Who is t contro emergency cover?

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Capitalism has no con- conditions won by workers scious system for adjusting in the boom are lost again. supply to demand. Capital- The rate of exploitation is ists are always producing pushed up. Capitalism is for a more or less uncertain 'rationalised', a new equimarket rather than for librium is established, and democratically - expressed a new phase of expansion need. (if, perhaps, these days, a THE CAMPAIGN on pay launched by the health service unions has raised an old ghost - the question of emergency cover.

In the past, for example in 1979, the Tory press has had a field day, accusing the unions of killing people by not providing emergency cover.

In fact, in past disputes the problem has been the determined effort by administrators to continue to run the hospitals as if nothing was happening. They left it up to those who crossed the picket lines to run the service, and inevitably this led to mistakes and accidents.

Alternatives are possible, many of them tried and tested in local disputes.

Most health workers have regular experience of providing emergency cover. At night most departments operate emergency cover, with a minimum number of statf. During holiday periods, rk?

'Excess' In boom times, capitalists invest and expand production in hopes of an increasing share of an increasing market. Sooner or later production outstrips the market - not because all needs are filled, but because many people do not have the cash to translate their needs into market Then comes the slump. •..ress capital is scrapped or deralued. (Currently bankruptcies are running at record levelsi. Wages and too, the service is down to a minimum.

When consultant surgeons are at conferences or want extended leave, too, work is rescheduled.

In abnormal weather in South Wales recently, the service was reduced to a minimum, with no outpatient facilities for seven days and only emergency admissions. And everyone was praised at the end of it for the marvellous job they did.

Emergency cover preventing any risk to the patients' lives is entirely possible - as long as health workers ourselves can organise and control it, instead of the patients' health being used as a pawn in management attempts at strike-breaking.

Most workers have a clear answer on emergency cover: We will provide it, but if other people are recruited to try to break our strikes and provide the full service, then the emergency cover will come off. feeble one) begins.

For most of the time since World War 2, major capitalist governments have tried to moderate and smooth out this cycle. The Tories' belief is that the cycle must be given more. leeway to do its work and purge the economy.

So are they vindicated? Possibly and up to a point, from the viewpoint of the bosses. But not one bit from the viewpoint of the working class.

Any new expansion is very doubtful and promises no great gains for wages and jobs. What we need to do is replace the system.

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RECOGNITION 982 NOT HE AVEW AUE