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ON Paid ads Sp per word, £4 per column inch. Send to Socialist Organiser (What's On), 28 Middle Lane, London N8. HARINGEY Socialist Organise: fortnightly meetings at Brabant Rd trade union centre. For details phone 802 0771 or 348 5941.

OXFORD Socialist Organiser meetings, Thursdays at 8pm, 14b Priaces Street. 1 lovember: The BL Pay 18 dioneraber: Polish workas fichi for Solidarnosc. Southwark and Lambeth Socialist Organiser Group. Open Forum - Women's Fightback and the fight against women's oppression. Speaker: Jo Thwaites, Women's Fightback editorial board.

Thursday 11 November at 8.30pm, Lansbury House, 41 Camberwell Grove, London SES.

SOUTH EAST London Socialist Organiser forums: every other Thursday, 8pm at the Queen Victoria, Artili ery Place, Woolwich. STOKE Socialist Organiser meeting: Dave Spencer on 'What Socialist Organiser is, and why we are fighting the witch-hunt'. Sunday November 14, 7.30, The Swan, Swan Square, Burslem.

ISLINGTON Socialist Organiser. meets alternate Sundays bourne Grove, London W11. £2 waged, £1 unwaged. Further info: 112 Broxholm Rd London SE27.

GREENWICH Socialist Teachers' Group public Wood, John McKay. 8pm, Thursday November 11, Royal Oak, Woolwich New Road, London SE18.

WAGELESS WOMEN If you are a woman without an independent income then you are welcome on Wageless Women's Day, 10am -10pm, I2 Novemb:r, Co-op Hall, Seven Sisters Road. Films, Music, Kids' things, Theatre, Fond, Drink, Discussion.

SUPPORT the healthworkers - rally called by Kings Cross no.1 NUR, Monday Novem-. ber 8, 10am, Friends Meeting Housc, Euston Road.

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Socialist Organiser no.107 November 4.1982 Page 7 It was the first national meeting of NHS shop ards since the dispute started seven months ago.

The TUC Health Services Committee did not call the meeting. In fact, they even refused an invitation to attend, and local union officials went out of their The policies adopted The meeting called on Bickerstaffe and NUPE leaders to campaign for all-out strike in the same style that Scargill did to attend, and local union way to discourage stewards from attending.

The Sheffield and Leiceester stewards' committees had to take the initiative themselves.

Despite the difficulties of contacting stewards throughout the country, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, Derry, Cardiff, Oxford, Leicester, Sheffield, Coventry, Plymouth, Wolverhampton, London, and Manchester were all represented..

Discussion centred round how to make the call for all-out action a reality. A few of the stewards present seemed to have all but given up - but only a few.

Several resolutions were passed [see inset] on campaigning for a 'yes' vote, on November 8, on cor ordinating local NHS comm: ttees, and on establishing joint action committees of NHS and other workers.

Rejected

Another resolution, from the Leicester and Nether Edge stewards' committees, was rejected by the conference. Some of its proposais were contained in other resolutions, but its central point, that an all-out indefinite strike should take place from November 8, was considered by a substantial majority to be unrealistic.

Those favouring the resolution said that we couldn't wait for individual union consultation, because the dispute would lose momentum. Areas where it was possible should take decisions at mass meetings to start on November 8, and fight to involve the rest.

Speakers supporting the Northern Ireland resolution (see inset) argued that because areas which have previously attempted all-out even refused an invitation officials went out of their Jane Rees reports on the national meeting of 150 NHS stewards in Sheffield on October 30 strikes have been defeated by isolation, a successful all-out action must be national. After seven months of the dispute we need an active and intensive campaign to convince the membership that it is possible to win.

Some CoSE members argued that although a lengthy consultation was disastrous, many CoHSE militants had fought for democracy in the union and now wanted an emergency recall conference. A demand for completion of the consultation by the end of November, together with a January start to all out action, would make possible a successful campaign to get members from all the unions out.

It is significant that no-one proposing a November 8 start was able to point to even one area (let alone their own) where willingness to strike indefinitely from that day had been indicated.

Socialist Organiser supporters argued for the Northern Ireland resolution, and against that from Leicester and Nether Edge. Our assessment was that at this stage of the dispute a patchy indefinite strike would lead to a crushing NG in the coalfields defeat.

