P.m Sent Packing!

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A turning point in the campaign came on Ist September 1979, when the AHA attempted to close the accident and emergency department.

A massive lobby of the AHA meeting was organised and the local ambulance. drivers' NUPE branch, announced that they would continue to bring in patients. to St. Mary's if the casualty was occupied The AHA were forced to back down, and from that date on have reverted to more underhand methods of running down the hospital.

Their main tactic since then has been the reduction of manning levels, and the brunt of this attack has been borne by the women domestic workers.

Through the introduction of bonus schemes and virtual elimination of overtime, management have gradually chipped away at the working conditions of domestics.

Low The domestics, mainly members of TGWU and GMWU, have found these tactics increasingly hard to resist, despite adopting a policy of opposition to the staff reductions. In a job which has always been physically hard and low paid-although vital to the running of a modern hospital-the he running of a modern nospıtal -une her supervisor to move to another ward before finishing the job she was doing.

Sister Maxim refused, arguing that it was not in her conditions of employment and against agreed union policy of opposing the rundown of the hospital.

She was ordered to attend a disciplinary hearing the following week, where management obviously hoped to make an example of her and weaken the resistance of the domestics.

A meeting of all domestic staff was called where it was decided to take a stand in defence of their steward by stopping work at the time of hearing on July 14th.

Seeing the strength of resistance, management cancelled the hearing and in its place called a meeting of domestics where they attempted to impose more stringent working conditions.

The response of the domestics was overwhelming.

In an angry meeting, they pledged to take industrial action in defence of anyone who was disciplined by management for refusing to take on extra work.

Management were forced to back down and take no further steps against Sister Maxim.

The importance of this stand cannot be over-emphasised, and the domestics are now taking a leading role in the defence of the hospital.

Earlier, on June 13th, they played a major part in preventing the removal of equipment from the hospital stores, by physically blocking the path of the lorry It started off as a whisper and ended up as a crescendo. "Mis. Thatcher is coming to Winsford.* She was paying a flying visit (on her Broomstick, many, said, to Hebden Green School for Handicapped Children. Only she would have the gall to come here, after the cuts she has made in Cheshire's Education and Social Services.

What else did she want? She's got everything we've got to give and more! She's taken our jobs, our children's Education, medicine when we're ill: she's even taken our self-respect!

"Winsford to Welcome Mrs. Thatcher" screamed the headlines in the local press.

Well, she was about to get a different welcome from what the officials were giving her!

We started to arrive about 8.30 a.m.

There weren't only representatives from unions such as the Tailors and Garment Workers Union, NALGO and NUPE, but also housewives from a nearby Council chance in hell of getting a job when they do.

About a hundred people stood outside Hebden Green, banners aloft carrying such slogans as "Down with Thatcher" "Save our jobs", , "Stop cuts in Public Spending"

At about 9.15 am. the Iron Lady arrived and immediately the chant went out in unison-"Thatcher Out, Thatcher Out"*.

Placards were waved in front of the car, and one solitary Tory supporter waving a blue scarf, was soon swallowed up by the banner waving crowd.

After spending about a hour in the school Mrs. Thatcher made her exit.

With a fixed grin on her face she drove through the demonstrators still waiting at the gate, shouting as they had before-all of one mind and knowing that when she arrived in Runcorn, she would again have to run the gauntlet of demonstrators.

They were waiting for her there, and hoping she had got the message we had set out to convey:

"You may be Prime Minister, but you're not welcome in the North of England.

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overspill Estate, and young people due to leave school, who haven't a snowball's