[1. EDINBURGH COHSE members at the went back…]

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1. EDINBURGH COHSE members at the went back to work on 25 May after being out on strike for six days and having been refused official backing from the NEC.

NUPE members went back on the 26th. Although the Hospital is now back at work, people are still saying that all-out strike action With emergency cover is what is needed, and that they won't support one-day However, NUPE workers are still on strike in the City and Royal Infirmary hospitals, although COHSE members there have gone back to work.

The Scottish miners have voted to give financial backing for NUPE industrial 2. ROTHERHAM LACK of official support has led to the collapse of strike action in Rotherham.

Badsley Moor Lane Hospital walked out on May 20, followed by NUPE members at the Rotherham District Hospital.

The following Wednesday a mass meeting of NUPE members voted overwhelmingly to stay out, and a mass picket followed at the Doncaster Central Hospital which was working. action, so at the very least COHSE should do the same.

A local group of Health Workers for the Full Claim has been set up in Edinburgh, drawing in activists from all three hospitals to push for all-out strike as the only way to win.

We should be pushing for an emergency debate on the 1982 pay claim at COHSE conference and we should also be supporting the lobby of the TUC Health Services Committee meeting on Wednesday June 9.

An important initiative would be to demand a recall of the Lothian NHS Shop Stewards Conference to plan positive action in the light of the NUPE conference decision for all-out strike.

Yet the next day the shop stewards were wavering. On Friday they had called the strike off.

A strike leader said:

'We were told the TUC would back us and if we stayed out until June 8 we would each receive a paltry £12 in strike pay ... Rotherham was flying the flag for NUPE, and the members and shop stewards felt we had been stabbed in the back."

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