[After nearly two years of attempts to close…]

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After nearly two years of attempts to close the son hospital, Camden Area Health Authority has finally admitted that it is unable to defeat the work-in that has kept the hospital open for the last 15 months.

At a meeting last week, he AHA washed its hands of the problem of closing the EGA by stating that if David Ennals wished to provide facilities equivalent to those at the hospital (their original terms of reference) finance should be provided from national resources.

Important step

This is an important step in the fight to maintain the EGA but it is not the victory which the capitalist press has trumpeted-and sections of the workers think.

Rather it means that the fight in no longer with the petty bureaucrats of the AHA but with the Lib-Lab coaltion government itself; and that fight is not one that can be won using the present orientation of the EGA workers.

The 'Observer' newspaper last weekend carried a revealing interview with James Airlie, Stalinist convenor of Govan shipyards.

After quoting the head of British Shipbuilders describing Govan as the "jewel of the corporation" and the industrial relations director who praised the spirit of co-operation in the yard it goes on to show the basis of this management praise.

Part of Airlie attacked "working methods that belong to the nineteenth century" and the "yards with pay differentials and inter-union squabbles" that have the "lowest wages" and belong to "the museum"

He says "You have to make workers realise they are part of the industry if it is to succeed". He can't remember when there was last a strike.

Airlie and the other stewards at Govan have signed agreements that put this philosophy into practice. Amongst these are:

"Complete mobility of workers between yards", • and By a Healti Service Correspo The bankruptcy of that orientation was seen only too clearly at the AHA meeting where the EGA staff had been invited to put their case.

Senior consultant Incredibly the spokesman for the firstever hospital occupation in Britain was senior • consultant of Boutwood, accompanied by two peers of the realm-one, Lord Bowden, ex-Labour minister and the other President of the Royal College of Physicians.

Special case

Their policies-apparently worked out in conjunction with the hospital shop stewards were that the EGA should either be treated as a spécial case by the DHSS (presumably at the expense of another hospital elsewhere) or that the EGA canpaign should be allowed to raise money by public subscription to repair and maintain the hospital (there'Introduction of work study and work measurement techniques" , as well as agreements for mobility between trades and between helpers to tradesmen.

Also in the new agreements is a cover-all clause:

"Any changes required that will help make the company more efficient will be introduced at any time, subject only to the normal processes of consultation and mutual agreement"

Although the man hours per ship have been reduced from 850,000 to 600,000, with the new agreements, it is planned to cut this to 400,000 by next year.

The Observer says that these agreements:

... provide a model blueprint of what newly-nationalised British Shipbuilders will now be demanding from other yards"

More jobs lost So not only is it no surprise that the majority of the Polish order was diverted to Govan but this will continue to be the case until the other yards accept Govan-type by placing the financing of the EGA back in the preNHS days of charity hospitals.

Either of these options represents the betrayal of these workers inside and outside the EGA who have fought day and night during the past fifteen months to maintain picket lines outside the occupied hospital which they see as central in the fight to defend the NHS as a whole against the ravages proposed by the government.

Socialist Press has argued from the very beginning of the fight to save the EGA that only a campaign based on the strength of the working class could defend the EGA as part of the NHS.

United If the EGA is to remain a by-word for the fight against the cuts the stewards must reject the present policies of collaboration with consultants and worse and return to a united fight with workers in other hospitals against the cuts in general.

This fight should include the demand for a sliding scale of public expenditure linked to the rate of inflation as assessed by trade union comagreements.

In a declining world market the Stalinist aim of increased productivity means that even more shipyard jobs will be lost.

Airlie, proud of doubling productivity, is helping to put thousands of shipyard workers out of work.

Govan was part of the UCS struggle in which it was originally declared that no jobs would be lost. 100,000 West of Scotland workers Airlie PHOTO: Derek Speirs, IFL mittees.

The Committee of London Area Stewards in the NHS (CLASH), fights for this and other policies to defend the NHS from the cuts and must be built into the main focus of the struggle in London to resist attacks on the NHS.

PHOTO: Chris Ennals participated in a protest stoppage in their support along with backing from workers all over the country.

Scabbing

Now the yard has seen this militancy completely misled to the point of scabbing on other yards and becoming a show-case of speed-up for capitalism and company unionism.

The Stalinists turn the threat of closure-which is becoming more and more a reality for the masses of workers because of the capitalist crisis of overproduction-into a weapon to bring workers closer to the employers.

We must fight to show that this danger to workers' livelihoods is inherent in the capitalist system and only through the fight for the independence of the working class can this be opposed.

Defend jobs

The Stalinist betrayers at Govan must be thrown out and a new leadership built that will defend all jobs and conditions, demand the opening of the books of the employers and their suppliers and demand. work-sharing on full pay, with occupation of any yards threatening job losses. This must be made a national struggle against unemployment.

The bitter fruits are now being reaped by to fight for strike action on the union's 90% pay claim alongside the firemen last November.

Scargill's failure to call for an immediate strike ballot as soon as the NCB failed to meet the NUM conference's demand for £135 per week from November 1 left the right wing leaders the leeway to ram through their reactionary incentives scheme which has now seriously weakened the union and taken the steam out of the fight on basic rates of pay.

Denounced

The 14-10 vote last week by the NUM Executive to accept a 10% pay increase and a further year of the 12month rule has been widely denounced as a sell-out.

At the forefront of those bureaucrats trying to accumulate some verbal left' prestige after the sell-out were Scargill's confederates in the Communist Party, including Kent area secretary Jack Dunn.

He described the PRESS * 5 issues 10 issues ! 25 issues 50 issues Name .

Address is open and al mine health rents. 29418 of our health servicé now executive's decisio disgrace" and the tions as a "charade"

Disgraceful But miners will remember the disgraceful charade in which Dunn and Scargill, hiding from a fight on the £135 pay claim, attempted to use the bourgeois courts to intervene on their side against the right wing's incentives The repercussions of these diversionary antics on the future strength of the NUM in pursuing national level pay claims will be drastic.

The harsh lesson miners must draw is that a conscious revolutionary leadership is needed in order to challenge both wings of the NUM bureaucracy-the open right wing defenders of the Lib-Lab coalition around Daly and Gormley, and the spineless 'left' around Scargill and the Communist Party .£1.10 .£2.20 . £5.50 £10.00 ff 31, Park Hill, London NW5 1HR as egotia

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spurs new fight In a move designed to "bring the dispute to an end" the TGWU bureauconvenors and union officials.

The Speke strike is the clearest instance of an entire workforce rejecting this logic, and sticking tenaciously to its agreement that manning levels can only be altered by management by mutual agreement with shop stewards.

Leyland management has repeatedly announced it will As the important Provocative posters

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ENNALS OUT! NO MORE HOS Ir. SEPT. 20*

miners from left' talking Arthur Scargill's refusal