BMA at Leytonstone station, London 12 January 2016, photo Pete Mason

BMA at Leytonstone station, London 12 January 2016, photo Pete Mason   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Solidarity with health workers

  • Junior doctors’ strike
  • Student nurses walk out
Dave Carr

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, in a last ditch attempt to avert a new junior doctors walkout, has told the BMA doctors’ union that the “door is open”. It might be open but given the track record of this government, it’s unlikely anyone’s indoors – and if they are they certainly won’t be listening.

This government is determined to ram through changes to junior doctors’ contracts leading them to work excessive hours and have their pay slashed. 97% of junior doctors voted for strike action – for the first time in over 40 years – showing the huge anger and resentment over these unfair and unsafe contracts.

Privatisation

However, the Tories aren’t listening, in the same way they didn’t listen to health workers and the public when they pushed through the Health and Social Care Act which opens the door to privatisation of the National Health Service (NHS) in England.

But if Hunt and the Tories won’t listen to what everyone is saying, then they have to be made to listen!

In solidarity with the junior doctors, student nurses will walk out and join the picket lines for one hour at 10am when doctors strike on 10 February.

Nurses are also fighting the Tory government over its plan to axe study grants for student nurses in 2017 and instead impose loans. The prospect of nurses graduating with a lifetime of debt will make recruitment to this vital job even harder – at a time when there is already a critical shortage of tens of thousands of NHS nurses.

But the burden of defending the NHS and defeating the government’s privatisation and austerity agenda can’t be left to one group of workers to fight alone. Workers in other trade unions should coordinate action in solidarity with the junior doctors. After all, it’s the same week that the Trade Union Council has called for a week of action against the new anti-trade union bill.

U-turn

This government with its pro-big business, anti-worker agenda is hugely unpopular – and it’s also weak. It has recently been forced into a major u-turn over undermining legal aid work.

Let’s unite to show Hunt and the rest of the Tories the door!