support the NHS workers out on strike today

Today see's many NHS workers including midwives and vital workers who keep us healthy everyday helping our sick and injured back to healthiness again. The old phrase if you pay peanuts you get monkeys could not be more relevant today. If you pay your staff very little does not expect them to feel valued and appreciated for their work they do. Many NHS workers work very long shifts and have to endure some very challenging working conditions. Take an ambulance driver and crew they do not know what they are turning up to when called out. They could make the difference between saving someone’s life or not. I was born in a NHS hospital and have been helped out allot when I’ve had trouble or been ill in the past. The level of support I received when I was losing my sight was very touching you got the feeling these people really do care about others and want to help others even if their pay is not great. In a fantastic article posted on LibCom about why NHS workers should strike this week puts it brilliantly "The privatisation of the NHS, dismantling of the welfare state, and attacks on terms and conditions mean that nurses are facing the biggest battle in their history. The time for negotiation has finished. So what are you going to do? I recall vividly a conversation with a colleague several years ago. The discussion was about job cuts, unsafe staffing levels, and pay. She said to me, “You are a nurse, you should never strike”. Industrial action of any description was not on the cards, it was just a general chat. That statement has stuck with me ever since, and with the upcoming public sector strikes, the issues of nurses and industrial action is now back on the agenda. I will be on strike on the 30th, but not as a nurse as. I left clinical practice to work in nurse education earlier this year. However, I will always be a nurse first and foremost. After recently speaking to friends and former colleagues, it is clear that the same old debates about striking and industrial action are being discussed. The RCN which represents the bulk of registered nurses in the UK (400,000) has stated that it will ballot for industrial action in January if the government does not back down on its pension reforms. The RCN has many qualities; it has other roles than just being a trade union, and does a very good job. However, as a trade union it is generally weak, and about as un-militant as you can get. To be fair though, it never claims to be anything else. It has enjoyed comfortable relationships with governments, and its membership is seen as less militant that the nurses who are with UNISON. This will be the first time in its history that they will have balloted for industrial action, and judging by debate within the media between the government and the RCN, there is definitely a souring of the relationship, which can only be a good thing. The government will not back down, so when the ballot goes ahead, I am absolutely positive that they will vote for strike action. The result may be closer than other unions, but I am confident it will be passed. What does this then mean for nurses, patients, and the government? The first issue takes me back to my colleagues comment about not striking. Why shouldn’t nurses strike? Well, “our first priority should be our patients”. I agree, however, what are nurses supposed to do when employers and governments do not provide adequate staffing or funding, or close services that are desperately needed, or make attempts to privatise the NHS? Negotiation can only go so far. To be completely passive is not in the interest of any patient who requires service that is closing. No one is suggesting that NHS be completely shut down. Nurses would provide a skeleton service during a strike. They would not leave people at risk of harm. I say this not just as a nurse, but as a human being. Clearly striking is not the only type of action available, and there other just as effective actions that could be taken. The NHS is a huge paper based bureaucracy, with paperwork for everything. It also relies on the constant goodwill of nurses, working through breaks, staying behind to support busy colleagues (unpaid). Nurses could withdraw their unpaid labour, and refused to complete anything but paperwork specifically relating to patient care, they could generally work to rule. I have never met a nurse’s who does not carry out work that is not within their job description. So striking is not the only option, but whatever action is taken, patients would not be left at risk. The moral argument of nurses not striking does not hold any water for me. In fact, I would argue that it is immoral not to take action, when an employer or government are implementing changes that will have a negative impact on patient care. The next argument that is thrown up is, “what about the public perception of nurses”. And what about, “upholding the reputation of the profession”? I would refer anyone using this argument to the last paragraph. It is not as if nurses go on strike in this country very often is it? There has to be a line that when it is crossed, nurses should say, ‘enough is enough’. I always remember many nurses saying, I wouldn’t strike for pay, but if they ever went after my pension I definitely would. Well guess what? With regards to the public perception of nurse’s striking, I would argue that the vast majority of the public would support them. I feel that the public are aware that nurses are not repeat strikers, and would possibly take the attitude that things must be bad if nurses strike. Furthermore, the public pressure that a government would face would increase if nurses’ took action, possibly shortening the duration of any dispute. What made me so angry was the NMC (Nursing and Midwifery Council) the governing professional body for nurses, making a statement last month, stating that “any nurse who went on strike would be in violation of the professional code of conduct” and would possibly struck of the register and lose their career. This was a disgraceful stance to take, no doubt pressured by the government to make those comments. They quickly changed that statement following uproar amongst nurses. They anticipated many people caving in due to the threat of a fitness to practice panel, but it had the opposite effect, nurses became angrier. For me, the old arguments of nurses and industrial action are just that, old. My patients are my first priority, and the action that is sometimes needed to effectively care and treat someone, stretches beyond providing nursing care. I cannot provide sufficient care if a I have fewer colleagues than needed, or if the service I work for closes, or if we cannot recruit nurses because no one wants to train anymore, or if the government refuse to fund certain treatments, or if the government sells of the NHS, or allows the market to break it up. If nurses genuinely want to make the patient their first priority they should bloody well stand up for what is right, and not swallow the nonsense that has kept nurses subservient for the past century. Everything I have said is not based on the fact that I am an anarcho-syndicalist or indeed political in any way. It is based on having a desire to provide the care and treatment that I believe should be provided. It is about time nurses fought back. They are far and away the biggest staff group within the NHS and healthcare, and their potential influence and impact cannot be underestimated. They are a sleeping giant that needs to wake, and quickly. If they do not, they will one day wake to find the NHS renamed ABC healthcare, and they will no longer be able to provide effective care, or make patients their first priority. Their first priority will then be £ sign! Another thing the nurse who I mentioned earlier said to me was, “what would Florence Nightingale say about it all”. Well, I never met her, as she was a bit before my time. However, with what I know about her I suspect she would have said something along the lines of, “If you want to make patients your first priority you cannot allow the government to sell off the NHS, and you cannot allow them to dismantle the public sector or welfare state. Negotiation has been tried and failed. It is time to get around your workplaces, and organise!!!!!” Posted By Working class s... Nov 23 2011 11:34 With thanks and link to original post at http://libcom.org/blog/why-nurses-should-take-industrial-action-23112011

Royal Fail, Royal Mail theft

Something many of us knew before hand anyway the but it is confirmed the Royal Mail was sold off on the cheap by the Tories. The privatisation of Royal Mail did not achieve the best value for taxpayers because of the government's "deep caution", the spending watchdog says. The National Audit Office said too much emphasis was put on completing the sale within this Parliament, at the expense of achieving better value for money. Royal Mail shares are now more than 70% higher than the original sale price of 330p in October 2013. The privatisation of Royal Mail took place amid huge public interest and the shares rose by 38% to 455p on their first day of trading, representing an increase in value of £750m for the new shareholders. The NAO report concluded that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills was too cautious when setting the sale price of 330p per share. "The department was very keen to achieve its objective of selling Royal Mail, and was successful in getting the company listed on the FTSE 100," said Amyas Morse, head of the NAO. L Achieving the highest price possible at any cost and whatever the risk was never the aim of the sale” End Quote Vince Cable Business Secretary "Its approach, however, was marked by deep caution, the price of which was borne by the taxpayer." A planned postal workers' strike, which was eventually cancelled after the privatisation, also affected the government's sale price. Demand for Royal Mail shares was 24 times the maximum number available to investors, the NAO said, but the banks overseeing the sale advised there was not sufficient demand to justify a significantly higher figure. George Godber, a fund manager at Milton Group, told Radio 4 that he was "astounded" by the low price. "I thought it was significantly underpriced. In stock market terms, this was the London 2012 Olympic ticket moment, lots of people applied but very few got to go to the opening ceremony." Managers from two of these advising banks - Goldman Sachs and UBS - said market uncertainty and the complexity of the deal led them to a conservative price when they were questioned by MPs in November last year. As we seen last week the Royal Mail is already cost cutting looking to slash its workforce by 1600 predictably the CWU union makes a lot of noise but will anything be done about this? I doubt it much like the proposed strike back over privatisation which was more hot air from the likes of Billy Hayes and Dave Ward who would rather wait for a labour government. Labour have predictably come out saying the tax payer has been sold a short one and that Royal Mail was under sold but this miss's the glaring point that it shouldn’t have been sold off in the first place. Instead of ranting about how cheaply it was sold off how about making the case for renationalization and returning the organisation to public hands and running it for people’s needs not a few peoples profits.

