NURSES will ‘absolutely not’ pause a 48-hour strike in England on May 1st, said the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) yesterday – and it warned that the action could continue until Christmas!
RCN leader Pat Cullen told BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg the government needs to put more money on the table. However she had ‘no plans’ to co-ordinate strikes with those by junior doctors.
Conservative Party Chairman Greg Hands said the government’s pay offer was ‘fair and reasonable’.
Asked whether it was a final offer, he said the government needed to wait to see what other health service unions involved in the pay dispute decided in their own ballots.
Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting refused to give Labour’s support to the striking workers saying that he was ‘really worried’ about the strike action by nurses and he was not in support of it because of the risks to patients’ safety.
This is Labour’s line – at a time when the Tory government is making no secret of the fact that it sees the NHS as its mortal enemy and wants to remove it as soon as possible to replace it with a health insurance system, that will return workers to the conditions of the 1930s.
The May 1st strike will involve NHS nurses in emergency departments, intensive care, cancer and other wards. It was called after RCN members voted by 54% to 46% to reject the government’s insulting offer of a 5% rise in 2023/24 and a one-off payment of £1,655.
Cullen said that after the walkout from 20:00 BST on 30th April to 20:00 on 2nd May, the union would ‘move immediately to ballot our members’ on their next move. If that ballot is successful it will mean further strike action right up until Christmas,’ she added.
The reality is that several hundreds of thousands of workers and youth will be taking strike action on May 1st. Not just the nurses, but the working class as a whole is up in arms about Tory plans to smash the NHS, ban strikes and turn free traditional trade unionism into a criminal offence.
In fact, one of the biggest crimes that is currently taking place is the refusal of the TUC Congress to give its full support to the nurses. It is refusing to call and organise a general strike to defend the NHS and to smash all of the proposed anti-union laws.
The FBU did raise the issue of the TUC calling a Special Congress to organise action to smash the anti-union laws – the response of the TUC was zero. The TUC can run or hide but they will not be allowed to get away with their betrayal.
News Line salutes the struggle of the hospital workers and their actions in defence of the NHS, at a time when Tory-instigated inflation is slashing wages and smashing the standard of living of millions of workers and youth.
However, hundreds of thousands of workers will be taking action on May 1st. They will no doubt march on Downing Street and give the Tory PM their defiant message.
They should also visit the TUC leaders at the TUC headquarters and insist that the TUC convenes an emergency TUC Congress to call a general strike to bring down the Tories and go forward to a Workers Government and a socialist nationalised and planned economy.
In doing this, the British workers will not be on their own. In France, the workers are furious that their state pensions rights have been changed by President Macron and his bankers’ regime. It will not be long before the French workers call a general strike to bring down Macron and go forward to socialism.
Likewise, for Greece and Germany. In fact, there are mass movements emerging all over Europe to smash capitalism and go forward to socialism.
We urge UK workers on May 1st to insist with the TUC General Council that it calls a general strike to bring down the Tories and go forward to socialism.
The TUC have the power to do this. They, however, support the Labour Party line that the only possible system is capitalism.
Capitalism, however, has had its day and must be replaced by a socialist planned economy and production to satisfy peoples’ needs. Forward to the general strike and the British socialist revolution!