Ega - Strengthen Picket !

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Despite the grand gesture of a special one day conference on January 14th, the leaders of NALGO still have absolutely no policy for the defence of jobs and services in the public sector.

the cun ONE SU LIC SERI slavishly voted support for round after round of public spending cuts and refused at any point to lead the slightest fight to remove the leading exponents of such Tory policies within the Labour Cabinet.

What is needed to fight the cuts is a rejection both of these policies and of the spineless talkers that iber 17th anti-cuts demonstration The huge 80,000 strong demonstration on November 17th showed the willingness of workers to fight the cuts - yet trade union bureaucrats, like the linked arms of policemen act to hold back the strength and anger of public sector workers.

Their method is to "deplore" this, that or the other aspect of the The first months of 1977 will be crucial for the Flizabeth Garrett Anderson hospital.

The Camden-Islington Area Health Authority have now announced that they intend to begin moving equipment out of the hospital after mid-January and to move the patients out early in February. * This announcement has only served to strengthen the resolve of EGA workers to keep the hospital open.

EQUIPMENT

The Joint Shop Stewards Committee is going ahead with plans fot preventing the equipment from being moved; and for ensuring that drugs and other supplies will continue to be available.

They are also preparing a financial statement which will prove the hospital's viability and expose the AHA's manipulation of funds and budgets to its own ends - for example the waste of funds in renovating old wards for EGA patients at the Whittington Hospital to a standard far inferior to even present EGA facilities.

Although the picket on the EGA nas been mınımal over the nolday period, all posssible resources will be mobilised by 17th January so that the front gate can be guarded at all times to prevent heavy vans from moving out equipment.

The EGA Campaign is planning a series of public metings in Camden to build up local support.

Cinema Action are making a film on the EGA occupation taking up the question of workers' control, which is the key to not only the defence of the EGA occupation but to the defence of the entire Health Service.

We call on all London trade unionists and others from the labour movement to renew support for the EGA picket and to be prepared to take decisive action when the AHA makes its first move.

At the same time every health service union branch should make support for the EGA the centre of a fight to mobilise the national strength of their unions in all-out strike action to halt the cuts, demanding a complete restoration of all spending cutbacks and the protection of .the Health Service against inflation through a sliding scale of spending - providing automatic increases in line with increased costs.