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MAL UNION OF MINST DIVIDED WE FALL MINERS, council workers, firemen, civil servants, water emen, civil servants, water and sewage workers, and building workers, are set to strike in solidarity with the health workers this Wednesday, 23rd.

To find a similar scale To find a similar scale id enthusiasm in solidarity action, we have to go back in the history of the labour movement to July 1972 - when some 250,000 workers struck to free dockers jailed under the Industrial Relations Act -or even to the 1926 General Strike.

At the same time miners' and steel unions have pledged themselves to support the railworkers' strike planned from Monday 28th. They will black supplies normally transported by rail.

For once the labour movement has dramatically broken from the jinx of isolated - brave, but usually deteated - action. During boom times, piecemeal industrial action often can win gains. In the midst of capitalist slump, it is much more difficult, and solidarity is much more needed.

The new wave of solidarity action shows the way to beat the Tories.

In both the health service and rail, employers have responded with last-minute concessions in an effort to split union ranks.

In the NHS, leaders of he Royal College of Nursing and other professional groups have accepted an offer of 7½% for nurses. All the TUC-affiliated unions have rejected the 7½% and accompanying proposal of 6% for ancillaries.

With inflation over 10%, the union demand for a 12% increase is a bare minimum. And the unions also insist on a uniform offer for all NHS workers.

The RCN accentance The RCN acceptance must not be allowed to disrupt the united union action. The RCN is not a trade union. Nurses and other health workers who have joined trade unions did not do so te have their policy dictated by non-unionists.

Escalate

In the contrary, the need is to escalate the struggle to all-out strike action with emergency cover under workers' control.

The British Rail bosses' offer of compromise on their productivity conditions reflects the fear they feel at the unions plans for action. But - amounting only to a proposal to introduce BR's plans a bit more gradually -it is no basis for calling off action.

The BR pay offer remains at 5%, delayed for five months, in response to the union's demand for 15%.

ASLEF train drivers on the London Underground are already on strike against cuts in services imposed as a result of the Law Lords declaring cheap fares unlawful. London Transport has reinstated 30 NUR signal technicians suspended for refusing to work on the new schedules, but there is strong feeling in the NUR for all-out indefinite strike alongside ASLER.

Likewise it is vital that Likewise it is vital ASLEF members press their rail union to the NUR's all-out strike British Rail.

On every front, solidarity will be the key to victory. And for socialists the job is to develop and explain the potential for a class movement against the Tories.

Behind all the immediate disputes stands the Tory government's cuts policy and the capitalist jobs crisis. They call for a political response from the whole labour movement:

*for a pledge by the Labour Party that the next Labour government will restore all the cuts; for automatic inflation-protection for the funds of public services; for millions for hospitals and not a penny for capitalist 'defence' *for the nationalisation without compensation of drug and other companies which leech off the NHS; for workers' and community control of the NHS.

*for an integrated policy of transport as a public service.

*for kicking out the Tories, and for a Labour government that will break from the traditions of previous Labour governments and be a workers' government, based on and accountable to the labour movement, acting decisively against the bosses and their state.

workers, Barat 32 OP º|VE AS the Zionists intersperse their "ceasefires" with more slaughter, we have background articles on the PLO and the Lebanese left -Pages cause against Health Workers for the Full Claim meeting: Sunday July 4, 1.30pm to 5pm, Labour Club, opp, "Night Out', , Bristol Birmingham.

Health Workers f REPORTS from COHSE conference, Welsh Day of Action and Coventry NO to the Regist Back REPORTS from NUR and ASLEF members, rith history of ral Gay FEATURE from. Labour Campaign for Gay Rights, plus other articles OSPEF ITY the Full Claim bulletin (0942 877296). Financial contributions urgently needed.

- no.4 out soon.

Order from Anna

Lunts, 78 High St, Atherton, Lancs

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