Health Emergency, in a personal capacity) As the TOrY government's pincer attack on the National Health Service tightens its grip an ever-increasing number of health workers are responding by seeking ways and means to fight back.
Some have already done so - with tremendous determination,. month strike at Barking and 9 month strike at Addenbrookes Hospitals confirm: and Oxford hospital workers have notched up the first real victory against privtaisation. But with stakes being continuously raised by the government, the need organisation and class action far outruns the extent to which health union leaders have been willing to respond.
The interconnecting elements the Tory attack are plain to see in the more recent developments.
*Victor Paige, the £70,000 a year "NHS MacGregor" had demanded the axeing of a further 2,000 workers from the NHS payroll — after a 12 month freeze on staffing and 11,400 cut in 1983. The brunt of the job losses will be in the hard-hit London area, where 3,000 jobs are to go. Some regions elsewhere are given permission for small increases staff. But Paige is
totalling million - which can only mean still more redundancies and cutbacks.
*With health authorities still reeling from the under-funding of last year's 4.5% pay award to the NHS's low-paid largely temale worktorce, the government has now announced a cynical 9% rise for nursing staff as their "reward" for not alongside ancillary workers in 1978-79 and 1982 pay battles. The 9% award is simply a kick in the teeth: it falls short of even this year's inflation and does nothing to redress the cut in nurses' living standards since the 1970s: and it is at the same time a further move to divide nurses from ancillary and other hospital staff.
Yet it is 6% more than the "assumed" 3% pay increases incorporated into health authorities' cash limits; and the government has given no sign of being prepared to toot the ex bill. The result could be catastrophic
as the 15 the Littlemore strikers: a victory.
of
cuts. A clue to the scale of the proan blem
measures taken by the largely rural Dyfed health authority in Wales, faced with a cash shortfall of £1.5 million as a result of inflation and pay setin tlements last year overrunnig govern-
Ament "assumptions". to make 100 staff — 75 of them nurses over 80 beds and refuse to renew any medical or surgical equipment this year. reduced cash limits and rising costs. South Manchester plans to axe 300 striking jobs and eight hospital wards in two the
year. London's Bloomsbury faced with a £7 million cut this year, hopes to close 155 beds, close casualty unit at Hospital which handles 25,000 tents a year, cut another 20% of anmillion target -year), is already a national scandal.
Long awaited victory against privatisation can be seen in the draconian whole out lengthy . The authority is - compulsorily redundant, close schemes *Other authorities, too, are faced with massive overspends as a result of service. towards hospitals to slash back 23 million this privatisation DHA, Middlesex the largely move pa- cillary staff, slash bonuses and leave newly qualified nurses unemployed: even this trail of destruction would save only £3.4 million out of the £7 while Bloomsbury's waiting list, at 12,700 (up 18% on last In Hampstead, the DHA is plann- Socialist Viewpoint, No. 6, June 1985. Page 6
ON TEACTH EMERGEY! PRIVATIS ATION ing to shut the Royal Free Hospital to all but emergency cases for five desperate bid to save only 1100,000 weeks summer
of an overspend in excess of £850,000. The result will be an extra
Await for patients on the District's rising waiting list.
cash limits aimed at forcing such cutbacks in the NHS, the Tory government is pressurising the mid dle classes towards private medical
Wto avoid the delays and declining standards of the health
*Jobs and NHS standards are also under fire through the ruthless drive
competitive tendering and of ancillary services. Thousands of health workers have already lost their jobs as cheapskate private tirms exploiting unorganised,
part-time female workers in claiming to clean hospitals in as little as 50% of the hours worked by NHS ancillaries.
Growing evidence confirms that, given any kind of a free hand, most DHAs are reluctant to hand hospital services over to cowboy firms which they will later find almost impossible to control. Tory-led Bromley was the first to throw out a contract firm -
HHS. The normally docile Wandsworth DHA had to be instructed by health ministers not to award domestic contract at the Springfield Hospital to in-house staff, but to opt instead for the cheaper, inferior services offered by The Deprivat more or less Hackney, openly blackmailed into agreeing to privatisation by the threat that tunds for the opening of a new general hospital might be withheld.
While contract firms (Allied Medical Catering); get struck off approved lists because of financial uncertainty (Mediclean, Home Counties); are replaced (Sunlight laundry in Cheltenham); fined (Crothalls and others); withdraw from tenders they have offered (Reckitts in Worthing); get exposed (OCS leaving filth in operating theatres at Addenbrookes; Exclusive using labour; Mediclean flouting tary standards) or caught lying, Tory pressure on health authorities to bring in these profiteers is relentless -and impossible cash limits are a further factor driving management to consider this desperate form of costcutting.
The government's claimed ings" last year of £13.1 million from privatisation arises prmarily from the slashed living standards of NHS ancillary staff, but also from cutting, bonus-cutting tenders — often hatched with the collaboration of union officials.
