Junior doctors: No choice but to up the fight
Junior doctors in the BMA have announced five days of strike action in July.
The three days taken in June included protests as well as big picket lines. The plan then was to take strike action monthly.
The five days in July will be the longest strike in NHS history, from 7am 13 July to 7am 18 July.
A BMA survey shows that 82% of junior doctors surveyed report they have support from their patients.
As picket after picket has explained: this is a fight for the future of the NHS
Consultants vote to strike!
As we go to press, the BMA has announced that 86% of consultants have voted ‘yes’ in their strike ballot, with a 71% turnout. Strikes are planned for 20 and 21 July. “The profession is united” they say.
Nurses just miss Tory anti-strike turnout threshold
Also as we go to press, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has announced that the turnout in its strike reballot was 43% – just shy of the 50% required by draconian anti-trade union laws. 84% voted yes to strike action.
The fact that a reballot was necessary is itself one of the many obstacles placed by the Tories in the way of democratic strike action. A strike mandate has to be renewed every six months.
This was even the case when RCN members had just overwhelmingly voted to reject the latest paltry government pay offer, against the recommendation of their own leadership. Many must have wondered why they were being asked to ballot yet again – their intentions had already been made crystal clear!
This reballot was conducted on an aggregated basis. Previous RCN ballots were disaggregated, meaning that all trusts which got over threshold could strike, whatever the total national turnout. Had it been disaggregated again, there is every likelihood that the bold action nurses have taken so far around the country would be continuing.
But the fight to save the NHS is very far from over. The huge anger of nurses has not abated despite these obstacles placed in their path. Junior doctors are striking in their thousands. Consultants have voted to strike. Unite members still have a strike mandate.
And all workers in the NHS can back up the strike action, demonstrate, and campaign hard to win the pay rises and the funding the NHS needs and to end the privatisation that sucks it dry.
‘Pay us what we deserve’
Cleaners and caterers at South London and Maudsley NHS Trust strike for seven days
Berkay Kartav, London Socialist Party
Low-paid cleaners and caterers employed by outsourcing company ISS at South London and Maudsley NHS trust (SLaM), a trust that specialises in mental health services, started a seven-day strike on 24 June.
Members of the GMB union have already taken six days of strike action in a fight for a £14.34-an-hour wage and to be on NHS terms and conditions.
Workers are paid £11.05 an hour, which is 90p an hour less than the London Living Wage, despite the agreement between ISS and SLaM.
Socialist Party members were on picket lines to support the strikers. Adrian, the rep at Lambeth Hospital, said: “With inflation the highest in over 30 years, our wages mean nothing. ISS UK and Ireland made 8.2% growth in the first quarter of 2023. We are just asking for what we deserve to be paid for the care that we have for patients.”
Strikers are also demanding the Covid bonus they were never paid, and equal rights to paid sick leave with NHS staff.
Coordination with other health unions will be important to win an inflation-proof pay rise. The Socialist Party says bring all outsourced workers back in-house with decent pay, terms and conditions!
