TODAY is the first of four days of strike action by junior doctors throughout the health service in England, in what is the biggest walkout by medics in the 75 years of the NHS.
In the strike ballot, conducted in February, 98% of eligible BMA members backed strike action on a massive turnout of 77% over the demand for a 35% pay increase to make up for the 26.2% cut in real-terms pay that junior doctors have suffered under Tory austerity wage freezes stretching back 14 years.
Yesterday, health officials described the strike action as the ‘most disruptive in NHS history’ with the junior doctors, the backbone of NHS hospitals, joined by GP trainees for the first time.
In the face of this huge anger and determination of BMA members to fight to restore their wages to the levels last seen in 2008, the Tories have been resolute in refusing any negotiations on their pay.
On Saturday, the deputy chair of the BMA junior doctors committee, Dr Mike Greenhaigh, told the BBC: ‘It’s hard to negotiate when only one side is doing it, and we’re not getting anything back from the government on that front.’
He added: ‘We’re happy to meet at any time, we would still meet over the bank holiday weekend before industrial action next week. And if he (Tory Health Secretary Stephen Barclay) was to bring a credible offer to us, it could still, even at this late stage, avert action.’
Averting action by making a credible offer is the last thing the Tories are prepared to do. They are prepared to fight it out with the BMA to enforce austerity in the name of saving British capitalism.
This was made clear by Barclay who wrote in the Telegraph on Sunday that the pay demands are ‘unrealistic’ at a time of ‘considerable economic pressure’ and that his priority is ‘protecting the government’s commitment to halve inflation.’
Barclay blamed the strike on ‘militant’ junior doctors, echoing the campaign of vilification waged by the right-wing press claiming that ‘far-left activist’ medics have ‘hijacked’ the union.
Far from being hijacked by anyone junior doctors, along with millions of workers and their trade unions, have had enough of being told by the Tories that their wages cause inflation and that they must sacrifice their pay and conditions to bring it down.
Workers’ wages are not responsible for the spiralling inflation that is driving the cost of living sky-high at a time when the Tories are driving wages down.
The immediate cause of inflation is the billions of worthless paper money printed by the central bank since 2008 to bail-out the banks from crashing into bankruptcy following the world crisis of 2008.
Junior doctors, along with the entire working class, have not just said ‘enough is enough’ but are rising up against a Tory government determined to inflict the economic crisis on their backs, and are eager to take on the Tories.
The decision by the BMA to call strike action has been enthusiastically greeted by doctors eager to fight for pay and in defence of the NHS, with the BMA reporting that 17,000 have joined the union since the start of the year to participate in the strike ballot – pushing membership to its highest ever level.
Dr Joanna Sutton-Klein, a member of the BMA Council, told the Guardian newspaper that she and her colleagues are ‘inspired by stories of big wins by other workers in unions …. The junior barristers who won 15% through indefinite industrial action and the 28% rise that Luton airport workers won this year.’
This strike is not just over the pay of junior doctors but over the defence of the very existence of the NHS which is threatened by the thousands of NHS workers forced to leave because of poverty level wages.
The entire trade union movement must now come out and match the determination of junior doctors to take on the Tories by demanding the TUC convenes a special Congress to immediately call an indefinite general strike to bring down the Tories and bring in a workers’ government and socialism.