The tactics in the Northern Ireland resolution allow us to build on the strengths so far, create the conditions for the widest possible all-out action, and give the minimum leeway to those in the bureaucracy who want to end the dispute in a confused, protracted, piecemeal collapse, and huge demoralisation.

The conference was also addressed by a representative of the Yorkshire area executive of the NUM. Although NUM members nationally had voted against action on their own claim, he stressed to us that the miners were still ready to fight on our behalf. What we must salvage at all costs in this dispute was the trade union organisation and consciousness built up during it.

We heard fromNorthern Ireland, where stewards are strongly. organised in local committees and meet on a regional basis.

The struggle of the health workers has become an inspiration to all workers in Northern Ireland. On September 22 in Belfast, a mass demonstration was joined, uniquely, by both Falls and Shankill Road taxIs. Derry, one sixth of the population attended a demonstration which crossed the bridge that divides the Protestant and Catholic sectors.

Unfortunately the rest of the morning was a very sterile, abstract debate. Rather than bringing reports from their areas and drawing conclusions on the basis of experience, speakers indulgthemselves in party political broadcasts.

Some argued 'build the links, ignore the bureaucracy; others, that an all-out strike couldn't win, a general strike couldn't win, and that In view of the weak call made by the unions for November 8, the Sheffield conference called for local committees to take it upon themselves to get the members out and organise flying pickets on the day.

A motion from the Coventry health service action committee put forward a model resolution for stewards to take back to their individual unions to establish a national structure, from local joint stewards' organisations to national negotiating bodies.

The model resolution is to call on the TUC, regional TUCs, and regional committees and NECs of the NHS unions to:

* maintain and develop the role of the local NHS coordinating committees, * through these committees, developed full joint shop stewards' committees with the right to negotiate at local level, * develop regional committees composed of democratically elected representatives of JSSCs, serviced by full-time officers of health * establish a TUC health union negotiating committee responsible to a national committee of representatives elected from the regional joint committees for both negotiations and the conduct of industrial disputes.

Leicester and Nether Edge (Sheffield) committees proposed a motion calling for "the establishment in each area of delegate committees of health workers strike committees and representatives of workers taking solidarity action, in order to coordinate solidarity action and the struggle to defeat the Tory [anti-union] laws [which make such action illegal] ".

Sympathy

action «This meeting recognises that an indefinite strike in the health service (with accident and emergency cover) must be linked to widespread and prolonged sympathy action outside the NHS. It therefore calls on the TUC Health Service Committee to request the General Council to involve the other unions in sympathy strike action in the event of an indefinite strike in the NHS"

- Organising Committee «This meeting urges the TUC Health Service Committee to refuse all future offers, however favourable, if they are funded in part from current expenditure li.e. paid for by cuts] "

- Organising Committee "This conference congratulates the initiative shown by the Sheffield and Leicester health service shop stewards committees in convening a national conference of the health service shop stewards.

We recognise the tremendous determination of health workers to force this Tory government to concede the 12% pay claim. Regrettably, the leadership of the TUC Health Service Committee has been found wanting, and has consistently failed to match the resolve of their membership to win this dispute.

Nonetheless, even at this late stage the dispute can still be won. A campaign amongst the membership of those unions not already committed to an all-out strike must be launched from and by this conference. We must convince members of NALGO, CoHSE, etc to vote yes for an all out strike.

The consultation of these members must be organised efficiently and quickly. There is no reason why the results cannot be known by the end of November.

As the consultation is drawing to a close, the TUC must convene a similar conference of all health service local coordinating committees and joint shop stewards committees. If the TUC fail to do this, this conference agrees to reconvene and discuss the future strategy.

If the ballots favour an all-out strike, a deadline early in January should be fixed for the Tories to increase the offer. On that date if no new offer has been made an all out strike must be called, with accident and emergency cover only being provided.

Finally, the role of locat coordinating committees and JSSCs must extend to other battles facing the health service workers. These bodies must be retained after the pay dispute to coordinate resistance against the Tories' vicious attempts to introduce cutbacks, redundancies, privatisation, and eventually the destruction of the NHS itself".

- North and West Belfast, and Derry, local coordinat-

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