ON THE EVE of the unprecedented strike by nurses and ambulance workers, Tory prime minister Rishi Sunak said that he will not ‘back down’ against striking workers by re-opening pay talks with the unions.
Sunak told the Daily Mail newspaper: ‘I’m going to do what I think is right for the long-term interests of the country – combating inflation,’ and vowing that the Tories would hold out against ‘unreasonable’ pay demands for months if necessary.
This intransigent message was repeated by the health and secondary care minister Will Quince who called the nurses’ strike action ‘unjustifiable and unnecessary’.
Speaking on Sky News on the day that 10,000 ambulance workers came out on strike, Quince said that his and health secretary Steve Barclay’s doors ‘are open when it comes to discussing issues around patient safety and working conditions for staff’ but ‘what we are not willing to negotiate is reopening the pay for this year.’
The contempt for NHS workers was demonstrated yesterday when Quince’s offer that the door was open to discussion on public safety turned out to be a meeting with ambulance workers’ unions to discuss emergency procedures during today’s strike – which was scheduled for an insulting half hour duration.
His concern over public health amounted to nothing more than advising people not to get sick on strike days!
Yesterday, on the second day of strike action by up to 100,000 nurses, their union, the RCN, issued its own ultimatum to the Tory government.
In a statement, the RCN said: ‘If the UK government fails to respond within 48 hours of today’s strike ending, we’ll be forced to announce further strike dates for January 2023.’
The mood of striking nurses was summed up by Rosie Wood who, speaking from a picket line outside St Thomas’ Hospital in London, told Sky News: ‘Rishi Sunak is a multi-millionaire and his interest is making sure that multi-millionaires get to keep their money, not in making sure nurses get fair pay.’ She added: ‘But he’s playing hardball and I think we need to be prepared to play hardball too.’
This is the mood of workers that Sunak dismissed as just ‘foot soldiers’ in a class war; clearly implying that they are little more than unthinking sheep being led by their union leaders.
In fact, the opposite is true – the driving force of all these strikes has come from a rising tide of anger against the Tories and a capitalist system that is determined to make workers and their children starve and freeze in order to maintain the profits of a handful of bankers and bosses.
Sunak, the multi-millionaire ex-merchant banker, was installed by the world bankers after the disaster of the Truss government precisely to prepare for an all-out war on workers and their trade unions.
On Monday, the Tories published their ‘Framework for Resilience’ plan, a dense, lengthy document outlining all the strategies for dealing with civil emergencies. In a telling section the document states: ‘The UK government has shown we can introduce emergency specific primary legislation to tackle risks but we will consider the need for new non-legislative options to ensure we can act effectively in an emergency.’
In other words, by-passing the need for parliamentary approval and moving directly to a state of emergency to impose a dictatorship over the unions and outlawing all strikes.
This is the hardball that the Tories are planning, to back up their complete refusal to negotiate with the unions over pay.
The ruling class has started the class war and now the working class must play hardball and finish it by delivering its own ultimatum to the leaders of the trade unions to either call an immediate general strike to bring down the Tories and bring in a workers’ government – or be removed.
A workers’ government will nationalise the banks and major industries under the management of the working class, bringing in a planned socialist economy.
Only the WRP is fighting for this policy and perspective.
Join today to organise the British socialist revolution – this is the only way forward.