IN ITS WEDNESDAY EDITORIAL the Daily Telegraph sought to shed crocodile tears for the striking health workers who are continuing to battle against the Tory plan to pauperise them, before the ruling class proceeds to privatise the NHS, and put an end to the great gain that the working class made at the end of the Second World War, and which the UK ruling class has always hated.
The editorial states: ‘Only a few short months ago the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) was demanding an almost 20% rise in pay.
‘The RCN remains a hold-out against the current deal, but will need to reballot its members for any further strike action.’ It adds: ‘No one wants to see a hard working NHS staff impoverished. But pay rises must be sensible and sustainable.’
It attempts to gloat, stating: ‘That is a lesson that the BMA, which represents junior doctors, should take to heart as it holds out for a 35% pay rise. It now has a blue print to follow.’
The Telegraph hints that a Tory victory will see the NHS privatised, stating: ‘Of course if they settle, much remains to be done.’ It continues, calling the NHS a ‘failing system’.
The reality is that any defeat for the working class and the health unions over the NHS will see it privatised, and that is simply unthinkable for millions of workers and their families.
On May 2nd, the ‘invisible man’, TUC general secretary Paul Nowak actually materialised and told a rally of teachers opposite Downing Street that the Tories ‘instead of listening to the teachers and public sector unions, they are trying to make it more difficult for people to take strike action with their minimum services level bill that’s going through parliament right now, and let’s be clear what that legislation would mean.
‘It means that you all could vote in a lawful industrial action ballot, you could vote to strike. But the employer could ask you to go to work and if you didn’t go you could be sacked.’
He exclaimed: ‘Not on our watch, we will defend the right to strike. We will stand with any public sector worker who loses their job over that nasty, spiteful legislation. Not only will we defend the right to strike we will defend any worker who loses their job for exercising their basic fundamental right to take strike action.
‘You sent a very clear message to the government on Friday when your union stood alongside the National Association of Head Teachers, the NASUWT, that the teachers will not be divided.
‘Everyone in the TUC will stand behind you, let’s stand together and fight together.’
Some weeks ago the FBU trade union issued a call to the TUC to call a Special Conference to organise the battle to defend the right to strike, to smash the Tory attempt to defeat the trade unions and turn them into Labour Fronts that serve the interests of the bosses.
A general strike is needed to bring down the Tories and create the conditions for a Workers Government that will nationalise the banks and the major industries putting them under worker control and then workers management in a nationalised and planned socialist economy.
The trade unions are stronger than the government, but what they lack is a revolutionary leadership.
We call upon workers and youth to join and build the WRP and to build the Young Socialists into a mass revolutionary youth movement.
With France, Greece, Germany and Italy already being rocked by massive class struggles, and with the Palestinian people struggling against the brutal oppression of the Israeli regime, the time has come to replace bankrupt capitalism with the struggle for the Socialist United States of Europe.
This will change the world forever and create the conditions for the establishment of the World Socialist Republic to bring in world-wide socialism, consigning capitalism to the museums.
Only the WRP and the Young Socialists, as part of the the International Committee of the Fourth International, fight for this policy and programme.
Join the WRP and the YS today and fight to build sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International throughout Europe and the Americas.
This is the way forward, to the victory of the world-wide socialist revolution.