Cops off campus

Last week, London’s village-like Bloomsbury area became a battleground between students and police. In two days, 43 arrests were made, and several videos appearing to show police brutality are now circling the internet. It was the latest, most violent episode in a crackdown on student protest in the city which began in the summer. Amid the chaos of last week, the University of London – the capital's biggest, which includes Goldsmiths, SOAS and UCL – got itself a High Court injunction forbidding protest on its site until next June. Those who disobey it, the order warns, might find themselves in contempt of court. “The university started filming demonstrations from the balconies of Senate House, with few missing the irony that the building inspired the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four" It goes back to Wednesday evening when University of London security forcefully evicted 30 demonstrators staging an occupation of its premises at Senate House. Some 50 police were on hand, but only, the university said, “to prevent a breach of the peace”. However, footage appears to show them doing a lot more than that. One officer can be seen punching a man in the face. In another clip, two police slam a woman, screaming, to the pavement and then walk off. There were seven arrests that night but, the police were keen to point out, no formal complaints were made against them. Still, both people at the demonstration and those who had seen it reported online were furious, appalled by what they considered police violence and intimidation. That anger could be felt at a Cops Off Campus protest, promoted anonymously on Tumblr, which took place the next day. Some protesters brought homemade shields (not a bad idea, since the police definitely made use of their batons), while others let off red smoke bombs amid clashes between officers and students. This time, 36 people were arrested, including a man with a crutch. An eyewitness said he “was walking near the police when they pushed him, and as he fell backwards the police kicked away his crutch before jumping on him”. After officers moved away from where his arrest took place, a red blood stain could be seen on the pavement. Oscar Webb, the editor at the London Student newspaper, was one of those arrested. He was there covering the protest and can be seen in a video holding up his press card just before being handcuffed. He spent the night in isolation in a cell in south London, and although he wasn’t charged with any offence, he now has bail conditions that prohibit him from going in Senate House. If police were already clamping down on student protests, they now appear to be getting heavy-handed with those who report them too. As far as the students were concerned, these were two especially brutal days. But the crackdown goes back months, when in July a 24-year-old philosophy student was arrested for writing in chalk on a University of London foundation stone. It’s alleged she caused £600 of criminal damage, even though, as one person was quick to point out: “Chalk can be washed off. That’s the whole point of chalk.” Student occupiers barricade the doors in Senate House in an attempt to keep out police Oscar Webb The list of ten demands issued by the those who occupied Senate House gives a pretty good idea of why the students are feeling the need to do so much protesting. They want to see outsourced staff and lecturers, who they consider the backbone of universities, given fair working terms and pay. They don’t want their halls of residence run by private companies who will charge extortionate rents. And they’re fed up of having the police, who unsurprisingly they don’t trust, allowed onto their campuses. They’re also angry at the planned closure of ULU next year, which the university wants to take over. It’s a flawed body, but also considered an outlet for some of the grievances of London’s students. The National Union of Students, according to most of the activists, is useless. They see its leadership as careerists using their roles as a step on the way to a safe Labour seat, not an institution that can help them effect the change they want. On Friday, a day after the mass arrests, a second Cops Off Campus demonstration took place. Again, there were hundreds of students and police. But it mostly just consisted of running around in the streets, getting in the way of motorists, with a police helicopter hovering above. A small group of anarchists, waving red and black flags, climbed a fire escape and were keen to find a way into University of London’s campus, which had been sealed off. But the demonstrators decided to call it a day and hold a sort of debrief meeting in the students’ union. That wasn’t, I think, because their anger at the police had subsided. All around, you could hear protesters urging each other to “save it for next week” (this Wednesday, a national Cops Off Campus protest is planned). In other words, in Bloomsbury’s battle between students and police, things look likely to intensify further. With thanks to James Burley for the article above Follow James Burley on Twitter here @JWJBurley http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/18110/1/cops-off-campus-university-of-london-protest-ban

The sad demise of the Royal Mail

So next week those who have brought shares and you have to have brought 750 pounds worth of them at least ill float on the stock exchange. This sees the end of an era for publically owned mail services. No longer will the Royal Mail be publically owned but owned and accountable only to its shareholders. The Royal Mail has delivered post and parcels for a long time now and as with a lot of things people wont realize what they had until it is gone much like the NHS which is to be privatized soon too with devastating effects. This is a disgrace and should never have been allowed to happen but it has. The last labour government tried before with peter Mandelson facing opposition yet this time it seems like it’s gone though straight away with nothing but a peep out of the unions. As for the Trade Unions whatever happened to those ballots over privatization all gone a bit quiet hasn’t it? The CWU the communication workers union who is headed up by labour fanatic Billy Hayes have lead numerous sell outs over the years including the one most recently in 2009 where a defeat for the workers was sold as a victory shamefully despite workers being willing to take further action. The CWU has form when it comes to diffusing members’ anger and selling disputes short. As with all unions, there will inevitably come a point when what counts as a victory for the officials will clash with the interests of the workers, and as long as the bureaucrats maintain control of the dispute they will get their way. So how can we fight privatisation if the likes of the CWU are n not willing to fightback as I hope won’t be the case of course. "Privatisation should be fought as it is always pushed as a way to benefit shareholders and private profit over workers and service users. But, as civil servants and public sector workers will be all too aware right now, a boss is a boss is a boss. Our struggles may force nationalisation, and this may be a short or long term benefit depending on the terms, but we don’t need this as a demand for it to be the outcome. “Public” ownership is no automatic panacea and it is no substitute for genuine workers’ self-management. That being said, how do we fight against privatisation? Strikes and other industrial action by the workers affected are obviously one of the best forms of action, but this doesn’t mean that lacking a unionised workforce – or with a union unwilling to fight – then the sell off is inevitable. Likewise, alongside solidarity on the picket lines, the wider class can utilise direct action as part of the fight. There are a number of forms this could take. The "I won't pay" movement in Greece is one example that can be deployed when what’s at stake is a service where fees are being introduced, or significantly hiked, as a result of private sector involvement. This can also galvanise an awful lot of people given how extra costs can impact particularly on those already struggling to make their income meet their outgoings. Another potential form of direct action is the kind of pickets that the anti-workfare campaign has used to force providers out of the government’s work for benefits schemes. After all, a sell off requires a buyer, and if we can find out who is bidding for the contract then a hit on their profits and customers turning away can potentially persuade them to pull out of the deal. There are also occupations and economic blockades. As with the threat of a service being shut down altogether, users taking it over in opposition can be a powerful show of defiance and cause the kind of disruption that can make the whole process too much of a headache. Likewise, since the person doing the selling is the government, hitting the economy as a whole by blocking roads (or bridges) can have a similar disruptive impact. None of these actions are on their own going to stop privatisation. Nor are they all going to be equally useful in every circumstance. But they should be seen as a starting point that we can build on and utilise where possible. When privatisation is threatened, whether the detrimental effect is purely for the workers facing it or for broader sections of the working class, we should fight it. But all the petitions in the world won’t force the state and the bosses to change their mind. They can safely ignore us too if all we do is March from point A to point B and listen to speeches. Don’t petition – organise! " With quotes and extracts from http://libcom.org/blog/how-do-we-fight-privatisation-20092013

Can labour win in 2015?

