27.07.1995

Fight Labour-Tory cutting consensus: Fight for health!

As thousands of healthworkers and their supporters pour into London for this weekend’s demonstration, NHS bosses are continuing their efforts to undermine the fight for better pay

NATIONAL Health Service trusts have been advised to cause disarray among healthworkers by simply paying out their pitiful pay ‘award’ without union agreement.

Ken Jarrold, NHS director of human resources, has told the trusts, “It is extremely important that we take decisive action now,” before the unions have coordinated their industrial action, likely to begin at the end of August. “Decisive action now” should be our response too.

As any healthworker will tell you, the government’s pay ‘offer’ of one percent plus locally negotiated top-ups is completely inadequate. But the bosses think that if workers actually get two or three percent in their pocket, they will give up the fight.

That is not the experience of Frank Kelly, Unison rep at Christie Hospital in Manchester. “The Mancunian Trust has already attempted to impose a settlement ‘on account’, but the overwhelmingly hostile reaction from both unions and individual workers forced them to abandon it,” she told the Weekly Worker.

Jarrold wants to take advantage of the splits among the union leaders. He points out that the Royal College of Nursing has “divided the staff side” by its decision to accept the principle of local, not national pay once 300 out of the 500 NHS trusts have offered the full three percent without strings. The Royal College of Midwives has gone even further, accepting the government’s insult of an offer as it stands.

But members of those organisations have not taken their leaders’ decisions lightly. RCM members only withdrew their ‘no confidence’ motion at last week’s annual conference after last minute persuasion, and we are getting reports from all around the country of RCN members’ disgust at their own leadership, some actually switching to Unison.

Dave Gray, the RCN rep at Hammersmith Hospital in London, is not one of those, but is campaigning for continuing unity at rank and file level. “I am encouraging everybody to go to the demonstration,” he told us. “We have rejected our local offer both on principle and because it’s not enough. We want a fair deal for everybody - from Glasgow to London.”

None of the unions have given anything like the leadership required. In concentrating on the question of national pay, Unison has quietly dropped its claims for at least eight percent in favour of a pay-cutting three percent. The ‘mobilisation’ of the members has been so long drawn out between ‘actions’ that workers might have been forgiven for thinking that the dispute had been called off.

Health minister Stephen Dorrell’s main job is to run down the health service however he can, through poverty pay, privatisation, cuts and closures. But Tony Blair’s government-in-waiting is just as committed to cuts, just as committed to saving money for the bosses at the expense of our health. It has already promised not a penny more for the NHS under Labour.

We have no one to rely on but ourselves.

But the bosses are not sure they can win. They are worried that workers might take the local cash ‘on account’ and still go on strike. If healthworkers prepare for action now, they can win the support of all workers to stop these attacks. We can make the bosses' worst fears a reality.