Marks & Perks NHS dispute opens door to unity

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BEHIND the political sound and fury, Northern Ireland over the last few months has also been one of the most militant centres of the NHS workers' pay campaign.

Does the unity of Protestant and Catholic workers in this campaign show the way out of the political impasse Micky Duffy, a NIPSA shop steward at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, and a supporter of Militant, thinks it does. At the NHS shop stewards' conference in Sheffield on October 30, he spoke to Socialist Organiser. with it: MD: Through shop stewin Northern Ireland?

SO: At the beginning of the dispute a lot of hospitals with JSSCs were disorganised. How did you organise?

MD: The problems were similar to the problems here - for example, inter-union rivalry.

We had to manage to marry unions together by shop stewards taking collective action. If there was a vote, but one of the unions was in major disagreement, rather than split the stewards we wouldn't push the vote.

We tried to find action that would take all unions rooted sectarian barriers.

SO: How an indefinite organised?

The unity achieved has been the perfect answer. to all people who claim that the unions in N. Ireland are divided on sectarian lines. The unions organise regardless of religion and regardless of geographical area they are in. As Militant supporters in N. Ireland have always argued, when the working class goes forward it will break all barriers, even the most deeplydo you see an indefinite strike being strike being Sweene ards' . committees, in the North. You have to take into account that we wi il get a better response than other areas.

SO: You mention the Health Service Dispute as being unifying for N. Ireland. In the past sectarianism has been a problem in the docks, for example. How do you see, those divides being bridged?

MD: Conditions determine how people behave. Loss of living standards is affecting all workers. We have common problems and common struggles.

A crucial factor is not that the class cannot unite, but that this has been limited to the industrial front in N. Ireland - the lack of a political voice.

There is a clear need for the formation of a Labour party in the North.

SO: How would this being formed?

MD: Supporters of Militant have been campaigning for years that a conference of labour should be convened in Belfast with reps from every trade union, shop stewards committee, and labour group in the That conference should form a Labour Party and sort out relations with the British Labour Party. It can't be confined to one province.