Bitter lessons of 1-day stril Firing darts at the Tory tiger

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Tasks some some questions about the NHS dispute HAT was wrong with he unions' strategy of ne-day strikes?

The unions' overal trategy has been to onvince, to persuade, • plead. And yet this overnment is just not asceptible to reason. he unions' struggle has een to achieve something I workers should avoid, irbitration.

Albert Spanswick asn't been • struggling • get 12%, God bless m. He's been fighting that's the right word, • arbitration to decide bether 12% is fair.

The union strategy Health Workers the Full Lancashire been like refusing to use an available armalite, and instead firing a small dart at a tiger and then waiting a very long time in the unlikely event that the beast will miaow and lick your hand.

One day stoppages can be useful tactics for flexing our muscles, enthusing our troops, putting a shot across the enemy's bows -if they are preliminary to throwing in all the members.

In themselves one day strikes never achieve anything. They merely signal faintly to an employer our anger and frustration.

In the NHS dispute one day strikes have been a substitute for a strategy, not a component part of one. After each stoppage the answer has been 'more of the same, give the Tories time. ' So we've gone from the one hour stoppage on April 14, through 2 hours' stoppage on April 26, to the one day strikes in June, the 3-day strikes in July ... the 5-day strikes in August, the 16 Regional Days of Action By September 22, with millions on strike in solidarity, even the TUC knew that it had come to the end of the 'more days' recipe. The Regional Days of Action were big step back. JOHN HARRIS a painless replacement for an all out stoppage. And in the industrial jungle of Tory Britain you don't get owt for nowt.

But would an al-out strike have worked last January or even April?

Perhaps not. The idea of one-day stoppages then would have been useful if they had been seen as a preparation of the membership building towards an all out stoppage. -Instead they have been used as an easy way out, What about the selective strikes of key workers?

In one hospital near me, 2 groups of workers have been out for 20 and 18 weeks respectively. They have stuck it out well feel isolated. 'We've done our bit, yet our hospital is still working' is a typical comment. They can't see any return for their efforts.

In any limited industrial action there comes a point where either you go forward decisively or you start going back. At least by June the NHS action had gained sufficient momentum for a great leap forward to have been taken.

Step Hasn't the solidarity action been a big step forward?

It's been fantastic. It's shown that •fight is still there, that workers Sun have been willing to put their own jobs on the for their brothers sisters.

However, there has been a clear lack of leadership by the TUC. The best example was last month; October 18, water workers one-day strike - enemy Mrs. Thatcher; October 19, Regional NHS Day of Action - enemy Mrs. Thatcher: October 20, British Telecom one-day strike over privatisation -enemy Mrs. Thatcher; October 22, one-day strike by steelworkers against closure - enemy Mrs. Thatcher.

Our . field marshals showed . their complete inability to grasp a first principle of industrial warfare — concentrate your forces, take advantage of your enemy's weakness. They lost the opportunity to fuse these struggles in a 24-hour General Strike against the Tories' policies.

But solidarity action moves forward and back according to the momentum, confidence and elan of the original dispute. Dockers, miners, bus drivers are not going to keep striking and losing money for a dispute which itself lacks a perspective for victory.

So the Health Services Committee hasn't done very good job then...

If 11 different unions can coordinate their efforts, it's definitely a move forward. But unity has been the unity of the lowest common denominator.

When the NUPE conference voted in June for an all-out strike, that decision didn't pull unions like COHSE forward. Instead, they dragged NUPE back.

The committee is too far away from the membership, unelected by it and outside its control. Peter Jacques, its secretary, is a full-time non-elected TUC employee, yet he and Albert Spanswick have held private talks with the Health 'Minister, Norman Fowler.

'What on earth is the point of having a coordination committee to conduct negotiations if the chairman and secretary don't tell the rest of us what is going on?' said one member (Financial Times, September 21).

Strikers need to control their own strikes - through establishment of strike committees, the linking up of these committees on both a local and a national basis, and the creation of a leadership committed to the interests of the rank and file. by lan Rez

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