THE nurses’ strike actions have revealed that they have the massive support of the vast majority of the working class in the UK, and that they now have the power to bring down the government, by calling for a TUC-led general strike
They already have the full support of trade union members, especially of the RMT, ASLEF, and the CWU.
Even a poll by People’s Polling, which is a member of the British Polling Council (BPC), for the right-wing outlet GB News, has found that overall, 44% of respondents say they support the strikes while 29% oppose them. Fourteen per cent say they neither support nor oppose.
When asked who they think is most to blame for the planned strikes, 37% say the government, 28% say the trade unions, and 10% say companies such as Royal Mail. Only 3% blame the workers who are striking.
When asked whether we should make it harder for workers to go on strike, 29% of voters agree with this, while 14% neither agree nor disagree and 44% disagree. The poll saw 53% of Conservative voters say we should make it harder for workers to go on strike.
In terms of how they’d vote in a General Election, Labour polled at 45%, the Conservatives at 24%, and Lib Dems and Reform were at 7%.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is to announce a fresh wave of strikes if Health Secretary Steven Barclay does not agree to reopen pay negotiations.
Speaking on the BBC’s Question Time on Thursday night, RCN leader Pat Cullen said if the government continued to refuse to ‘get in a room and talk’ then the dispute could escalate in the new year.
Nurses are already planning renewed action on Tuesday. This time it must be with the full and active support of the entire body of TUC unions. There must be a general strike!
The government claims the nurses’ demands for a 17 per cent pay rise are unaffordable. Are they supposed to starve on the job! In fact, they have the support of the working class, which faces the same attacks on its unions, its wages its working conditions and its jobs.
The Tory regime is now in the greatest crisis of its history, a crisis which is part of the world crisis of the capitalist system. The ruling classes are so desperate to halt the development of Russia and China that they have put all their eggs in the basket of supporting the Ukrainian right wing hoping that they can weaken Russia and even restore capitalism there.
The UK ruling class have the audacity to tell the UK workers that they should be content to go hungry and freeze in the winter cold, as this rampant inflation caused by their Ukrainian intervention makes life impossible for workers in the UK.
The working class has not agreed to any such ‘bargain’, and instead has embarked on a wave of strikes to drive wages up to at least keep pace with the galloping inflation that the US-UK entry into Ukraine has provoked.
Workers will insist, like the nurses, on wages that keep pace with the exploding cost of living while the trade unions will soon draw up a sliding scale of wages so that wages rise with the rate of inflation!
Workers will stipulate that they will not be the ones that are forced to pay for the capitalist crisis. It is the bosses and their bankrupt system that must go. In fact, the perfect situation for getting rid of the Tory bosses for all time is fast approaching.
Every worker supports the nurses, and agrees that wages have to at least keep pace with the galloping inflation rate. The bosses will never agree to this!
The trade union leaders have the power in the hands of their members, but refuse to use it by calling a general strike.
With the nurses planning new actions in the days ahead, the trade union leaders must be given a direct message by the masses that they will be removed and replaced by new leaders, if they do not call an immediate general strike in support of the nurses, to bring the Tory government down and replace it with a workers government.
This will nationalise the banks and the major industries without any compensation and put an end to the Tory plan to smash the NHS and privatise the entire economy for the benefit of the bankers and bosses.
The TUC must be told that it must stop the country in support of the NHS and postal and rail workers and bring down the Tory government.
There must be a workers government that will nationalise the banks and the major industries and bring in a planned socialist economy. This is the way forward.
