TENS of thousands of junior doctors struck yesterday and made it very clear that they are not a protest movement, and that their first two-day strike action, to be repeated on Wednesday 6th April and Tuesday April 26th, is part of the struggle to defend workers rights, to stop attempts to impose contracts and to defeat the Tory drive to privatise the NHS, and return Britain to some new ‘Dark Ages’.
One doctor told News Line: ‘It’s a massive shame that they are imposing this contract. It shows total disregard for the health service, staff, patients and everyone in the country. They want to get away with forcing doctors to get the same amount of money for working seven days a week as working five. This will open up the doors to enforcing other members of staff to work similar dangerous shifts.
‘This is turning into a full-on assault on the NHS, not just the doctors. We don’t want to see the collapse of the NHS. Doctors must not back down. We need the support of allied staff from different unions.’
Another observed: ‘We believe in what we are fighting for. This is now our third strike, because the government are trying to impose a contract this year which will affect all the junior doctors who are the majority of the workforce of doctors in the NHS.
‘The contract to be imposed will not just affect our wellbeing and not be very fair for us but it will not be safe for our patients, so unfortunately this strike is necessary. Junior doctors aren’t traditionally militant people and I think this has all come as a bit of a shock, standing up for our rights, and joining the union the BMA. It has brought people together. We are realising that if the government won’t back down, then we can’t back down either, and things will escalate …’
The junior doctors are ready for serious action! The fact is that they are fighting on behalf of the entire working class and middle class to defend the NHS, which has saved millions of lives during its short history, and defend trade union rights.
In this, the junior doctors do have the support of the entire working class for their struggle since everybody knows that, without the NHS, life would be hell. What they do not have is the support of the careerist trade union leaders, the types who start off on the factory floor and end up in the House of Lords as a reward for keeping the working class quiet.
In fact, the Tories are relying on these union leaders to keep the working class in check while the Tories fight it out with the doctors. This is what the union leaders did in 1984-85 when they assisted Thatcher by allowing the miners to fight alone. They must not be allowed to betray the struggle of the junior doctors in the same way, particularly as the privatisation of the NHS will condemn millions of workers to early deaths.
To win this struggle, junior doctors and the BMA must move the whole trade union movement into action to bring the Tories down. The BMA and the Junior Doctors Committee must make a public call for the TUC to bring all of its member unions out for the next 48-hour strike on April 6th. They must march on the TUC to demand that it takes action!
Local Councils of Action must be formed by the BMA, junior doctors, union branches, youth and community groups to bring all unions out on April 6th for two days of strike action in support of the junior doctors.
This will lay the basis for forcing the TUC to call an indefinite general strike to support the junior doctors and save the NHS. What is behind the current Tory attacks is the fact that the capitalist system is going through its greatest-ever crisis. It can only be saved by sacrificing the living standards, the health care and the basic rights of the working class and the middle class in a return to 19th century conditions.
This is why at the centre of defending the NHS is the struggle to get rid of out-of-date capitalism with a socialist revolution. Only the WRP fights for this policy and perspective. Join us today!
