THE announcement that the ruling body of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) will meet on Friday to decide on balloting their members on strike action graphically demonstrates how the economic collapse of capitalism is forcing even the most dedicated health workers into battle, not just for their own survival but for the very existence of the NHS itself.
At the heart of the decision to place the question of national strike action before the RCN are the plans by the coalition government to raise pension contributions for NHS and all public sector workers by an average of 3.2%.
At the same time, workers are being required to work longer and receive less pension in return for this increase, which equates to nurses losing £516 a year or more.
A recent survey conducted by the RCN amongst 8,000 of its members painted a bleak picture of what this and all the other attacks on the NHS has meant for nurses.
According to RCN general secretary, Dr Peter Carter, only 32% of those surveyed expressed confidence in nursing giving them a long-term job future.
This is in stark contrast to 74% who said they were confident of having a career in nursing in a similar survey carried out two years ago.
As far as the increases in pension contributions are concerned, the survey revealed that 65% of nurses would be forced to leave the NHS pension scheme, a figure that would cause the entire scheme to collapse.
The relentless attack on pensions and the constant threat of privatisation and hospital closures have led a staggering 54% of nurses surveyed to admit that they are actively considering leaving the job.
It is against this backdrop that the leadership of the RCN will meet on Friday to decide on a ballot for national strike action for their 400,000 members, joining the two million workers in the public sector who are similarly being balloted for a co-ordinated national strike on November 30.
The RCN has never had a national strike in its 95-year history.
Last week the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), a union that can only be described as ‘moderate’ in the extreme and which also has a long history of never participating in industrial action, also announced that it was balloting its members for a national strike over pensions.
When the leadership of the RCN, which has traditionally avoided national strike action out of concern for patients, and those of a conservative association like the NAHT, are forced by the pressure from their members to call for national strike action, it clearly shows that the working class and whole sections of the middle class can simply no longer live under the attacks on pensions, wages and the entire welfare state.
What is equally clear is that one day strike actions, even of general strike proportions, are designed by the trade union leaders as a means of putting pressure on the Tory led coalition to change its policies, to somehow conjure up a plan B.
What these leaders absolutely refuse to acknowledge is that for capitalism there is no Plan B; the only way they can hope to stave off the collapse of the entire banking system is to make the working class and middle classes pay in terms of wages, pensions, jobs and through the destruction of the entire welfare state, including the NHS and education.
Time and again workers have shown that they are more than ready to fight the government, what they must demand is an all-out general strike to bring it down, this will open the way for a workers government that will proceed to socialism.
