THE situation could not be clearer. The whole of the trade union movement and the majority of non-trade unionists support the 24-hour strike actions called by the NHS Logistics workers to prevent the privatisation of their vital NHS service.
It is equally obvious that the Labour government will proceed with the privatisation of NHS Logistics on October 1st unless they are stopped by a massive movement of workers, taking mass strike action.
In fact, on the Logistics picket lines on Thursday night from 10pm there were already other sections of workers represented, including the firefighters and the civil servants, who have been badly hit by the Blair-Brown government on jobs, wages, conditions of service, pensions and privatisation.
The privatisation of the NHS and the privatisation of the public sector cannot be fought and won bit by bit, hospital by hospital or section by section. This is a recipe for defeat.
The full strength of the working class must be used to win the fight.
The organisation which the TUC and the non-TUC health organisations have formed, ‘NHS Together,’ which includes the BMA doctors and the RCN nurses, must adopt the policy of mobilising the masses to take action to defend the NHS, if it is to make any difference to the crisis situation.
At the moment it is doing nothing until November 1st, when it intends to lobby the House of Commons.
By that time NHS Logistics and probably much else will be privatised.
The trade union leadership is completely opposed to mobilising the masses of workers to defend the NHS.
They are turned towards the Labour Party, the Labour Party conference and the House of Commons to try to get the Labour government to ‘stop and think’ and to halt the privatisation programme.
That this is an absolutely futile exercise speaks for itself. Blair and Brown are privatisation zealots.
They dance to the tune of the World Bank and the CBI.
The issue is not to waste time trying to get them to stop and think, since their minds are made up – as the trade union leaders well know. The issue is the mobilisation of the trade unions and the NHS professional organisations to stop NHS privatisation in its tracks.
Unless the masses are mobilised for action, October 1st will see the privatisation of NHS Logistics, and the government will consider that the trade unions are real paper tigers that can be milked for their cash while their members are being sacked and privatised.
All active UNISON members should organise to stop their workplaces, both in and outside the NHS, on the next 24-hours NHS Logistics strike, next Tuesday the 26th September.
Trade union members must demand that ‘NHS Together’ calls a one-day strike of all NHS workers on September 26th to stop the NHS Logistics privatisation.
October 1st, when the not for profit company is due to be privatised, is a very important day.
‘NHS Together’, which has a number of TUC General Council members at its head, must demand that the TUC calls a one-day general strike on that day to demand that the privatisation is halted.
In fact, it will take a full general strike to halt the Blair-Brown privatisation programme.
Such strike action must have a leadership at its head that will bring down the Blair-Brown government and go forward to a workers government, that will stop the privatisation programme and carry out socialist policies.
This is the only way to defeat Blair-Brown extremism and their globalisation, mass cheap labour project.
Only the WRP and the News Line are fighting for these policies in the workers’ movement.
All those workers and youth who understand the seriousness of the struggles that are erupting today, and that they must be won if workers and youth are to have a future, must join the WRP without any delay.