It would appear they can but increasingly they look like snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Labours poll lead has plummeted since the start of the year and they are not helping themselves anymore. It seems incredible that the Tories could get back in but at this stage there is every chance all be it maybe with a Lib Dem hand me up. Ed Miliband is being targeted with questions and many are questioning if he is up to the job but they all miss the point. Labour is a party which is now wedded to capitalism and as such the austerity consensus which has seen them agree the need to keep all the Tory cuts if elected which is by no means certain anyway. With the Tories ramming through austerity, privatisation and a fall in living standards not seen in a generation opposing this doesn’t sound that hard but this also misses the point the thing is labour do not oppose the cuts or privatisation they started and laid the ground for much of what we see today. So how can they oppose things which they themselves would be doing anyway? We have a sense of what labour would be like in government if they are elected with their record in government accepting and passing on the Tory cuts passed on to them all be it with crocodile tears which is no consolation to those on the sharp end of cuts to their jobs and services. Clearly Labour is no longer a worker’s party in any sense those like Owen Jones who like to cling onto the desperate hope of a reclaimed labour headed by himself no doubt must be wondering where they go next now. Yes labour has a trade union link but shouting this as a reason to remain backing it is frankly laughable. With the timid response quite frankly by the unions labour and the union leaders will be selling you austerity in 2015 at the next election. You vote Tory you get cuts, you vote lib dems you get cuts and now with labour you get cuts too. How the trade unions continue to fund this sham of a party I’ll never know. Actually I do its easier for them to bemoan the cuts and how awful they are but actually standing up and opposing them is a lot more effort and all seems like hard work. Ed Miliband and his labour party are often referred to as on the left I’m not so sure. We do have to separate out the labour party and the left they are two very different groups and neither share each other’s values any longer. Labour claims to be a centre left party whilst upholding anti immigrant, pro war anti worker and pro privatisation ideas this in my book is not on the left at all and the unions and their members need to kick them into the long grass. Let’s let the party die and hopefully then workers will see that we need a new way of doing things with people putting themselves forwards as candidates much like with TUSC simply opposing all cuts as a starting point. A line in the sand is needed no more funds to labour from the unions, no more cuts to be accepted by the unions. Unions should be run and controlled democratically by their members if not those leaders need to go. Labour can win in 2015 but it will be despite itself not because of what it is. I still think the most likely outcome will be another hung parliament with the lib dems again joining the bigger party to form a coalition of cuts again will it be labour ? Possibly. What is clear though is whoever gets in in 2015 will carry on with the same policies and same pro capitalist ideas. We need a new party to represent the voiceless. The further alienation of people from the political plain can lead to all different reactions some more ugly than others. A political voice is key for those who wish to oppose austerity and change society for the better. That for me would be a new mass workers party with its aim socialism and no concessions to capitalism.

Let’s strike together

There are a growing number of reasons for workers to take strike action in the UK. Be it in the Royal Mail with the serious threat of privatisation or teachers facing performance related pay or even council staff facing cuts to jobs and pay and let’s not forget the 1% public sector pay freeze too. There are many reasons why a 24 hour general strike could be right for many. It is time to start to rebuild the coalition of the willing much like in November of 2011 where we had nearly 3 millin workers taking strike action we need to co ordinate ballots again and build for a national day of action in the autumn I feel. 'Cut, cut, cut' go the Con-Dems as they attack pay, welfare, jobs, services and pensions. No wonder the mood for action against the government's austerity agenda is growing. Teachers in the NUT and NASUWT unions have called a rolling programme of strikes, culminating in a national strike in the autumn. Lecturers in the UCU are consulting about strike action over pay. CWU members are preparing to fight the privatisation of Royal Mail. PCS civil service union members are discussing further action to defend pay, jobs and working conditions. FBU members are balloting over pensions. Unison members in Scottish local authorities are balloting on pay. All workers have a reason to strike - let's do it together. Come to the lobby of the TUC to demand a 24-hour general strike. The Con-Dem government has announced a stock market floatation of the majority of Royal Mail within nine months, with the rest to follow at a later date. This is the biggest potential privatisation since the dark days of Thatcher. It threatens a national service which has been in public ownership for 479 years. It puts the universal service under threat, almost certainly means higher postage rates, and is a major threat to postal workers' jobs and working conditions. In its recent consultative ballot CWU members voted by 96% in opposition to privatisation on a 74% turnout. The union must now capture this mood. The CWU has announced that it will have no choice but to proceed with an industrial action ballot if it can't get a watertight agreement on protection of its existing national agreements. This is a fight which will decide what type of postal service we will have. One to serve the needs of the people or one to serve the needs of greedy investors only looking for a profit. Time for united action now! The CWU should call for all the unions under attack to build united action. There is no time to waste. A 24-hour general strike would be a serious blow to all the government's cuts and privatisation plans. Gary Clark, assistant branch secretary, Scotland No.2 branch CWU Teachers will build on the success of recent strike action in the North West, with 90% of schools closed or partly closed. Further action has been called by the NUT and NASUWT. In the week commencing 30 September there will be strikes in the Eastern, East Midlands, West Midlands, Yorkshire and Humberside regions and in some of Wales. In the week commencing 14 October there will be strikes in the North East, London, South East, South West regions and in the rest of Wales. And there will be a one-day national strike before the end of the autumn term. "NUT and NASUWT members have every reason to build the strongest possible action to defend our pay, conditions and education. However, we are not the only unions looking to oppose attacks on our livelihoods and our services. Instead of striking separately, wouldn't it be better for unions to strike together and have the biggest possible impact?" Martin Powell-Davies, member of the NUT executive Lobby the TUC conference - For a 24-hour general strike! Bournemouth, 8 September 2013 12.30-3pm, Hardy Suite, Hermitage Hotel, Exeter Road (opposite Bournemouth International Centre) National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) rally followed by a lobby of Congress. Speakers include: RMT general secretary Bob Crow, PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka and POA general secretary Steve Gillan. Transport details email info@shopstewards.net For more information and a model resolution on the lobby see: www.shopstewards.net

In defence of the NHS

Did too many nurses treat too many people and caused the financial crisis? Quite clearly not yet the NHS is under major attack from all angles and who is going to save it is the question. I certainly wouldn’t trust labour to given their record in government the last time introducing foundation hospitals and PFI’s galore. The Keo report is out today and reveals some interesting findings. This below was in the Guardian today. “The NHS medical director Prof Sir Bruce Keogh, whose investigation into 14 hospital trusts follows reports of unusually high death rates. Photograph: Fiona Hanson/PA The report into unusually high death rates at 14 hospitals is to reject claims that the hospitals investigated have between them killed thousands of patients through poor care. The review by the NHS medical director, Prof Sir Bruce Keogh, will dismiss the two mortality indicators that were used to justify the probe into the 14, which was launched on the day Robert Francis QC published his damning report into the Mid-Staffordshire care scandal. Keogh's report will say: "However tempting it may be, it is clinically meaningless and academically reckless to use such statistical measures to quantify actual numbers of avoidable deaths." That is a reference to the two indicators – known as hospital standardised mortality ratios (HMSR) and summary hospital-level mortality indicator (SHMI) – which are used to flag up hospitals where apparently unusually high numbers of patients are dying. Both indicators were used by the Department of Health in February to justify the choice of those 14 hospitals for investigation. The 14 had had unusually high death rates in both 2010-11 and 2011-12, as judged by one or both indicators, it said. Keogh's dismissal in such strong terms of the measures comes after media reports that there were anything up to 13,000 excess or avoidable deaths at the 14 trusts that Keogh and his team of expert inspectors have been looking into. Members of the inquiry team have voiced concerns about the choice of the 14 on the basis of HMSR and SHMI data. One said they were "a very blunt instrument" for examining something as complex as "excess" mortality – that is, deaths that, according to a complicated range of factors, could potentially have been avoided if the quality of healthcare had been better. Inquiry team members – who include senior doctors, NHS leaders, patient safety experts and patient representatives – privately fear that the statement by the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, to the Commons about the report, expected on Tuesday afternoon, will give an overly negative picture of the team's findings. The report will also contrast with much of the pre-publication coverage by stressing that mortality rates in all NHS hospitals have been falling for the past 10 years, with overall mortality down by an estimated 30%. Keogh's report will also note that that improvement is even more impressive when the increasingly complex caseload faced by hospitals – driven by rising numbers of older patients and those with long-term conditions such as dementia, heart disease and breathing problems – are taken into account. The report, which Keogh will discuss with the media for the first time on Tuesday afternoon, will emphasise that staffing problems were found at all 14 trusts, and stress that the geographical isolation of many of the hospitals was a factor in that. His findings may also reopen the debate about whether the NHS should have legally backed minimum staffing levels – which supporters such as the Royal College of Nursing call "safe staffing" – in order to guarantee that set numbers of nurses are always on duty, and whether the NHS in England's need to make £20bn of efficiency savings by 2015 is forcing hospitals to cut corners and potentially endanger patients. Many of the review teams which conducted in-depth inquiries into each of the hospitals found what they regarded as too few staff. Each of the 14 trusts' individual action plans will include advice on workforce issues, especially ensuring they have enough staff that has the right qualifications. Many rely on agency staff, especially overnight and at weekends, though the inability to fill rotas can see nurses moved from where they usually work to a ward or department where there are too few available. All the 14 trusts are understood to now be looking urgently at providing safe staffing levels across their hospitals at all times, following the Keogh team's visits. The Francis report came close to suggesting minimum staffing levels and showed how inadequate staffing levels at Stafford hospital were a key factor in what the then NHS watchdog the Healthcare Commission estimated to be between 400 and 1,200 extra deaths between 2005 and 2009. Sir Richard Thompson, president of the Royal College of Physicians, which represents hospital doctors, said: "It is clear that parts of the system must change to better meet patients' needs. The NHS is struggling to cope with increasing pressures on acute services, patients with increasingly complex needs, and a breakdown of out-of-hours care. Patients' demands have changed and so our hospital services must change." Thompson said the NHS's move to offering key services seven days a week rather than five, strong clinical leadership by doctors, greater use of audit data about outcomes in key treatment areas and better collaboration between NHS staff would all help. The 14 trusts under review Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS foundation trust Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS foundation trust Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS trust Burton Hospitals NHS foundation trust Colchester Hospital University NHS foundation trust The Dudley Group NHS foundation trust East Lancashire Hospitals NHS trust George Eliot Hospital NHS trust Medway NHS foundation trust North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS trust Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals NHS foundation trust Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS foundation trust Tameside Hospital NHS foundation trust United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS trust

