Hospital Workers Hit Back at Cuts

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SOCIALIST PRESS * I would like to receive ... issues. I enclose the sum —Subscribe! by the rash of actions staged in hospitals this week:

*The work to rule by EETPU workers claiming £8.50 per week to reach parity with the private sector as agreed in 1972 has affected 100 hospitals throughout the week.

Panic At the Royal Free, one of London's largest hospitals, the management panicked at the effectiveness of the action and on Thursday virtually closed the hospital.

Admissions were stopped, emergency operating theatres closed, casualty closed and many patients moved to other hospitals in an attempt to reduce their numbers from 800 to 500.

*All unions .£1.10 .£2.20 .£5.50 £10.00 Ormond Street hospital have threatened strike action on Monday unless police searches of staff, started recently after a series of thefts, are called off.

The workers object to the flagrantly racist behaviour of the police in mainly picking on and harrassing black workers. .

* A walk out by 60 cleaners at West London Hospital after their wage packets had been docked by 10% was supported by other workers including boilermen.

The management had conducted an experiment in abolishing clocking on, which NUPE members reckoned proved the system to be unnecessary.

The dispute broke out when management tried to restore it. If the one remaining scab boilerman had gone on strike the hospital would have closed LEAGUE Summer School Che Reconstruction the Fourth July 23 to July 30, 1978 )pen to WSL member and supporters For details write to NW5 1HR ENTERNASYONAL Turkish language magazine published by the Workers Socialist League Number 6. 20p plus 15p p& From: WSL, 31, Dartmor Park Hill, London NW5 1HR. completely.

*In Greenwich the strike by nurses against the introduction of a new lower grade of nursing staff has continued.

The work to rule by electricians has swiftly brought a new pay offer, on the basis of which Peter Adams, EETPU officer, has called a national delegate conference of 500 shop stewards on Monday.

He has not disclosed what the offer is, not surprisingly, if rumours about it are true.

These indicate that it will be 10% plus an incentive scheme which is already operating in some areas and which will certainly involve a loss of jobs.

The fact that many EETPU workers already on the scheme would not benefit at all would make it highly divisive, and by staying safely within the pay guidelines it would do nothing to beat the paycode policy.

Yet the readiness of hospital workers to take action shows their determination to strike a decisive blow against the rundown of hospital services resulting from the Callaghan-Healey cuts.

These latest struggles indicate unmistakeably that it is impossible to defeat one aspect of the attacks of the Lib-Lab government in isolation from the others.

The struggle against wage control must continue hand in hand with the fight to stop and reverse the cuts.

This is the fight which hospital union leaders must be forced to take up, and which the pressure of their members is making it more and more difficult for them to avoid.

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WSL, 31, Dartmouth Park Hill, London