[EGA that were the servic In W De…]

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EGA that were the servic In W De is VIS convinced them that if they took action, they would not be supported by the bureaucracy, and would become isolated and defeated.

This understanding was reinforced when the Stalinistdominated Area Joint Stewards Committee and the full time officials refused to commit themselves to support in advance the EGA workers themselves taking action Work-in Nevertheless, within a ew weeks. a mass meeting of workers had declared unless their demands met, they would occupy hospital and run the es themselves. e purpose of t he worksuld be der nana the repair of the lift. that private i af the private beds should be turned over to pinol iver to NHS use, that full services in th ices ir management about the rundown state of the hospital, implied that the way forward for the hospital was through workers' control.

Challenged

And even whilst the meeting was drawing up its list of demands, individual workers had already challenged management's right to give them orders which would ensure the hospital's closure.

heating engineer, employed to work at a number of hospitals in the Area, refused an instruction to move to another hospital after he discovered that the EGA's heating was faulty, and could be used as an excuse to evacuate patients.

Instead, he spent six weeks repairing the heating so that with the arrival of the October cold weather, all the im tant departments were

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Hounslow Hospital Emergency Fightback conference last Novemi ON WEI ISLINGTOA AG.

PENSIONER!

DuR PN. ting well heated.

This indication of the way forward for the occupation was soon ignored. Demands advanced by SL members, which posed the question of workers' control were shorn of their class content.

Inflated

An inquiry into the co repairing the lift was ca out by a firm of local WIPE 3A that the EGA was cheaper to run than many other hospitals in the Area.

Even though the inquiries into the lift, and into the costing of the hospital had not been carried out under the direction of the stewards committee, their findings could still have been used to win fresh support from the labour movement.

Instead the information was used to make fresh appeals to the AHA or to the Minister of Health, though the EGA workers had declared six months previously that these same people had no intention of saving the hospital.

Again and again in the different hospitals this question of independent class action raised its head.

Clearly, with management sabotaging a hospital by falsifying figures, and even by removing or refusing to sois THE CUTS PPI At all events, management must not be totally excluded from the premises.

This line is usually argued in terms of not wishing to 'alienate support' from the consultants But behind it lies an unwillingness to recognise that there is a fundamental difference between the interests of the workers in the hospital and those of the management which can only be resolved by one side or the other controlling the premises.

Bogus argument

If the workers do nor have control then management does, and must use it to defeat the work-in.

In any case, the "mustn't alienate consultants" argument is a bogus one. At each stage of the EGA workin, the consultants have shown firmest support when the shop stewards committee INC JUPE SAYS: $PE SAYS At the EGA, the union officials had refused to call supportive strike action on any scale; but with the idea of a work-in being taken up by the workers, both NUPE and ASTMS promised to make it 'official'.

NUPE full-timer Taylor even went so far as to produce a blue-print for the occupation, advocating workers' control:

"the essential feature of an occupation is the establishment of a Hospital Council representing all layers of staff, which is entrusted with the day-to-day management and operation of hospital affairs.

All matters concerning staffing, patient admissions, supplies, etc. should be channelled through the hospital council"

He also anticipated that in the event of a shortage of essential supplies, that union members in other hospitals would be prepared to send supplies to the EGA. essential if the work-in is not to be defused and betrayed.

Yet the only mention of full time officials in the pamphlet is that they provide a link with the national executives of the union and that it is only through them (it is more true to say against them!) that actions can be made official!

Strike action.

A key demand which must be advanced by workers staging hospital work-ins is the need for supportive strike action, both from other hospitals, and from industrial sectors.

strike At the EGA, an important development took place when the shop stewards' committee at University College Hospital called for an all-out strike in July 1976, in support of a lobby of Parliament around the closure of the EGA.

The strike of 3,000 workers under the leadership of CLASH following the rape of the Hounslow hospital also represented an important step forward in the attempt to build united action against the cuts.

On each occasion, the strikes took place in spite of and were curbed by the activities of the full time officials and their Stalinist hangers on.

coverage Perhaps it is for this reason that the strike tactic receives such poor coverage in this pamphlet.

Furthermore an orientation towards other hospital workers necessarily means that the campaign to defend a particular hospital must be based on the defence of the NHS as a whole.

Yet St. Nick's, whose Campaign Committee are jointly responsible for this pamphlet, was 'saved' only at the expense of four neighbouring hospitals, and the "special case' theme constantly reoccurs in the campaigns of the other hospitals in this venture. them to divert workers away from the most important tasks facing them.

Because of the authority established by the work-ins. this pamphlet will he taken seriously by many hospital workers seeking a way of defending the NHS.

Important tactic

It can only be hoped that this does not mean that those who follow it as a manual end up in the same boat as the Hounslow (now closed), the Weir, (closed) St. Nick's (saved at the expense of four other hospitals) and the EGA (now reduced to campaigning for public subscriptions and special funds).

SHE CUTS NUPE leader Fisher Nevertheless, the importance of the work-in as a tactic remains.

As Arthur Churchley from the EGA says:

"I've got one advice. Do the same as us. I've talked to others who are getting up pickets and petitions, but we've been through all that jargon.

We've had pickets/ (lobbies) and petitions. We've been to see Ennals. We've had a one day strike, and they're

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FIGHT? PHOTO: Laurence S