Last call out for the NSSN conference this sat in London; join the fightback against the cuts !

This Saturday following hot on the heels of the so called people’s assembly last Saturday militant anti cuts and trade unionists converge on London again to call for an end of talking and a demand for a start of action. Whilst we heard big speech after big speech on Saturday at the people’s assembly workers will be wondering waht happens next. The National Shops Stewards Network conference the 7th annual event to be held since its formation meets at a crucial time for workers facing attack after attack on their pay and conditions. It can be an excellent chance to hear from rank-and-file workers and anti cuts candidates fighting back in their workplaces and their communities too. Sharing stories and tactics of how we can fight back can boost other workers confidence to know that we are not just fighting alone and we can win. Why we're going to the NSSN conference: Coventry communications workers With thanks to Lenny Shail Seven delegates will be heading down to the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) conference from the two CWU branches in Coventry. Workers in Royal Mail, the post office, BT and other companies in the communications industry are facing unprecedented battles: against privatisation, bullying, sell-offs, sackings, union busting and performance management. At a Coventry CWU branch meeting of around 50 members there was unanimous anger at the union's telecommunications executive's recommendation of accepting BT's below-inflation pay offer and refusal to immediately take action against performance management. At car park meetings at the local postal depots, postal workers are demanding industrial action now to defeat privatisation of Royal Mail. Local NSSN supporters in these workplaces and branches have been key to organising such meetings, putting forward a correct programme and strategy and linking the need for action with the need for a 24-hour general strike against austerity. The continuing strikes in the Crown post offices has shown that action can force the employer to back down and that the public supports them. Workers in O2 were balloted for strike action to stop outsourcing to Capita, while workers in Virgin Media, Sky, Vodaphone and others continue to defy the union-busting tactics of management. The NSSN, particularly its conference on the 29 June, is key to building support for these day-to-day battles. ________________________________________ The 7th annual conference of the NSSN will take place on 29 June, 11am - 5pm in the Camden Centre, Judd Street, London WC1H 9JE The NSSN was initiated by the RMT transport union in 2006. Seven national unions - RMT, PCS, CWU, NUM, POA, NUJ, and BFAWU - are either affiliated to the NSSN or officially support it as well as many union branches, shop stewards' committees and trades councils. The conference will include main sessions on resisting the cuts and fighting the bedroom tax but also workshops on defending the NHS, organising in the workplace, housing, organising the unorganised, fighting blacklisting, Turkey, etc. It's open to everyone in the trade unions and community campaigners. Speakers include union general secretaries: Mark Serwotka, PCS, Billy Hayes, CWU and Steve Gillan, POA and Tommy Sheridan, Scottish Anti-Bedroom Tax Federation chair For more information contact: info@shopstewards.net www.shopstewards.net