This dire situation means that for thousands of hospital workers there is nowhere left to run. They must either fight the latest wave of attacks on the NHS, or face the prospect that they too will join the 4 million already on the dole queues.
In taking on such a fight, workers face not only the traditional obstacles of poor shop floor organisation, heavily bureaucratised structures and union leaders for the most part terrified of a serious confrontation with health authorities or the government: but they also have before them the awe-inspiring example of the 15-month strike at Barking and the 9 month battle at Addenbrookes Hospital - where leaders have lett courageous strikers deliberately isolated.
Despite this there have been new waves of strike action privatisation in recent weeks, clear signs of a growing anger at the scale and impact of the current spending cuts.
For this reason particular importance is attached to the first significant victory against privatisation, recorded by ancillary workers at Oxford's Littlemore Hospital after a 4-week strike.
Ninety domestics, porters, and other ancillary staff walked out on indefinite strike on April 29, when the District Health Authority sent in work-study engineers to start measuring up for privatisation specifications - two months before schedule.
Many of the strikers had been en-
à go bust impossible child elemen- "sav- job- "in-house" health union union against and drivers
COMPETITION COMES TO THE SERVICE! couraged to take this action having experience domestics at the District's Churchill afield Hospital. They were displaced by Socialist Viewpoint, No. 6, June 1985. Page 7
HEALTH private contractors RCO, who are now scouring the countryside as tal Coventry as to find staff prepared to work for their pay and
With domestic services at Oxford's Radcliffe Infirmary also having been Littlemore staff recognised the need for a firm stand.
They received immediate official backing from COHSE, donations to the strike fund began flowing in from local labour movement bodies and the May Day events. Support from the commurHealth organised through Oxford Emergency, and assisted by the local Miners' Support Group. Miners from South Wales returned the solidarity shown to them by COHSE by collecting over £200 to back the Littlemore
But attempts by the strikers to spread the action to the other two hospitals threatened with privatisation — the large John Radcliffe complex and the Warneford Hospital ran into obstacles, though some ancillary staff at the John Radcliffe supLondon's HEALTH
Assemble *******=*
1pm, Clapham Common (near Tube )
Mach********..
1.30pm, via South Western Hospital
Rally*****#*****
3pm, DHSS HQ, Elephant & Castle
Social*** and refreshments, 4pm onwards
ported calls for action.
Othe strikers but for other links, and on May 13 group of Littlemore strikers joined a 'ally of anti-privatisation strikers fron and Newcastle, on the picket lines at Addenbrookes Hospital, (where the strike has run for over 8
When Oxford DHA began to enpicketing hours, the strikers stepped up to 24 hour picketing and Saturday
again with strong community support.
Eventually Oxford DHA climbed down, agreeing to a 3-month delay on any moves towards privatisation at Littlemore, while the whole question is put to the disputes procedure. This will involve an investigation of the "special conditions" at Littlemore, in cluding the views of staff, a COHSE * London's cash cut again * Longer waiting lists * 10,000 jobs at risk * Private firms cash in * ACTION COMMITTEE MARCH SATURDAY JUNE 29
Details: 01-833-4950 Socialist Viewpoint, No. 6, June 1985. Page 8
discussion paper, and consideration of "all aspects of the dispute"
COHSE have made it clear that this agreement is accepted only on the basis that they will continue to resist any further attempts at privatisation. It seems clear that management want a face-saving formula for branding Littlemore Hospital as d "special case" while forging ahead with privatisation at the John Radcliffe anc Narneford, where no fight was pu up.
This is a significant retreat by a DHA which has shown no previous sign of compromise over privatisation, and which also threw out any
"fair wages" clause
Coming in the same period as the successful lightning strike involving 9 hospitals in Liverpool against workstudy officers measuring up at Alder Hey Hospital; and the spreading strike action on a District basis in Chesterfield and a Regional basis in Newcastle, the Oxford victory should
Othe determination of all health workers to spread the tight against the redundancies and wage cuts which privatisation brings.
victory also underlines the community-based paigns to throw their weight behind these struggles to defend standards of patient care in the NHS.
Another sign of the times in this regard is the re-emergence of anti-cuts campaigns in many areas and the impact on the national stage of the GLC-funded Emergency Campaign. LHE attracted a packed audience of 150 to their fr-
Tat this year's NUPE tinual flow of contacts and affiliations from right across the country, and also Wales and Scotland joined LHE in sponsoring a major privatisation in the NHS, to be held in
Saturday June 29. The march organisers insist that the object is not simply to protest at cuts and job losses, but to focus on the strug gles now underway to fight back, and the policies needed to defend our SUE THE KENTA EMERGENCY NHS *ACTION COMMITTER OUTEND THE NAS OSPITAL
Defend Wendy Savage! "Wendy's best - investigate the rest" is the slogan being used by organising to