THE Junior Doctors Committee of the BMA is meeting this Saturday to respond to Tory Health minister, Hunt, who has been forced to agree to a five-day truce and for talks on the new contract.
The offer, first proposed by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and then accepted by the BMA leaders, involves the Tories suspending for five days their plans to impose the contract in return for the BMA suspending for the same period plans for further strike action.
Initially Hunt dismissed this out of hand, but on Thursday this intransigent position could not be maintained and was abruptly changed. It was announced in the House of Lords that the government were prepared to agree a five-day ‘truce’ and enter into negotiations as early as next Monday.
However, the Department of Health then issued a statement that Hunt will only enter talks if the BMA commit, in writing, that the only issues on the agenda to be discussed will be Saturday working for junior doctors and nothing else.
Hunt is attempting to lay a deadly trap for junior doctors with this pre-condition. He has gone from attempting to impose a contract to imposing what will and will not be discussed in talks. The sole reason why negotiations, carried out under the auspices of the arbitration service ACAS, broke down in February was precisely because junior doctors refused to have the contract imposed on them by Hunt.
Hunt refused over and over again to carry out any real negotiations with the junior doctors, insisting he was going to forcibly impose the contract on them. Far from being cowed, junior doctors have become more determined to fight the imposition of wage cuts and the complete flexibility of staffing – rightly seeing it as creating dangerous conditions for patients and part of the plan by the government to bring in the privatisation of the NHS.
Their resolute stand has won huge support amongst workers and the middle class with picket lines growing as the strikes developed. Teachers joined with junior doctors on the pickets and organised a huge demonstration last week with the junior doctors against the government’s plans.
The PCS and FBU trade unions have called on the TUC to organise a Day of Action in support of the junior doctors to defend the NHS and defeat this government and all its privatisation plans. Hunt has no intention of backing down from imposing his contract and the junior doctors must not be lured into thinking that the government has conceded and ‘changed its mind’.
The defiant and courageous action by the junior doctors so far has produced the crisis amongst the Tories – now is the time to press ahead with the struggle. The Junior Doctors Committee that meets today must tell the BMA to refuse to agree to sign Hunt’s pre-conditions. He cannot be allowed to impose what will be and what will not be discussed.
Instead, the Committee must decide its next round of strike actions and this time insist the BMA call on the TUC to answer the call by the PCS and FBU to organise a National Day of Action, including strikes and a national demonstration to support the struggle of the junior doctors and to drive Hunt and the Tories out of office.
With the Tories in the process of complete meltdown over the EU referendum and governing with a tiny majority of just twelve, this is a government that is weak. Hunt and Co. are now forced to rely on the overwhelming desire to end the doctors’ struggle displayed by the BMA leadership, by giving it the opportunity to sell the struggle out via talks in which Hunt has decided the agenda in advance.
The battle is on. The imposed talks agenda must be rejected and new strike actions called. The whole of the working class must come into the struggle, led by the junior doctors and the BMA, to defend the NHS and stop the Tories in their tracks.
Such action by the junior doctors, supported by the TUC trade unions, will smash the new contract, halt all privatisation of the NHS and lead the way to bringing down the Tories. This is the way forward to defend and secure the NHS!