Brazil social struggle reerupts in a mass form

This is not a copy of Paul Mason’s excellent book but it is seemingly kicking off in a lot of places right now. Just overnight I was reading reports from Brazil where huge protests were taking place including an invasion of the parliament. Seemingly coming out of nowhere we know as Marxists this is not true many social explosions are often waiting to burst out under the surface but need that spark often called the straw that broke the camels back in popular society yet this is a dialectical term is where quantity turns in to quality and vice versa it’s the breaking of the log jam and huge movements can break out. We saw it in London and the UK two years ago with the riots huge anger had been built up over a long while and found its expression in riots in the end. Not something we as socialists could condone but we could at the same time fully understand the anger of the young people out on the streets. Now it would seem following hot on the heels of the protests and mass movements in Turkey I’ve covered a little on my blog Brazil seems to be feeling an upsurge in struggle and this comes as no surprise. A country facing huge gulfs in wealth between the rich and the poor many are feeling alienated from the country’s levels of growth of late with Brazil’s economy receiving a boost from exports to China and feeling the effects of a growing Chinese economy. Well they have been up till now. The global economic crisis is not hiding away from China and now its export lead sub economies like Brazil now is feeling the wind. Mass demonstrations against the increase of bus fares in all major cities has sparked a wider outpouring of anger this was at we’d say the straw that broke the camel’s back here. Was that trigger that has set off much bigger protests and movements finding all sorts of expressions? André Ferrari LSR (CWI in Brazil) In São Paulo, on the night of 13 June, the military police cowardly attacked a peaceful demonstration of about 15 thousand people in the city centre. Police arrested in a totally arbitrary way 235 people, many just for being near the site of the demonstration. Some were arrested just for appearing to be a student or for carrying vinegar in their backpacks to mitigate the effects of tear gas. Riot police fired rubber bullets and bombs indiscriminately. In addition to protesters, many journalists, photographers and cameramen were injured. Even those who tried to medically assist the injured were arrested and their first aid kits were confiscated. The police crackdown comes amid a spate of attacks on social movements and the poor in general. Brazil is experiencing a new era marked by the more evident signs of crisis and the resurgence of struggles by workers and youth. The year 2012 had the highest number of strikes for the previous 16 years. Public sector workers are resisting cuts and withdrawal of rights. Also private sector workers are demanding their share in the vaunted economic growth. The political effects of these struggles were limited by the fragmentation of the movement, the character of the ruling bureaucratic union leaders as well as the weaknesses of the left opposition to the government of Dilma Rousseff of the Workers Party (PT). However, 2013, has shown ongoing erosion of the political support for the government and the emergence of a new consciousness among broad sectors of youth and workers. The image of Brazil as a country moving towards the “1st world” is heavily eroded by a situation of very low growth (less than 1% in 2012) along with high inflation, which mainly affects the poor. At the same moment that the federal government has taken a shift to the right in economic policy (increase in interest rates, privatization of ports, airports, oil fields, etc.) its support in the polls dropped 8% since March (65% to 57%). Transport fare increase triggers struggles in big cities In recent weeks, we have been seeing an explosion of popular struggles, led by the youth ignited by increases in public transport fares. In many state capitals and major cities, the demonstrations have assumed a qualitatively and quantitatively higher dimension than in previous movements. In many of them, such as Porto Alegre, Goiânia, Teresina and Natal, the increase in fares was reversed following protests. At this time, the main stage of the struggle is the city of São Paulo. With four different demonstrations since June 6, the movement is growing every day. The immediate demand is to reduce the bus and subway fares from 3.20 to 3,00 reals, but the movement also questions the logic of the transport system in the city, dedicated exclusively to the profits of a handful of employers. Expensive fares, overcrowding and poor conditions represent a daily nightmare for workers and students who have to travel every day in a giant metropolis. In Brazil, it is estimated that 37 million people are excluded from public transport because of high prices. Tens of millions more spend much of their income to travel to work and study amid a chaotic transport of poor quality. One of the demands raised by the movement is a zero-tariff for transport in São Paulo. The idea is that companies and the richer layers of the population should pay the biggest share the costs of transport and not the workers and students. The PT defended the zero-rate project in the 1980s, when the party was still on the left and was based on social movements. The current PT government in the city, headed by mayor, Fernando Haddad, rejects this project today, refuses to reverse the privatizations in the transport system and operates with a canine fidelity towards transport businessmen. The state government of São Paulo, headed by Geraldo Alckmin of the PSDB, the main right wing opposition party to the federal government of the PT, and responsible for the São Paulo subway, also refuses to discuss these demands. Alckmin promotes a process of privatization of new subway lines and is responsible for the brutal repressive response by the Military Police of São Paulo during the demonstrations. Many young workers who voted for Haddad and the PT in municipal elections in October last year to avoid a new victory of the traditional right, at that time headed by PSDB candidate José Serra, today are deeply disappointed with the PT. The unity of PT with the PSDB against the demands of the movement and the policy of repression of demonstrations is alienating large sectors of their social and electoral base. World Cup Crimes The big events to be held in the country in the coming years (World Cup in 2014 and Olympics in Rio 2016) are serving as a pretext for a real urban counter-reform in the big cities. The construction projects related to the World Cup are causing the removal of thousands of families from their homes to make way for real estate speculation. Instead of serving the people, cities are increasingly shaped to serve capital. The space of the city is for sale and any obstacle in the way of profit must be eliminated. All this is under a façade of modernization and social peace. Stadiums are privatized, corruption runs rampant in the construction projects of the Cup, overexploitation of construction workers have caused accidents and deaths, contractors in collusion with governments are profiting exorbitantly while the rights of residents of big cities are trampled on. Today, June 14, begins a campaign of national struggles of popular movements for housing, the Urban Resistance Front, along with the World Cup Popular Committees, to denounce the World Cup crimes. Repression and criminalization of social movements Faced with the rise of struggles and the need to block the demonstrations on the eve of the Confederations Cup (which starts on June 15), the police crackdown on the protests has intensified dramatically. Occupying the streets, a basic democratic right, is prohibited. In many cities, the police crackdown on demonstrations reminds us of the military dictatorship. Judicial decisions prohibiting demonstrations, along with police bullets and bombs against demonstrators, shows that we live in a moment of serious attacks on the basic democratic rights of the people. After a strong media campaign saying that the protesters against the increase in transport fares were vandals and hooligans and thus justifying and supporting police repression, the intense repression of the demonstration on June 13 caused a great commotion and even media itself had to change its tone. In São Paulo, on the night of June 13, the military police cowardly attacked a peaceful and organized demonstration of about 15 thousand people in the city centre. Police arrested in a totally arbitrary way 235 people. Riot police fired rubber bullets and bombs indiscriminately. In addition to protesters, many journalists, photographers and cameramen were injured. The police crackdown comes amid a spate of attacks on social movements and the poor in general. In big cities like Sao Paulo and Rio, black youth in the suburbs live a real situation of slaughter. Rapesin Rio de Janeiro has greatly increased in the last period. The racist police violence, impunity of action by death squads, violence against women, the criminalization of poverty and repression on the right of popular organizations, are a reality in the suburbs. Landless rural leaders have been murdered in a systematic way and recently two indigenous leaders (the ethnic Terena and Guarani-Kaiwoas) fighting against agro-business and the government for the demarcation of their land were also killed. The struggle in defence of democratic rights acquires a central importance in the context of the World Cup, with the attempt to create a real state of emergency in the country, banning demonstrations and free expression. The city for the workers, the youth and people! These struggles for public transport, housing and the democratic right to occupy the streets should be unified into a great national movement for the right of the workers, youth and people to own and control their own cities. As a result of this fight it would be possible to reconstruct the basis for unification and reorganization of fighting workers’, popular and student movements, independent of governments and employers. A national meeting of workers and youth to carry out a plan of struggle could be built and advanced in the direction of building new united tool of struggle. That’s what LSR (CWI in Brazil) advocates in the social movements we take part in and inside PSOL (Party of Socialism and Freedom). We stand for : • Immediate reduction of transport fares! Fight for zero tariffs – make the employers pay for public transport! Nationalization of public transport under democratic workers’ and users’ control! Non-payment of the debt to the bankers and speculators and massive investment in public transport! • End the removals of residents! No to sexual exploitation! Fight against rape and violence against women! • Ensure the rights of construction workers on World Cup projects! No to privatization of Maracanã and corruption in the building sites of the World Cup! Demarcation of indigenous lands! No to emergency laws imposed by FIFA - the right to organization, expression and manifestation! • No to the repression of demonstrations of youth and workers! No to criminalization and increased use of the judicial system against social struggle. Immediate freedom for all political prisoners in the fight against rising public transport fares and other movements. No to the slaughter of black youth in the suburbs! • For a national day of united struggle around the demands for public transport, affordable housing, against the crimes of the World Cup and in defence of the right to protest and against the criminalization and repression of the social movements. • For a national meeting of workers and youth to build a plan of action and a united nation forum of struggles.

Is society moving to the right?

This is a dangerous trap to fall into I’ve noticed. Given the recent anti immigrant rhetoric coming from all of the 3 major political parties and also the rise of UKIP in the polls and especially the last county council elections some on the left have drawn the conclusion society is moving sharply to the right. I don’t think this is the case and is a mistake to think so and follow the right ward shift of the mainstream political parties. The Tories, Labour and the lib dems think that to take on UKIP they must come out with even more policies that shift them to the right. Even New labour have come out in the last few weeks in support of a benefit cap and announcing further cuts they would make. Of course it is far easier ground for the labour party of today to move to the right than it would be to the left. A recent poll out in the guardian showed that labours supporters attitudes towards the poor have hardened in recent times this is no surprise given all they pump out is about strivers and skivers, how they made a mistake letting immigrants in to the country and failing to put any sort of alternative across tot e working class. But this mustn’t be mistaken for a shift in society to the right. I do still believe there are many people out there who are looking for an alternative, a genuine alterative from cuts, austerity and the misery of privatisation. Before the recent attack in Woolwich the likes of the EDL and the BNP were in all honesty on their knees struggling for support. It was a shot in their arm the attacks in Woolwich but the overall trend does not show that the EDL and the BNP are gaining support in fact quite the opposite. Falling into the media’s trap that the working class are mostly racists and work shy and lazy is something the left and more importantly socialists should look to avoid. We as Marxist have a long term perspective about the current system of capitalism we live under. The fact that it is in eternal decline in Brittan will produce those to look for an alterative and find the easiest way to blame something or more often than not someone. SO far the media and politicians have been very good in directing the anger and blame at other workers, the unemployed, the disabled, the elderly and other minorities in society in order to deflect blame from their own failing system which is now becoming a drag on society itself. What is missing though in my view is a mass workers party who have a media presence as they would be so big they couldn’t be ignored putting that alternative a socialist alternative for the working class and middle class as they are affected too. That this is a system based on the blind pursuit of profit and only that. Divide and rule is one of the oldest and most effective tactics in the ruling class book of tricks and up to now is working very ell. If we had a mass workers party putting forward the counter arguments to cuts, privatisation and racism in the media all the time in the newspapers and beyond we could start to see some of these lies that are pumped out on a daily basis start to be found out. Of course a new mass workers party would have to fight tooth and nail for airspace but with support of the trade unions this could be possible with funds to for campaigns to make people aware of the true extent of the crisis and how we need to change society. SO far this looks a pipe dream for many as most trade unions still fund a capitalist pro cuts labour party and any media opportunities for any sort of alternative like TUSC fin it incredibly hard to get any airtime at all. But things will change and as the crisis deepens workers will look for an alternative they will have no choice but to. We must guard against division, racism and any other sort of way of dividing us. We are workers first and foremost. If we look at things in terms of class every time things makeup more sense. Society isn’t turning to the right. Whilst it could do evidence wouldn’t suggest that the right is in the ascendancy. The Tories are falling in the polls and struggled to get near a majority in the last general election. UKIP are being carefully used by the media and the ruling class to tap the growing anger at the cuts down a blind alley of nationalism and racism. This will not wash once UKIP are found out. There is clearly a protest vote element in UKIP’s vote right now and we must not write off those who do vote UKIP for this reason. Instead we must patiently explain why UKIP are no alternative for workers and that a new mass workers party is still necessary as ever.

