[FIGHTBACK WE WANT Jobs for jobs MARCHERS attending…]

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FIGHTBACK WE WANT Jobs for jobs MARCHERS attending a big demonstration protesting at the Israeli invasion of Lebanon last month had to listen to two Tory speakers at the Trafalgar Square Rally. The organisers refused to read out messages of solidarity smuggled out from Republican prisoners in the North of Ireland.

The biggest disgrace however, is that there were only three Labour Party banners on the demonstration. Until the Labour Party and the trade union movement can claim to be a pillar of support for the Palestinian cause, it will have little chance of driving the Tories - including racists like Tony Marlowe - out of such campaigns. Rates: £5 for three months, £8.75 for six months, and f1 for a year.

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Socialist Organiser no. 95 August 12 1982. Page protest at advert weneed 5,000 hospital workers walked out in protest last Friday over a grossly misleading advertisement in the national press about their pay offer. The ad -reputed to have cost the DHSS £85,000 — claimed that the government's pay offers would bring the lowest earnings to $91 a week for men and £82 for women.

But these figures disguise the true position. To earn even £91, hospital workers have to work much longer than average overtime. That figure also includes premium s payments for round-the-clock anti-social hours — and shift-work is increasing faster amongst nurses than covered Wages Councils.

The ad referred to the 6% awards made to teachers and the civil service, but failed to mention the 13.1% awarded to the police last September, with another award in double figures in the offing.

In the five years from July 1976 to 1981, nurses' pay fell in real terms by 3.5% whereas average earnings rose by 3.1% in real terms. They have seen police pay - 'a special case' - rise by 244% in that period while their own has lagged behind by half that amount (110%).

The government has repeatedly claimed that it can afford no more than the 6 and 7.5% currently on offer. The Under-Secretary of State for Health recently reiterated the offers as 'very adequate' Who are they kidding? Next year, each British household will spend £13.50 a week on the Tories' defence budget. The Trident D5 submarine missile system alone will cost £7,500 million at September 1981 prices.

Under a social system committed to saving lives rather than killing people, this money would pay for 330 new hospitals at £23 million each. Put by We Mustil another way, it would increase the budget of the Medical Research Council 75 times. And ior each £2.7 million spent on every army Lynx helicopter, we could create jobs for 500 more nurses.

Britain is now spending 20% more on defence than on the entire national health service. But isn't our health service the pride of the western world?

Not so. According to Hansard, we spend the lowest proportion of Gross Domestic Product on health care than any other EEC country except Greece.