[The equivalent of l ,000 jobs danger, along…]

Scan page 2

The equivalent of l ,000 jobs danger, along with the threat of a less nutritional meal at a hig ner price, the loss of free school meals for low-income parents.

The National Childe The Campaign has sought to formed in July 1980, together parents, teachers, school constitutional con ference staff and trade unions, who are success1981. fully fighting back against the cuts.

This campaign takes up aspects Since the fight began, there has been of childcare (not just for the under 5s) no further price increase for school meals, and has lobbied various union and Labour and a revised menu been imple- has Party bodies and conferences. mented in the area.

The Campaign has over 150 affiliations A campaign public meeting recently already, and Woman Worker urges its drew a declaration of support from NUPE readers to get your organisation-nursery official Neville Davies. campaign, trade union branch, Labour But he made it clear that he was not Partv tenants' association whatever. willing to lead a strike by those school to affiliate. meals workers who have shown themThe Conference starts 10a.m. at selves ready to fight to defend their jobs. Wolverhampton Polytechnic. A creche Since our struggle began, the issues at and pooled fare are being organised- stake in the decline of the school meals further details from NCCC, c/o Surrey service have become increasingly visible. Docks Child Care Proiect. Dockland The cut of the meals service is part of Settlement, Redriff Road, London SE16. an overall pressure on women's jobs.

If you cannot make the conference, If the service is abolished, not only (or have already missed it), you can send will school meals staff lose their jobs off for the new NCCC pamphlet- but women in other employment w ill be «Nurseries-How Why Fight for to forced back into the home to cook Them": lunches for their children.

to hear from can be obtained from the address above and link up with campaigns in or from Woman Worker. The next issue other areas. of Woman Worker will contain a detailed More details from 17, Marlowe review of this pamphlet. Baxenden, Accrington, Lancs. Public meeting in Wheatley Street

Scan page 3

It true that the hospital occupations been really determined to They of Hounslow, Etwell and St. Benedicts could have organised full action NHS have been brutally ended by police and against the threat of a raid.

UNDER private ambulances getting patients out. Their standard reply was, of course, ATTACKI The occupation committee at Longworth that the membership won't fight al nd that are doing all they can to get supporting no call for action is better than action strike action from other sectors of health that goes off at half cock. workers to deter AHA plans for raids. Workers, however, at the major two The occupation has had a lot of advice general hospitals in the area were pledged from St. Benedicts. workers, who are very to strike if there was an official call from bitter at the way they were let down by the union.. The ambulance drivers were their union leaders at local and national prepared to take action with them. But levels. the officials who should have been Six patients• from St. Benedicts died organising the action shilly shallied within a month of the raid and a vitally around and stood by and did nothing needed hospital closed. This could have until it late. been verted if the leaders had union The women workers the women workers at Longworth had, it seemed, all the odds lose their jobs, there is no chance of them such action. getting another one. They will be added The majority of them are not only to the thousands who are part of the mothers of large families but grand- invisible army of unemployed women. mothers as well. They work on a system Women workers doing part-time jobs of many part-time shifts to fit in with in the public sector are a prime target child care and travel arrangements. They for the Tories policy of mass unemployumbs up! live in isolated villages away from the ment.