What has happened to the student movement?

Is a very good question since two big demonstrations one a lot smaller and angrier than the last 2013 has been a somewhat quieter year for the students movement. Not being a student myself I look on from outside but the anger on tuition fees, lack of EMA, rental prices for students, cost of studying all haven’t gone away surely and the anger can’t have either. No doubt much of this lack of fight can be laid at the door of the NUS who have failed to mobilise students to defend education and mount a challenge to this rotten government. Socialist students which are affiliated to the socialist party have been doing excellent work on campuses up and down the country having our best year yet in terms of numbers. But our influence is still small. We will be putting pressure and calling on the NUS to organise a national demonstration this autumn very shortly. There have been small victories and incidents Sussex university had a fantastic demonstration with an occupation which was disgracefully evicted a while back now in protest over privatisation of the education system. Again NUS did not show up most students now are starting to fight without their own union of students this is a worry but not unsurprising given the role the NUS places with its pro labour party leadership and timid outlook. Recently a victory at Birmingham university has shown an example how students and workers when they unite can win victories even on a small scale and not totally resolved is a good start and shows we can win. Maintenance & support staff at University of Birmingham are celebrating near-total victory as university management have abandoned restructuring plans. 361 Hospitalist and Accomodation Services (HAS) staff faced compulsory redundancy, pay cuts and being forced to work anti-social hours under plans announced in March; the £407,000-a-year pay packet of the Vice-Chancellor would have been unaffected. The University also planned to force staff to work weekends and holidays for no extra pay. These plans have all been dropped and staff has won extra flexibility in setting their own schedules. Edmund Schluessel - NUS NEC-elect, UCU and Socialist Students Birmingham University Unison worked closely in partnership with the students’ union, Birmingham Guild of Students, to fight back against the cuts and job losses. Staff and students demonstrated together against university management on May Day, and, in a major show of solidarity, the Students’ Union put out a call for a national student mobilisation in support of the Birmingham HAS staff. In a statement, student campaigning group, Birmingham Defend Education, said, “This outcome demonstrates that protest and direct action work. Unions were negotiating on these issues behind the scenes for two months, whilst the University kept announcing further attacks. As soon as they started to sign up large numbers of new members and talk about strike action, and we sent our statement to David Eastwood, the University abandoned the majority of their attacks within two weeks. This also illustrates the power of students and staff when working together. We should remember that staff and students, not management, are what make the University work. If we recognise this, and the power that we have when we stop doing what we’re told, we can claim the conditions of work and study that we want to see.” The problem of low pay remains unresolved. Many maintenance staff at Birmingham and dozens of other universities is paid only the national minimum wage, while the university makes annual profits of nearly £30 million. Lecturers and other uni staff on the national pay spine have received real-terms pay cuts every year since 2009. The five-way consortium of university trade unions, consisting of UCU (lecturers), Unison, Unite, GMB (all support staff) and EIS (teaching trade union), are meeting with employers on the 21st to discuss the latest 0.8% pay offer. The five unions should unanimously reject the offer and prepare for national coordinated action to stop the pay cuts and job losses, and push the TUC (Trade Union Congress) to name the day for a 24-hour general strike against all the cuts. As an incoming Socialist Students member of the National Union of Students’ (NUS) executive I will push for NUS to learn from Birmingham students’ example and to give the fullest possible support to any action in defence of education and against the cuts. Once students come back after the summer there will be new angry students paying higher fees getting charged even more to live and get by. It’s a disgrace that the NUS would rather spend their time doing pointless survey’s and focus on the smaller issues not that they are not important but when our whole education system is at threat surely their priorities could be better placed. With socialist students getting its first member elected on to the NEC of the NUS in Edmund Schluessel we can now begin to gain influence beyond our own ranks. A statement put out by Edmund on socialist students website said that students need a voice and for too long the NUS has not represented the real views of students on the ground. Our aim is to turn the NUS into a fighting union to give students hope and an avenue to fight back in. Socialist student’s basic aims and demands are: What We Stand For Education  Abolish tuition fees. Write off student debt.  Restore EMA. Campaign for full living grants to cover the living costs of all students in post-16 education – including those at university.  No to higher and further education funding cuts. Defend every course, job and service.  No to academies and Free Schools.  For exam boards and all other privatised services to be taken back into public ownership – no repeat of this year’s exam mistakes fiasco!  Stop the marketisation and privatisation of universities in Britain. No to the government’s white paper and a two-tier Higher Education system. No university should be allowed to go to the wall!  Lift the cap on places and publicly fund the expansion of high quality higher education.  Build local anti-cuts campaigns and ‘Youth Fight for Education’ groups in every school, college and university, linked on both a regional and a national level.  Support action taken by education workers to defend their conditions and our education –their fight is our fight.  For the transformation of Students’ Unions into fighting organisations, with bottom-up democratic structures.  For a fighting NUS.  For education that is fully funded, publicly owned, democratically run and universally free at all levels – a socialist education system. Work and Welfare  Support the Youth Fight for Jobs campaign.  No to mass youth unemployment- for a decent job for all.  No to the government’s slave labour ‘workfare’ schemes. For decent training opportunities and apprenticeships for young people which pay at least the minimum wage, with a guaranteed job at the end.  No job losses in the public or private sector. When private bosses claim they can’t afford to maintain jobs, we say open the books. Let us see where the money has gone.  For nationalisation of companies threatening closure, under democratic control with compensation given on the basis of proven need.  Fight for a minimum wage of at least £8 an hour as a step towards a living wage.  No cuts to housing or other benefits.  End lower benefit rates for young people – for the right to Job Seekers Allowance at 16.  No to ‘workfare’ and slave labour internships. For decent jobs paid at least a minimum wage of £8 an hour.  Support the National Shop Stewards’ Network anti-cuts campaign which fights all cuts to jobs and services  The immediate re-opening of all youth services that have been closed, including reinstating sacked staff. Rights  Defend the right to protest. No to the victimisation of student protesters. For the right to organise in every school, college and campus.  No to ‘kettling’ and police violence on demonstrations.  No to racism, sexism, homophobia and all other forms of discrimination.  Fight the far-right racist BNP and EDL. Jobs, homes and services- not racism. Build mass campaigns to defend communities.  No platform for fascists in education.  Rape is never the victim’s fault. For a mass campaign against sexism.  No to reactionary attacks on women’s rights.  Defend and extend abortion rights.  No to the three main bosses’ parties. For a new mass workers’ party that fights in the interests of ordinary people. For International Solidarity and Socialism  For solidarity between working class and young people across the world.  Solidarity with the Arab Spring – No to western intervention – it is on behalf of big business and capitalism.  No to war and imperialist intervention. For the Immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan and Iraq.  End the siege of Gaza.  No to Trident nuclear missile replacement  Support the Sri Lanka Tamil Solidarity campaign – for the right of all people to self-determination.  No to environmental destruction. For a sustainable democratic socialist plan of production that won’t destroy the planet.  No to capitalism. For a socialist world, where the big monopolies are taken into public ownership, the economy is democratically planned and resources are used to meet the needs of all humanity. A campaign for students must start here. As terms are drawing to a close exams are being taken work must start now for action in the autumn to defend education and to fight for free education for the many not just the few.

