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Privatising The NHS

NEW LABOUR'S latest scheme for health service privatisation - Foundation Hospitals - is being pushed ahead in spite of significant opposition from the parliamentary Labour Party's own ranks.

Alison Hill

These plans will allow hospitals who score well on the current performance tables to raise their own funding and sell their services on the open market. Already 32 NHS trusts from all over England have expressed an interest in the foundation idea.

UNISON has identified the scheme as backdoor privatisation and even the British Medical Association condemns the plans as leading to a two-tier health service.

Under the scheme hospitals can not only raise their own funds but keep any proceeds from the sale of hospital land or other assets. They can set their own clinical and financial priorities and are expected to set their own pay and conditions for staff.

It is easy to see how such hospitals could drain resources from other local hospitals and then opt-out of inconveniently expensive NHS targets. In the dash to build up operating surpluses quickly, there will be pressure to cut costs by, for example, discharging patients earlier, putting pressure on community services.

Foundation Hospitals will be able to sell off any service to private companies and there would be nothing in principle to stop private hospitals becoming Foundation Hospitals. And if it all goes wrong, like for the private rail companies, it will be public money bailing the hospitals out.

Legislation is likely to be put to parliament after Easter.

STOP PRESS

UNISON health conference has voted by 60:40 to put a plan to pilot the Agenda For Change pay restructuring scheme out to ballot.

Call Centre Workers Fight Job Cuts

BRITISH TELECOMM (BT) has been involved for over a year now in reducing the number of call centres in the UK. This has been managed through reskilling and relocating people.

Judy Griffiths, national assistant secretary (clerical) Communication Workers Union (CWU), personal capacity

Despite BT's commitment to no compulsory redundancies, it is quite clear that for many involved in the closure programme the offer of work in an alternative location is often not a real option, particularly for part-time and job-share people.

As if closing hundreds of centres and reducing to just 30 sites in the UK wasn't bad enough, the announcement that BT intend to open two call centres in India was a real blow to those employed by BT who desperately wish to remain in their current jobs.

Much of the work that BT wants to move to Bangalore is presently carried out by agency workers in the UK. These mainly young workers rely on these assignments for a regular wage, albeit lower pay, than they would earn if employed directly by BT.

Rock bottom pay of approximately £3,000 per year in India is obviously far too attractive to BT's bosses, whose only interest is to save on the wages bill and further enhance their hugely inflated salaries and bonuses.

The CWU has had enough and a political/industrial campaign is being launched, which will ultimately entail industrial action.

Many young workers are crying out for proper permanent jobs and it is a crime that BT can throw workers on the scrap heap because there is a lucrative labour market elsewhere.

While companies are run for profit, bosses will always look around the world for cheap labour to cut costs.

Public ownership of the telecommunications industry is ultimately the alternative to the madness of the market.

People before profit.

Mansfield CWU protest

Karen Kosianowska, Section Secretary of CWU Leicestershire Branch, spoke to the socialist on 20 March, outside Mansfield Automatic Telephone Exchange.

700 jobs are going nationally by April and 2,200 by April 2004, as new call centres open in Bangalore.

"Mansfield is ear-marked to close in April and the jobs will be transferred to Nottingham. BT say there will be no job losses but the 50 agency workers can't afford to go to Nottingham.

"Our argument is not with where the work is going [India] but that it should be staying in the UK. BT is paying a damn-sight less than what it's paying here.

"It's still women's work in India and now China is starting to give India competition for call centre work.

"This is new colonialism. Call centre workers there have to work in their night, learn English accents and are given English names."

Nursery Nurses On Strike

NURSERY NURSES were out on picket lines in front of schools all over Kirklees on 4 April. The pickets were reassured by the tremendous support they got from parents and passers by.

Jackie Grunsell

Petitions were being filled in left, right and centre and at the mass meeting later that day car horns tooted support to loud cheers.

One nursery nurse from Dryclough nursery said: "Most of the parents have supported this action. They know we're being expected to take on more and more responsibility for no more pay. No-one wants to be on strike but we see it as the only way".

Another commented: "All the teachers who work alongside us are supportive, three even came to our meeting. We're not asking for the same pay as teachers, just recognition for what we do. The government wants to put early years at the forefront of education - we're already doing that work but with no recognition. Do they want quality care or just any old care? If they want quality they have to provide resources and pay to match it. We're only asking for a fair deal."

Earlier that morning in a radio interview Councillor Smithson had been embarrassed to hear parents saying they thought nursery nurses deserved more.

Nursery Nurses will be lobbying the full council meeting - the last one before the elections. Politicians will be embarrassed into either conceding the claim or risk losing public support. Either way, momentum remains with UNISON.

Messages of support still urgently required. Fax no. 01484 450174.