Pressure grows for aeneral strike NUPE MUS GIVE THE LEAD!

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also linked with the miners' campaign for their wage away the Tories' proposed 3½% norm for this year. claim and avainst nit closures due to on to a strike It can demolich the Emlayment Act and aton tha AS Albert Spanswick, chairperson of the TUC Health Services Committee, announced his ideas for next steps in the NHS pay campaign, even the top trade union officials beside him could not suppress a groan.

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday 19th, Spanswick proposed a petition campaign (! and another TUC day of action on November 24, Even right-winger Charlie Donnet of the GMWU interrupted to declare that this was only Spanswick's. personal opinion.

NUPE general secretary Rodney said:

The membership are not prepared to continue with these long-intervalled single days of industrial action.

"I don't say that our people are getting desperate. But they are frustrated and very, very angry. They want something more, something that bites.

"We want escalation. We will reaffirm even more strongly on this occasion the NUPE conference decision for an all-out strike with accident and emergency cover. Very many people are coming to believe that is the only way forward.

On Friday evening, 15th, at a Tribune/Broad Left meeting in London, NUPE national NHS officer Roger Poole called for an all-out indefinite strike in the NHS, to be coupled with an indefinite general strike of the whole trade union movement.

The TUC Health Services Committee is meeting on Thursday 21st. The Scottish Regional Council of COHSE has demanded a recall conference of the union to consider all-out action, yet COHSE is likely to be the main obstacle to an all-out call. Many NUPE members are demanding that their union unions along behin give a lead, and drag the other unions along behind it.

There is a real possibility now of escalating action to defeat the Tory government - only TUC policy is dissipating and splitting up militancy.

This week there are four major days of action -all separate! Monday: water workers' strike over pay. Tuesday: NHS south-east day of action and lobby of Parliament. Wednesday: British Telecom strike against privatisation. Friday: stecl strike againsı job cuts. TUC chiefs lead September 22 march. But will they lead a fight to win?

These struggles should be brought together, and ballot on October 28-29. PIL MINORIN, MUN EVA DUNE The NHS regional days of action have been a de-escalation after September 22. The transport strike called for November 8 could and should be the starting point for a fight to win.

But the union leaders' plans so far are not promising. There is no official campaign for action in the depots and bus garages. Rail union leaders are merely meeting on Wednesday 20th to decide call their members out.

"We lifted the Health Service workers up and we are not going to let them drop", declared Rodney Bickerstaffe on Tuesday. More certainly, the health workers are not going to let themselves be put down!

The plan of action we need is.

*All-out indefinite strike in the NHS with emergency cover under workers' control.

*Make November 8 a one-day general strike.

*Organise for an all-out general strike.

See page 2 JOHN HARRIS A general strike can win the 12% claim and clear Tebbit Bill. It can block the Tories' cuts and closures.

It can do more. It can make it impossible for the vandal Tories to govern, and drive this Tory government from office. And the level of mobilisation needed by the working class to defeat this entrenched government would open tremendous possibilities beyond the limited objectives of defeating Tory policies or even of bringing down the Tory government.

A general strike poses implicitly - and, as it develops, more and more explicitly - the question of which class is master in the country.

If the Tories retain power after a general strike, they will quickly counter-attack. So indeed would a Labour government led by the present Foot-ShoreHealey team. But that is the round after this one. The task now is to mobilise the full forces of the labour movement to win this round - to win the NHS workers' claim and bring down the Tory government.

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Socialist Organiser no.105 October 21 1982 Page 2 S effi heffield lead for health stewards tinuing to press for an all- vast majority of staff, THE national meeting of NHS shop stewards called by the Sheffield and Leicester stewards' committees on October 30 is a welcome and much needed initiative.

Throughout this dispute the TUC has called the tune, frustrating and demoralising our members with their time-wasting tactics. Many stewards have been demanding an all-out indefinite strike, recognising that this, linked with solidarity action, is the only way to win the 12% claim.

The TUC has persistently ignored the rank and file's call for leadership. Since there has been no meeting of stewards on a national level, it has been difficult to effectively channel pressure onto the TUC health services committee. The conference gives us an opportunity to start doing that more effectively.

Forge

that we use the meeting to spread a campaign to force the TUC to call a national NHS stewards' conference, and to put pressure on NUPE to carry out their May conference decision to call all-out indefinite action.

The dispute hangs very much in the balance now. If the militancy of the last National meeting of health service shop stewards and representatives of strike committees Saturday October 30; Royal Victoria Hotel, Victoria Station Road, Sheffield: 10.30-4.30 strike. by union card seven months and the support we have . built up is not to be squandered, we have to have an all-out The Sheffield meeting background ace vicimisations, cuts, and threatened privatisation. We are now playing for higher stakes than just the 12 per cent.

and members of strike committees, admission Creche: available.

Contact: 0742 26484 x 2896 daytime, 550582 eve.

As the Tory attacks on the NHS intensify, a national organisation of NHS stewards is becoming more essential. Health service stewards must show that they mean business, by getting the maximum turnout for the Sheffield meeting, organising for strong action on the 8th, and conout indefinite strike.

ANNA LUNTS THE occupation to stop: closure at Wood Green and Southgate hospital continues, with the majority of staff fully behind the The one black spot is the few nurses in the RCN, who have agreed to go for interviews for new inhe. The LAAM who are NUPE members, have refused to attend such interviews, and this has effectively blocked the District Health Authority's first attempt to break the occupation.

Attempts to broaden the support for the occupation continue. Last week saw a lobby of a meeting of the borough Labour group which discussed what practical support they could offer.

While a certain amount of verbal commitment was forthcoming, practical support was limited to publicising the occupation through the council's local paper.

Occupation supporters are planning a call to all local authority stewards in the borough for a meeting to broaden the support for the occupation into the local. Trade Union movement. While it is primarily the job of the local Trade Union to organise this initiative, the council can play a

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whether to strike or not! Leaders of TSSA, the clerical union, have already said that they will not

ANUPE JOHN HA ABOLISH RIS THE DISEASE THAT IS KILLING THE

ALL OUT

JUSTICE FOR NHS RKE