No to outsourcing in Herts police

Hertfordshire police force are considering out sourcing again after the G4S contract bid was dropped out sourcing has crept back on their agenda. All efforts must be made to prevent these first steps towards privatisation. An existing Herts Police arrangement with Beds and Cambs’ forces is to be dropped while police and crime commissioner David Lloyd searches for savings. In a statement leaked by Herts Police Unision commissioner Lloyd states: “Work [is] underway to seek further collaboration opportunities beyond those already underway with Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire (Police) will cease.” He also is quoted as saying: “Clearly there are some things that only warranted officers can and should do. But I want to ensure that all other policing services are considered for outsourcing over the next two years”. It also reveals the police will now “explore the benefits of outsourcing policing functions which do not require warranted powers”. Before the statement was sent out commissioner Lloyd, chief constable Andy Bliss, senior staff and representatives of the Police Federation and Unison met. During yesterday’s (Wednesday) meeting chief constable Bliss is alleged to have said: “If there is a better deal to be had in house, we will very seriously look at that. “However the expectation is very clear from PCC Lloyd that we will be going out looking at market opportunities.” Herts Police Unison want commissioner Lloyd to look “in house” for savings and think costs could be cut internally. A union spokesman said: “All Hertfordshire Police Staff and Officers have worked tirelessly over the last three years to implement savings not only through the collaboration of services with Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire but internally within Hertfordshire Constabulary alone. “We believe there are still more opportunities to make savings internally and we strongly urge PCC Lloyd to give the staff and officers of Hertfordshire Constabulary the chance to do this first before outsourcing services. “In public service we feel morally obliged to do what is right and necessary to help those affected by crime, in private enterprise the only imperative is to service contractual obligations and thereby maximise profit.” The announcement follows a failed outsourcing bid with private All sounds quite concerning what the unison guy says words like collaboration and finding cuts in house rather than out saucing show a sign of a union who is more bout finding compromises than actually standing up for its members. Just shows the urgent need to transform that union to a fighting left union. But we will have to watch this one closely as privatisation in our police seems to be back on the table and being seriously considered.

Battle to save the NHS continues

Even if the mainstream media will not cover the carving up of our NHS and feel that what the church do or don’t do is far more important reporting then I guesses we’ll just have to do it ourselves. Over the last year the NHS has changed and is constantly changing. Next year 2013 is set to see the introduction of the Health and Social care bill which will see the end of the NHS as we know it. 49% of beds will go to private patients with huge multi billion contracts being put out for tender to private companies such as Virgin care, Circle Bupa and more. This is worrying times indeed. Just in Lewisham the other weekend there was a big demonstration of around 10 thousand workers, campaigners and members of the public all very much aware what is going on and what could happen if we don’t fight now. On Saturday 24 November, defying cold driving rain, up to 10,000 residents and staff marched to defend their local hospital. A south London nurse reports. The atmosphere was electric as the demonstration brought Lewisham High Street to a standstill. Drivers tooted their horns enthusiastically. The Unison, NUT, and Unite union banners headed up the march. Also prominent was the National Shop Stewards Network banner. Unison's London region swung behind the demonstration, giving health staff confidence to march en masse. Feelings are strong over this planned closure. 250,000 Lewisham residents know that this situation is critical. People may die if they are conveyed longer distances to either Woolwich or Kings College A&E for emergency treatment. Maternity and other services are also at risk. The administrator, Matthew Kershaw and the new Woolwich and Lewisham chief executives must be held to account for this devastation. Staff and patients chanted "Save Lewisham a&E. Save the NHS". They see shutting their local casualty as just one in a string of planned assaults by this government. It's all one NHS. NHS managers, ministers and MPs use divide and rule tactics, talking about different areas of the NHS as if they were separate worlds. All NHS cuts must be vehemently opposed. This casualty department meets all its performance targets and has one of the lowest rates of hospital acquired infection in the NHS. Yet this state of the art department, that had just seen £12 million worth of investment, is closing. And while our NHS is being disassembled bit by bit, the wealthy controllers of Private Finance Initiative schemes (which are wrecking hospitals) are getting richer than ever! Platform speakers highlighted the unfairness of the planned closure. At an open staff meeting at Lewisham hospital following the march, health workers and supporters spoke on where to take this epic struggle. NUT national executive member Martin Powell-Davies assured Lewisham NHS staff that they would get great support if strike action followed this great show of community involvement. Health trade unionists should call for emergency branch meetings and put forward motions for NHS staff to be balloted for strike action. If we strike we can win. If we do not, we could lose a key casualty department forever! Many health workers may think they cannot strike but they can, with the unions planning for emergency cover in the event of a strike. If industrial action is coordinated across health union branches the fight to keep Lewisham A&E open will be victorious and strike a blow against all public sector cuts. Also Admin and clerical workers at the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust have been fighting attempts to cut their pay and conditions through well-supported strike action. Trust bosses claim that these attacks on low-paid workers are necessary in order to make savings of £24 million by the new financial year and achieve Foundation Trust status in 2014. Payments to the consortium which built the £311 million PFI hospitals in Wakefield and Pontefract are costing the Trust over £40 million annually. But our Unison branch has long argued that the only real solution to the Trust's financial crisis is to re-nationalise its PFI hospitals, cancel all debts to the consortium which built them and open Trust accounts to full public scrutiny. We will oppose all cuts and privatisation demanded by the Health and Social Care Act. We are lending our full support to the 'Save Our Local Hospital Services' community-led campaign which aims to maintain full services at our three hospitals, and bring all privatised services back under full public ownership. Such local campaigns should be backed by all health unions and linked into a national campaign to save the NHS. With extracts from this weeks socialist

20th October how I saw it and where next

I like many other trade unionists made my way with other socialist party comrades yesterday to London we luckily don’t vie too far away. We took a different strategy this year instead of going on the march we stayed at Hyde Park all day and leafleted and held stalls as the march reached the end. Early estimates reckon the march was around 200,000 I’d say that would be about right it felt big still very big but the march did seem to thin out the nearer it got to 4 pm whereas last year there were still loads of marchers still making their way to Hyde park at a similar time. The atmosphere on the march was very Good lots of people hardened since last year and the betrayals of the right wing trade union leaders. There was a sense of we have been here before though and that may have played a part in the lower turnout perhaps. The NSSN and the socialist party’s calls for a 24 hour general strike were taken up very well by the workers on the demo lots of leaflets handed out many by me and lots of socialist papers sold too have no figures as yet but we made a terrific intervention I thought. Lots of positive comments coming our way when people came up to our stalls. I wasn’t sure how the demo would go before hand but was pleased with our efforts in the end. Clearly our calls for a 24 hour general strike caught an echo as several trade union speakers like Bob Crow, Mark Serwotka and Len Mcklusky all endorsing the NSSN’s calls. It’s clear now the TUC has to act and if not the left lead unions need to take the lead for further co-ordinated action. Len McCluskey, general secretary of the union Unite, got the overwhelming endorsement of the crowd when he asked all those who supported the organising of a general strike to raise their hands. Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT and seconder of the motion to 'consider a general strike' that was passed at the recent TUC congress, got massive applause when he called for a 24-hour general strike. Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS union, also called for coordination of strike action across the trade union movement. Huge support was received for the campaign by the Socialist Party and the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) to demand that the TUC name a day for a 24-hour general strike and then launch a massive campaign to mobilise the working class behind this call. What I was glad bout was the fact that Ed Miliband was roundly booed for his speech which I was disgusted to hear he was even there in the first place. He said he and his labour government if elected had to make tough decisions and they won’t be popular, dam right Ed you won’t be. SO its clear that labour will not be on our side if elected as if we didn’t know that before but some clearly still need reminding. As a result of this our stall could not give away TUSC leaflets quickly enough there was a big thirst to find about a alternative and TUSC can be that alternative in the coming by elections and beyond. All together the 20th of October must be remembered for being used as a springboard to further action this autumn or as soon as possible. Trade unions need to link their common disputes pensions, pay, privatisation you name it could be one of many issues and name the day for action. This demonstration opened a new phase in the war against austerity, giving a glimpse of a more hardened and militant working class. There was a widespread interest in socialist ideas, with many applying to join the Socialist Party. It’s now time to take the ideas forward and win the arguments; no cuts are necessary and must be fought.

