This is a proposal for the creation of a cross-union health worker
activist website and accompanying bulletin, as a necessary element in the
development of organisation and politicisation among health workers in Britain.
Its purpose would be to aid the development of a network of activists in the
health service which can begin to act to transform our unions, spur action
against privatisation and cuts, and lay the foundation for the unified national
resistance needed to stop the destruction of the NHS as part of the Tory
austerity project.
The level of organisation among health workers in Britain is
currently incredibly low. Despite huge attacks, resistance remains fragmented
and none of the health unions are putting forward a comprehensive plan of how
to reverse the privatisation, secure wage rises or stop the cuts. Health workers
are increasingly politicised due to the blatant wage gouging and corporate
thievery demonstrated by the government and private health systems taking over
NHS services, but there are few organisations for this politicisation to flow
into and serve as an outlet for action.
There is a necessity for a grassroots popular response from
health workers to transform this situation, but there is little in the way of
organisation to do this at present, except on a branch level, and this is
extremely uneven across the health service. The recent UNISON elections give a
glimpse of the apathy among health workers and branch officials. Turnout was
less than 5% of 437,000 members, and little more than 20% of health branches
returned nominations. These are grim figures given the scale of the attacks we
face.
The movement against NHS privatisation has largely been one
taking place outside the unions, and with NHS workers involved as a minority,
if they’ve been involved at all. Keep Our NHS Public is a prime example of this
where non-NHS workers probably out number NHS worker activists 10-to-1. We need to address this, figure out why this
is and change it. My experience from UNISON is the union has shied away from
actively politicising workers against privatisation, as well as treating KONP
like a proscribed organisation, withdrawing funding from the organisation and
bullying activists who support it.
In this environment a platform for health workers which
works to raise workers consciousness and provides an alternative perspective to
that put forward by the union leadership is necessary.
A voice for Health workers
My proposal is that health activists, both those in parties
and groups, and independents combine their efforts to create a news and
discussion website for grassroots activists in health. Most activists and
left-wing political parties produce a large amount of coverage of attacks on
the health service, and reports of the limited resistance happening at the
moment in isolated parts of the health service, but this is dispersed among a
plethora of different publications, campaign groups and individual blogs.
The website could function as a platform to organise this
material and centralise it in a place where it would be easily accessible to
all. A monthly email out out could go out to subscribers with the latest news
item and discussion pieces, and a selection of articles could be laid up in an
A4, 4 page bulletin and be sent to subscribers, to be shared electronically or
to be printed and distributed by activists themselves.
Much information is shared electronically, and most health workers
will use e-mail, but a publication which can be printed and distributed by hand
is a necessity, if only so activists can leave them around the workplace or
distribute them to workmates to read.
The site could also serve as a platform for discussions
about how we can resist, and different tactics for mobilising workers around
the myriad of issues we face. Resistance is going to become harder the longer
the recession lasts, the more fragmentation and privatisation of the NHS grows
and we lose what little protection we have for workers rights. We need a full
discussion of the tactics and strategies available to us, and we need health
workers on the frontline to be privy to that discussion and participate in it,
not just between the few health activists organised in whatever impromptu
forums and meetings we can muster.
Creating a single source of news for health workers, which
all activists could contribute too would combine and strengthen our efforts
which are currently dispersed and isolated. And it wouldn’t take much more
effort.
Most of us currently produce articles for our own political
organisations, trade union branch bulletins, news websites and personal blogs.
I am asking that as well as publishing in those forums, we create a single site
where these articles are published so that activists across the country can
access this information and analysis all in one place.
There already exist a number of websites for information and
news on the struggle around the NHs; Keep Our NHS Public, Our NHS, NHS Support Federation. These are all
good resources and contain useful information for activists.
What they don’t do is provide advice and information on what
health workers can do themselves in their workplaces, organising as workers to
use their powerful position in the workplace to resist cuts and privatisation
to the health service. The aim of this site would be to provide the news and
information for activists on the frontline of the service, carrying reports of
strikes and protests, guides on how to organise and campaign in the workplace,
coverage of the internal life of the unions, and host the debates we need to
have out to develop a strategy to bring together a politicised movement of
health workers in the NHS.
Timescale and what we
can achieve
By creating this site we can begin to draw together
activists into an organised network of contributors and distributers, which can
function to link different struggles and workplaces together, and form the
basis for more concrete organisation; the development of activist groups in
workplaces, and eventually meetings and conferences of health workers’ locally
and nationally dedicated to fighting austerity.
Is this a panacea to our present problems? No, but it is an
absolutely integral element to a whole host of grassroots organising measures
needed to turn around the situation in health. I understand the scepticism of
comrades who may see this as a flash in the pan, but I’m dedicated to getting
this going and keeping it going for at least a year. If the situation is no
different in a years’ time, then I’ll accept we may need to try something
different.
What we can’t do is just keep going on in the same way, with
activists functioning in a highly atomised manner in loose, informal networks,
separated by union membership, political affiliation or sectional interests of
their profession. We urgently need to organise a united, cross-union national
health workers movement dedicated to fighting to preserve and improve the NHS.
The NHS belongs to everyone. As health workers we have a
duty to fight for it, and to try to improve it. It is not just important for
us, but it is important for people around the world. Globally, health workers,
academics and health service users look to the NHS as an example of what could
be, what is possible when government policy provides healthcare based on need
and not ability to pay. We have to protect that. At the moment we are weak, but
through developing our organisation, we can raise people’s horizons so they can
see what is possible, if only we organise to make it so.
I’ve already created a website, uploaded content from a
previous Health worker bulletin, so some of the technical infrastructure is
already in place, Visit the site: www.healthworker.org.uk
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