Health workers pay tight Leicester deal workers pangw UNITE- IN STRIKE ACTION!

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Lobby NUPE- May 7th They face the same inflation -currently running overall at 12% -bringing increases in rents, rates, prices and charges, all fuelled by Tory policies.

And they have all received an insulting reply to their claim - ranging from no increase at all for young technicians, through 4% for ancillaries, 5% for ambulance crews and a miserable 6.4% for nurses. In each case this amounts to a savage cut in real wages among some of the lowest paid workers in the country. The extra 79p for a domestic for instance will be gobbled at once by increases in national insurance; nurses increases will be eaten up by a huge rise in lodging charges.

Health workers are clearly united in their anger over pay, as shown by the strong response to the April 14 day of action. All the conditions seem ripe for a concerted, all-out right against the tory pay limit.

But there has been no such lead from the unions involved. Only one union - COHSE - has called for any action at all — and that is restricted to 2 hour strikes and bans on non-emergency admissions. Other union leaderships are either stalling, leaving COHSE members isolated in their struggle, or (like NUPE) openly dragging their feet.

The NUPE leadership, under the guise of "democracy' has called a time-wasting ballot, while also effectively abandoning the claim, calling for it to be referred to arbitration.

They are using as justification the recent arbitration award of 6% average increases to civil servants - ignoring the fact that a 6% award falls in any event far short of the rise in the cost of living.

The fact is that health workers have only one means of securing decent living standards: to organise and to fight for them. We must mobilise the health unions at section. branch a area and national level to united, indefinite strike action in pursuit of the 12% claim.

This means in the first instance fighting alongside COHSE members and any other sections that embark upon action seeking to extend the impact and duration of that action. And it means demanding that union officials stop crawling to management and looking for compromise and start the fight for strike action. It means building links with other trade unionists in local industries and supply firms, to mobilise them in support of the NHS unions.

Without this clear strategy, all of the fine talk of "unity" among the NHS unions means in reality that every section of workers will share in a miserable sell-out.

Together with strike committees controlling the provision of essential union officials uniting to isolat the COHSE action and sell out thei own members.

It is for this reason that Socialis Organiser urges health workers t lobby the May 7 meeting of NUPE National Executive (where the resuli of the ballot will be discussec demanding that the biggest union i the NHS give the lead in calling al out strike action.

And we urge militants in oth health unions to take up the fight t force their leaders to call action 1 win the 12% claim.

Only by starting now from tr fight in defence of jobs and livir standards can we construct the kir of leadership in the working cla necessary to defeat and remove th Thatcher government and cari through the struggle for the expa sion of the health and other publ services as part of a planned sociali econom!. sararemo A meeting of health union acti ists has neer called on Sunday M: members have been taking action in E with their Executive Committe decision. Two-hour stoppages have be occuring and hospital workers hi banned overtime.

Other hospital workers in other unk are still awaiting Executive Commit decisions, but the mood is very milita with most hospitals setting up joint sh stewards committees. While the leadersi hang back, the rank and file are der mined to win their claim.

Most NUPE branches in the Soi Wales area have now met and the vote far is for industrial action in support the 12% claim.

When members of our NUPE branch read in the press a statement from Alan Fisher that NUPE ruled out strike action by nurses, our Secretary phoned up to complain.

We were told that Fisher was 'misquot ed' • But since then he has again been reported saying the same thing.

It is nor L PE poles SET: 110 Con in

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The 1970s were a period of rapid change in the NHS. By The 1970s were a period of rapid change in the NHS. By 975, after years of inactivity, virtually all grades of hospital aftau man af inantiviti, vistonlis all madas of haonital taff had taken industrial action in pursuit of wage claims.

Yet until 1972 there had never been an official strike wer pay in the NHS and almost no rank and file activity. VICES CARE? TOU One exception had been female domestics in London who ield a series of mass meetings in 1956 in pursuit of their Undoubtedly the burst of unofficial strike action in the arly 1970s was influenced by a number of factors, not least if which was the rising level of confidence and scope of shop loor organisation throughout the working class. This could jot fail to have its effect even on less well-organised sectors Inflation had cut mercilessly into the miserable pay packts of NHS workers, and the appalling working conditions in bany hospitals caused by persistent under-financing and staff bortages led to an explosion of rank and file anger - which hocked both the government and the union officials who had ineviously themselves accepted and fostered the myth of their Among them were 370,000 nurses.

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