TU WORKOS. JOINE SHOD SLCWELUS committees, rank and file papers, actions against the cuts and private pracuice mn the hospitals - these are the most important tasks and anything else must fit into this framework.
It is very important to build up the trade union strength of health workers, and these tasks are central to doing this but on their own thev are not enough Even the immediate defence of the health service at this time requires more than the action of health workers alone - it requires the mobilisation of far wider sections of the working class.
The willingness and ability of health workers to sauggie will oc. and las been seen to be around the nurses and private practice disputes, a major factor in involving other sections of the class in action in defence of the health service. In itself, however, it is inadequate - and the hesitancy of health workers to go into struggle at present for fear of being isolated is testimony to that. It is only class wide action inat can bring about workers control of the nean service.
The NHS cannot be democratised witnout the working class belg i com trol. This cannot be done on the basis of workers participating in cutoacks and giving a veneer of democracy to the attacks of the ruling class. The labour movement has to control the NHS, which means that the state and the medical profession would have to put their plans to the workers movement before any decisions were taken.
The workers movement must have an automanc rignt or vero over all plans. It must have the right to take all decisions over finance, planning, re-organisation, and methods of running the NHS. Such rights will not be obtained either by the suggestions of the SMA for participation, or by restricting the struggle to trade union militancy as IS propose For such control to be effective, an end to all secret plans would be needed. Reject The more that these groups begin to reject the right of the state to decide how the NHS should be run, the more a real step forward will have been taken towards the working class taking on the job of actually managing the NHS. The fight to open the books - thus making all the plans and information avauladle to une working class - is a vital demand to start such a process. The call for a workers inquiry prepares the way to challenge the plans of capitalism and to build an alternative to unose plans This will not happen overnight, of course. It will not simply come about because the "correct' resolutions are passed at the Labour Party Conference and the Trades Union Congress. The whole of the workers movement has to be organised for such a struggle.
MPs and subordinating that struggle to parliamentary manoeuvres. Nor can it be won by militancy in the hospitals alone, because every fight against the closure of a particular hospital always raises the question of how do we keep It open.
pay interest rates to tne moncylenacis so that cash is available to pay wages to staff and buy new equipment. It means local authorities requisitioning private hospitals in the area and requisitioning building materials and scientific equipment from firms who are no longer making these available because they are not making enough money by procrucing or sclung tien into the open the stark question - who LETTERS It cannot be won by relying on left' It means local councils refusing to diture.
Any defence of the NHS brings out rules, who decides. The defence of the NHS is not possible without an unremitting fight against the interests of capitalism and a fight to remove the rotten leadership of the labour movement that collaborates in cuts and acts as an obstacle to any fight back.
At national as well as local level the issue of control dominates every con sideration. An alternative solution cannot be realistic unless it challenges the right of the ruling class to decide in whose interests the NHS shall be run.
This is why the IMG says:
• For a sliding scale of social expen• For the opening of the books.
• For the nationalisation under workers control or te arugs mausuy • For the abolition of all private practice inside and outside me nas • For a workers inquiry into the Barnsley delegate Phil Williams asked NUJ conference: 'Do we, and you, deserve support from the trade unionists we as journalists smear every day in our newspapers? Yet Journalists Charter has argued that press freedom has nothing to do with the STRUGGLE FOR HEALTI PAMPHLET No. 4 IMG PUBLICATIONS 15p New IMG pamphlet, price 15p plus 8p p&p from Red Books, 97 Caledonian Road, London N.1.
• For action committees to work for all forms of working class action such as pickets, demonstrations, strikes, ete. to defend and extend the NHS.
LETTERS