The annual conference of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) in Brighton this week is taking place at a time when the entire NHS is under attack from a Tory government determined to pauperise the NHS before proceeding to privatise it out of existence.
Over a decade of underfunding, accompanied by wage freezes and wage increases that have left nurses and doctors suffering dramatic cuts in their take-home pay, has been used by the Tories in a deliberate plan to declare the NHS to be ‘failing’ and ripe for the privateers and giant health insurance companies to step in and put an end to the great gain that the working class made at the end of the Second World War – a gain the UK ruling class has always hated.
The fight over pay has reached a turning point for nurses following the rejection by RCN members of the derisory 5% pay offer that the Tories are attempting to impose on them.
On the eve of conference, RCN general secretary Pat Cullen called for a double-digit pay rise after the vote to reject – a vote that defied the recommendation of the leadership of the RCN to accept – and called on the government to resume pay talks.
Tory Energy Secretary, Grant Shapps, contemptuously rejected this call saying it was ‘confusing’ that the RCN leaders should be carrying out the instructions of their members and beginning a new ballot for further strike action on May 23.
This isn’t what the Tories expect – they expect union leaders to defy the wishes of the membership and do what the Tories demand.
The Tories aren’t the only ones to demand that nurses surrender and accept poverty level wages.
Starmer’s Shadow Business Secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, announced Labour’s solidarity with the Tories against nurses when he agreed with Shapps that the RCN call to reopen pay negotiations ‘isn’t a realistic position’.
Nurses have made their decision, and that is to fight it out with the Tories, and the entire working class must fight with them.
Cullen, replying to Shapps and his ‘confusion’, admitted that she had misjudged the mood and determination of nurses saying: ‘I may personally have underestimated the members and their sheer determination.’
She added: ‘I think what I would be saying to the Prime Minister is “Don’t – don’t make that same mistake.” Nurses believe it’s their duty and responsibility because this government is not listening to them on how to bring the NHS back from the brink, and the message to the Prime Minister is that they are absolutely not going to blink first.’
Alongside nurses and junior doctors in balloting for strike action are NHS consultants.
The British Medical Association (BMA) started balloting 40,000 consultants on Sunday over demands for a 35% pay increase following the breakdown of talks with the government.
35% represents the cut in take-home pay by consultants since 2008-9, with Dr Vishal Sharma, chair of the consultants committee, saying: ‘Consultants are now effectively working four months of the year for free’.
What is clear, is that nurses and doctors are determined not to back down in fighting for wages and in defence of the NHS.
At the same time, the Tories will not blink as they are determined to make workers and sections of the middle class pay for the capitalist crisis that is plunging the UK into an inflationary spiral and recession.
Every worker in the country supports the nurses and doctors, and the call must go out from the RCN conference for this support to be acted on by the leaders of the trade unions and the TUC.
The working class is much more powerful than this Tory government or the treacherous right-wing Labour party leadership.
The time has come for the working class to demand the unions force an immediate recall of the TUC general council to organise this strength in an indefinite general strike to bring down the Tories, replacing them with a workers’ government – a workers’ government that will nationalise the banks and major industries and bring in a planned socialist economy that will guarantee a fully-funded NHS to meet the needs of all.
There is no other way forward.
