03.08.1995

Labour is bad for your health

Following the ‘National pay for a National Health Service’ demonstration in London last Saturday it is clear that the job of organising the massive anger against hospital closures and health cuts cannot be left to our union leaderships

EVERYONE involved in the Unemployed Workers Charter petition campaign against hospital closures and health cuts will tell you that anger against the government’s slaughter of the health service is boiling over.

Virginia Bottomley may have gone, but anger quickly shifted to Stephen Dorrell. People did not need convincing that he would be no better.

Yet a joint union national demonstration against these cuts and against the one percent pay offer to healthworkers could attract little more than 7,000 people. Hardly a threat to the government.

But the size of the demonstration is certainly no reflection of the actual anger felt against the government - not just over the health cuts, but education cuts, job cuts and pay cuts, to name but a few. It is more a reflection on the nature of the resistance which at the moment lacks genuine independent leadership and therefore remains passive.

Many healthworkers we spoke to on the demonstration had only heard about it by accident and at the last minute. Some said they had rushed down there only after hearing about it on radio news bulletins that morning.

Unison, GMB and the other unions involved in joint negotiations obviously had not built for the demonstration. Many of their own branches seemed unaware of it, let alone the general public. It seems implausible that this can be put down to simple incompetence, rather than the leaderhsip’s desire to keep a lid on the anger.

This strategy comes in the build-up for the unions’ ballot over action against the one percent pay offer with local top-ups. Bristol Unison regional officer Simon Newell told us: “The long timescale in getting action off the ground has defused enthusiasm.” Morale for strike action seems to vary from area to area but all are convinced that cross-union links must be built. RCN members are particularly angered by their union’s conduct.

If anything is going to be won from this ballot and any subsequent action, rank and file healthworkers will have to organise themselves, even if the union leaders prefer to wait for a Labour government.

Speech after speech from the platform at the rally last Saturday looked forward to the day when Labour would replace the Tories. Workers must not be taken in by this pie-in-the-sky hope. Labour’s recent policy document on health should convince us of that.

Labour is not going to get rid of the trust profit system of healthcare, but merely ‘reform’ it over a number of years under a new name. But most importantly it has categorically announced that it is not going to reopen hospitals or put more money into the health service. So under Labour closures will continue, job and wage cuts will continue and services will continue to decline - and that’s a promise.

The only way to stop the attacks on health is to act ourselves against Tory attacks today and Labour attacks tomorrow. But this is a job for all workers which must go beyond union to political tasks. As we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Communist Party of Great Britain, the reforging of working class revolutionary organisation remains key to the combativity of our class.