out their own strategy and tactics for minimum of action taken betore the February deadline: but where it was taken it proved effective. It showed the way foward. Yet the TUC remain-
In March, the Barking women took strike action against drastic cuts in their hours and wages imposed by Crothalls, the leading private contractor in the NHS. This raised the ip by the rank and file and was seei as a beacon in an otherwise dark