hospital locality. The reasons are obvious when you It is impossible to get all the staff look at the women at Longworth-parttogether for mass meetings. For many time workers not well organised -an because of family commitments and apparently easy target. transport problems the only time they They are nearly all married and will can get into the hospital is to work. not sign on as they are not eligible for Many of them had never attended a benefits. They will not be an embarassunion meeting belore because of these ment in the soaring statistics and they problems, let alone organise a major cost the state nothing in benefits. struggle against the Area Health On top of this they will return to the Authority and government health cuts. home to do the job they were previously But they are totally committed to paid for, For instance, the mother-in-law trying to overcome these problems and of one of the ancillary workers is looked to save the hospital-the driving force after in the day hospital. If the hospital being the care of the elderly, sick and the closes, the worker will not only lose her loss of their jobs. job, but also have to look after her Good luck, you will have the support will instruct the ambulance staff to mother-in-law full-time at home. all those who want to see what shamefu remove patients-we are confident they will inadequate services there are for the elde refuse to do so. But if they should get anyone defended. Your strength so far has kept to attempt to do so, it is very important that hospital open for over two years. Don't a watch/guard/picket call it what you will, is it close now. kept on the gate to warn the hospital of any SOME OF THE IMPORTANT THINGS TO arrivals that could threaten the work in, Also, REMEMBER AND TO DO WHEN ESTAB- if there is a picket (even one person) ambulance LISHING A WORK IN. The first thing is that drivers can be asked not to go across and are a hospital occupation simply means continuing likely not to do so, if the situation is explained The obvious duty union is to Executive Council no money, to work as normal-providing the same patient to them. A rota should be drawn up for this defend workers' jobs advance their no publicity, not even a typewriter. work in hospital have an obligation to carry on. The AHA is legally bound to provide all the service necessary to care for patients as long as care. Under law all the people who normally there are patients in the hospital. That means tree if the work in is threatened, to call support duty on the gates. from COHSE and the community of Longworth, It is also important to establish a telephone living standards. You would have expected, therefore, that the moment their members made a stand in fighting the cuts, the union would have welcomed COHSE for support sorry affair. If the occupation They should be doing all they had to rely solely on it would be a very can to paying staff, providing supplies, medical cover, A press offic elected to contact it with open arms. They should have encourage other health workers in the laundry -everything that is necessary. You will probably ask what is the difference. all the national newspapers. ess, radios, TV and health service and made sure that it heralded it as the way to defend the area to take strike action: promising full strike pay. eg. by then between an occupation and normal wasn't left isolated by giving staff the They should be organising a mass working. The difference is the hospital running Obviously wi e must work to get new patients finance, publicity, etc. national campaign making Longworth an will be directed by the work in committee, who into the hospita Ll. We will have to by-pass the The reality at Longworth was very hospital will be taken out of the control of the will take the place of the management. The AHA so that they cannot do what they like Consultant Dr. direct referrals. GPs are to be McCarthy. Local and Oxford approached to be asked for (Confederation of Health Service different: it took three weeks for COHSE defended. Instead, the Longworth example of how the heatlh service can be workers get the message that, far from with Longworth ie. close it. The important point is we must work Employees-the union organising the being welcomed, they are a bit of an Therefore it is important tonight to elect together, only a responsible, united, determined workers) to make it official. Although the embarassment. They are rocking the boat a hospital occupation committee: a group of group of staff can secure this hospital. Donw't occupation is nearly two months old at on the sea of inactivity that is COHSE's people who will ensure the normal running of allow yourself to get demoralised, worried at the time of going to there has not leadership's response to cuts. the the hospital and organise its defence. what people say. Remember the AHA want to been single visit the National As the AHA have to keep the hospital do all they can to discredit and isolate the staff supplied and running as normally as long as at Longworth who are fighting to save it. there are patients there, they will try and make Remember WE PUT PATIENTS FIRST THATS attempts to remove the patients. WHY WE'VE GOT TO OCCUPY!

CL Woman Worker published by the Workers Socialist League as part of the fight to mobilise women together with the work- *For strike action ana occupations to A raging debate has developed within the open a new Community h ospital in Witney, ing class in the international fight against defend the health, education and social Labour Party since the Tories took office. which has been mothballe d for two years capitalism. As Trotskyists we are fighting to services and threatened factories. On the one hand there are those who claim because she says the staffing will cost so much.

