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Subscribe! FROM all the reports I got ‹OM all the reports I got of the AGM, the atmosphere by lan Williams Williams (NUR Exec, (NUR Exec, in personal in personal capacity) RUMOUR has it that RUMOUR has it that COHSE general secretary COHSE general secretary Albert Spanswick doesn't Albert Spanswick doesn't get to use his telex machine get to use his telex machine very often. He certainly didn't rush to use it to declare any of the recent occupations - St. Benedicts, Longworth or St. Mary's - official. He definitely didn't use it to give official approval to the all out action of COHSE members in Edinburgh in May.

Imagine the shock then in regional offices from Perth to Aldershot when it began clicking away last week. What earth-shattering news was coming from Albert so uigently? Had the TUC finally declared all-out strike action? Had the Tories given in and agreed to 12%? NO!

The telex brought news of the most disgusting sell-out yet in this pay dispute — a page and a half of useless suggestions and waffle from Spanswick, in yet another vain attempt to quell COHSE members' militancy.

He says that he has met with the 'action committee" (no rank and file members of course) and they are requiring an increase in the action at present being carried out and an intensification of action already taking place.

To anyone actively involved in the dispute this SE FOLLOWING on the first of the days of action for the NHS pay claim, a woman ancillary worker at Newsham General Hospital (Liverpool)

wrote a letter to the Liver pool Daily Post which ininsulted the union members who participated in the campaign.

A religious fanatic, rom claimed exemption/ industrial action on grounds of conscience, but this apparently will not prevent from accepting the pay could only mean indefinite strike action.

Not so - the three day campaign means to Spanswick and the committee THE privatisation bandwagon rolls on. To make British Airways juicy enough for the profiteers, management now plan to cut 7,000 more jobs by March next year.

They have already cut 16,000 over the last two years, as well as reducing money wages last year.

• This February and March, they fought an eightweek strike of ramp workers at Heathrow - the last group of workers at that airport to resist the speed-up plans RT staff" (engineers remember have already settled for 8%) and 'utilisation of hospital administrators'!! Emergency cover is not mentioned but the circular says that levels of services to inpatients must • be maintained at a 'reasonable level (reasonable to whom?) and children's wards "must have normal services continued" • Having tried his hardest to sell out any effective action, Spanswick then tells us to redouble our efforts to get other unions involved and to write to MPs to "ascertain their views" This is ludicrous, given that we have been in a major dispute now for three months. If MPs' views are not known by now, they are not worth having!

Spanswick closes with a timely reminder that COHSE conference decided "overwhelmingly against all-out strikes' • Well, Spanswick, think again. COHSE members will not be involved in any sell-out now. We have fought tooth and nail to get COHSE to take industrial action and we have proved that COHSE members will fight. -Throughout the country joint union committees are coming together. NUPE and COHSE stewards are standing together on pickets and fighting together for the full 12%.

No way will we quit now, and we certainly will not go to work and ask others to strike for us.

In the vacuum left by the leadership militants must work together to mount a class fightback. Health workers should be making links with railworkers.

Parallels between the attempted sell-out by Rates: £5 for three months, £8.75 for six months, and £11 for a year.

Bundle of five each week: £12 for three months.

Bundle of 10: £21 for three months.

Name..

Address I enclose £ To: Socialist Organiser, 28 Middle Lane, London N8 8PL. Spanswick and the scandalous action by Sid Weighell during the NUR strike must be highlighted.

Our long term goal has to be true democratic unions where leaders cannot betray us year after year. The only way to get this is to elect all the full timers and to make sure they are accountable by regular re elections.

Meanwhile we have to fight in the hospitals for all-out strikes from the 19th. Establishing local Health Workers for the Full Claim groups can bring activists together and help to break down the isolation which exists. Selling the bulletin gets people involved and interested.

IN THE very long interlude between national calls for action, things have been kept going in Sheffield by selective action in two of the major hospitals.

A withdrawal of sterile supplies should reduce both to accident and emergency only by the end of this week, and badly affect other hospitals too.

Other hospital workers are paying a levy of f1 = week to support the strikers But they have little time for such piecemeal actions, anc many see indefinite actior with emergency cover as thi only way to win the 12%.

For the 3-day strike, i demonstration has been org anised on the 20th, with tha illustrious leader of healt workers, Albert Spanswick speaking. NUPE local go1 ernment workers have pled!

ed support for a three-hor stoppage to join the demor stration. Let's hope N Spanswick gets the welcom he deserves.

ELLEN TAYLO