world party of socialist revolution-to lead reconstruct the Fourth International the the struggles of the working class. Our programmie, based on the Transition- services, and private companies threatening cover the real financial state of the social *For open-the-books committees to dis- afford high levels of public spending and we have to cut to get the country back on its feet. that there has to be realism-big business can't On the other hand there are those who say floor at Longworth is closed. Oxford's She is determined it will not She already has the closure of Cowley Road. major geriatric hospital open until the top under her women's struggles for democratic rights al Programme, is directed towards linking closure. management without compensation of firms *For nationalisation under workers" that the Labour Party should stick to truly socialist policies and refuse to attack the working class in anyway on behalf of profit and enemy to those fighting to defend belt. There is no doubt that she is a formidable the health need to overthrow capitalism. and against economic oppression, with the that declare themselves bankrupt. *Against all anti-abortion legislation-for capitalism's problems, Lady McCarthy, Chairperson of the Oxford- service in Oxfordshire. She is pul strings she can within the Labour Party, TUC ling all the free abortion and contraception on demand shire Area Health Authority is on the General and COHSE to make sure the Longworth and workers and consumers control of the Committee of Oxford City Labour Party. Her occupation is defeated. We must ensure we health service. *Solidarity with struggles of women rial relations peer who advisedon the TUC on disputes. They are powerful figures in the husband, Lord McCarthy is the labour indust- mount an equauy determined campaign within selves of those labour movement leaders who the Labour Party and trade unions to ride ournational imperialism or by the Stalinist internationally against oppression by inter- Labour Party, dedicated to solving not the problems of workers but of management and are dedicated to attacking our living standards our wages, social services, and Jobs on behalf of bureaucracies in the deformed workers big business. profit, the bankers and the bosses. states. Lady McCarthy proposes to close SiX hospitals in Oxfordshire. She has refused to

Scan page 4

woman worker Ripper'; fear lives on.

When Yorkshire police made the unprecedented move of disclosing that a man would be appearing in court on charges relating to the last "Ripper murder" , the press had a field day.

Immediately, full page coverage in all the tabloids relived all the gruesome murders while the 'establishment' press maintained the more dignified stance of discussing the legal niceties of whether it was correct to relate the man's name and other details prior to a court appearance.

Over several days reporters desperate to obtain details of the man's background and family wrote stories on the merest of facts and details and blew them up out of all proportion.

Absurd descriptions of the man's wife (...wearing hot-pants while painting their home ...) assumed headline news and implied that with a wife like that he needs to ravish and murder women.

At the same time, the underlying assumption of all the reports and speculation was that women in Yorkshire and the North of England were not free to walk streets at night and that for women news of the instant relief.

Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth; while the "Ripper murders" have been particularly gruesome, the media coverage has been of the most sensationalist kind and always to the exclusion of reporting the continual violence directed against women.

Even when the Ripper turned to respectable' women, the media still reported as though this was an isolated lunatic living out his psychopathic tendencies.

While a distinction can obviously be made between these murders and "normal" rapes and violence against women, the media never took up the question of violence against women in a broader context.

The fact that women all over Britain, and internationally, live under fear and threat of rape and violence was simply ignored. Although when women started to protest against "soft porn" commercial films which legitimate and institutionalise such violence, the media began to look at this, on the whole it was business as usual.

as Reports of "Ripper attacks" appeared in papers along side standard-usually sensationalised-rape cases with no link made between them.

Sensational reporting

which tears no of sen foonal reportin t which bears no relation to the reality violence against women, that whips up hysteria so effectively against the "Yorkshire Ripper" as one individual, and perpetuates the myth that women have only to fear lunatics rather than fathers, husbands, lovers and other "normal" strangers.

Violence against women is a complex question which is not simply answered by claiming it is perpetuated by lunatics alone.

The level of rape, for example, both inside and outside of marriage, is too great for this to be the case. Rather we have to look at the material conditions of family life and the conditioning of women and their subservient role under capitalism to begin to find an answer.

Joining in with the hysterical "Ripper" hatred mentality will do nothing to end violence agianst women.

On Saturday 24th January, the Labour Party is holding its special conference to decide how its leader is to be elected in future..

The conference happens to a background of speculation about the Labour Party breaking up and about a new "Centre Party" being established, with the Liberals and Roy Jenkins.

Already Shirley Williams, former Labour Education Minister has refused to stand for Labour while it has some semblance of socialist policies (eg. nuclear disarmament). Likewise David Owen, the former Foreign Secretary, noted for his stance on Zimbabwe, which was even more reactionary than the Tories-he

----- pull-quotes -----

The booklet is selling for 60p, The Campaign is eager