Keep profiteers out of our NHS! Mass movement needed now!

High-profile NHS hospitals in England are to be encouraged by the government to set up profit-making branches abroad to help fund services in the UK. An agency will aim to link hospitals such as Great Ormond Street with foreign governments that want access to British-run health services. Investment would have to be drawn from hospitals' private UK work, but with profits ploughed back into the NHS. A patients' group said the move was a "distraction" at a time of "upheaval". The drive, building on an initiative first started under the Labour government, is set to be be launched by the Department of Health and UK Trade and Investment this autumn. The BBC understands the initiative is unlikely to involve regular district or general hospitals but would target world-renowned hospitals like children's hospital Great Ormond Street, the Royal Marsden and Guy's and St Thomas'. 'Benefit patients' It would mirror schemes such as that of Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, which in 2007 built a unit of the same name in Dubai. In 2010, Labour's Health Secretary Andy Burnham set up NHS Global to help the health service make the most of the global market for healthcare and the coalition now wants to build on t This is a continuation and a first sign of what the health and social care bill passed this year by the con-dem government is going to do to our health service. Quite clearly many capitalists here in Britain and around the globe see the NHS as a world institution and a huge opening for a big profiteering exercise here. Take no notice of labour either though they were the ones who brought in such ideas of a global NHS and Andy Burnham their shadow health secretary was the one who over saw this so we will take no support or lectures off labor they are up to their eyes in PFI and marketisation of the NHS. We must be aware of what is going on arm ourselves with the facts and join up local campaigns with a national campaign to save our NHS which truly is under threat now. If it wasn’t before it is now. Trade unions have been pathetic on this so far a national campaign linking up all unions’ workers, anti cuts groups, save NHS groups and anyone else who wishes to throw their weight behind saving this. But be under no illusion this is going to take a huge effort. As I tweeted on twitter last night it was mass working class pressure and action which won the NHS for the working class it’s going to take a similar mass pressure and militant action to win this back. This must be part of the NSSN’s calls for a 24 hour public + private general strike. It’s time to step up the fight now redouble our efforts to save the NHS and stop all the cuts and remove this government intent on taking back all the gains we’ve ever made.

Outsourcing police dogs, are there any limits to privatisation?

In Hertfordshire the latest plan to cut spending on police is this new idea to outsource police dogs and limit their use.

Whilst I’m not a huge fan of the police clearly this is significant if the police are feeling angry about cuts and are not being protected by the state. Police should have full trade union rights like other workers and have the ability to withdraw their labour like anyone else.

For a full democratic society police should be accountable to the wider public. Privatising parts of the police and outsourcing areas such as trained police dogs is just one part of this trying to undermine police officers doing their jobs.

SPECIALIST police dogs will be outsourced and handler numbers in Hertfordshire slashed under plans to cut the budget by £1.1m.
Slicing the budget by almost a third would mean police dogs for Herts, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire would be based 48 miles (77km) away from Hertford, and only be available 18 hours per day, according to a report to a police authority meeting on Friday (July 20).
The report read: "To achieve the most operationally effective unit, it is proposed that a model based upon 24 dog handlers will provide resilience, a level of flexibility and peak demand overlap. It will provide savings of approximately £1.1m (32 per cent of current budget).
"A model of 24 constables is considered the optimal number and will provide resilience both within the unit and to LPC [Local Policing Command] areas.
"Based on substantive levels of research and consultation, it is evident that the dogs unit could be reduced effectively by introducing a defined remit based upon four core areas of activity."
One Herts dog handler, who asked not to be identified, told the Mercury: "The resources are already stretched. We can’t provide any decent level of service because of the cuts that have been made. To think that we could cover three counties with 24 constables is stupid because we can’t cover two counties with 24 now.
"We’ve been kept completely in the dark and I don’t feel at all valued. This process absolutely stinks. The figures that have been looked at have been manipulated to suit.
"It’s an absolute nonsense. I hope that the police authority sees through it and sees sense."
East Herts chief inspector Gerry McDonald added: "Police dogs offer me reassurance, an ability to run faster than my officers and track people. They’re often used for drug detection and firearms recovery. It’s daily business for us.
"I’ve got a whole menu of options and police dogs are another opportunity. I don’t know what the impact will be yet but the constabulary’s not going to let me down."


with extracts from the Hertfordshire Mercury

PFI = Profit from Illness, drive profiteering out of our NHS!

Private finance initiative has been crippling our NHS for decades now. With many hospitals now a certain hospital trust in south London facing difficulties it’s time to end this profit mad system and re nationalize the NHS and kick out the profiteers from our health care once and for all.


The South London Healthcare NHS Trust has already lost £150m

The trust runs three hospitals and has run up deficits of more than £150m over the past three years. It is thought to be on course to lose between £150m and £375m by 2017.
Our staff has worked hard for patients and in spite of significant financial issues we are extremely proud we now have among the lowest mortality and infection rates in the country

Its chief executive was informed on Monday night that the trust is likely to be put into the "unsustainable providers regime", which was introduced by the last Labor government but never before used.

The administrator will take over the board and recommend measures to the Health Secretary to put the trust's finances on a sustainable basis. Which to me means nothing but cuts and a contraction of services offered and a round of redundancies for the staff.

Hospitals run by the trust include Queen Mary's in Sidcup, the Queen Elizabeth in Woolwich and the Princess Royal in Bromley.

It is clear to me to save the NHS PFI must be rejected out of hand and all services brought back into proper democratic public ownership. With a trade union lead campaign with local communities and the mass of the working class behind a campaign to save the NHS we can save it only if we act now. Each day a further piece of our NHS is lost if we don’t act now it’ll be gone in a few years time. A distant memory.

PFI was begun in the early 1990s by the then Tory government. It was attacked by Labour when in opposition, but then massively accelerated under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's governments. Today there are hundreds of PFI projects covering hospitals, schools, roads, bridges, police stations and prisons.
Instead of a public body building a new facility using public money, albeit through a contract with a private builder or developer, PFI involves a private sector developer or consortium doing the whole job. It borrows the money (often at higher rates of interest than the government would), builds the project and then charges a fee for 25 to 40 years for maintaining the buildings and usually also providing various services.
Labour spokespersons such as Patricia Hewitt and Alan Milburn condemned such PFI projects as 'backdoor privatization' when in opposition. In government, however, as health secretaries, they claimed it was the 'only game in town'. And curiously, after government, they (and many other Labour ex-ministers) got lucrative private sector jobs and consultancies, many in the same areas where they had been ministers.
The Financial Times estimated in 2007 that, after ten years of New Labour, the total capital value of PFI contracts across the UK was £68 billion - but that the total which would be given to the private companies involved in those contracts, by the time they were finished, would be £215 billion!
Three years later, in November 2010, the total payment obligation for PFI contracts in the UK had rocketed to £267 billion. And in the first year of the Tory/Lib Dem coalition a further 61 PFI schemes, with a capital value of £7 billion were approved. PFI has become a 'milch cow' for big business in the public sector.

Some observations from a NHS health worker on the risk register

undearneath i publish a special guest post from a comrade who works in the NHS and holds the service close to her heart. her name is helen ridett a proud member of the socialist party like myself and i'm more than happy to share with you her thoughts on the NHS risk register she has kindly let me have to share with you all. Hope they make a echo and get shared far and wide to help people understand what is to happen to our NHS.

Some Observations on The NHS Risk Register…



The government is proceeding with this bill blindly not knowing the impact of recent amendments to the bill. They don’t really know how much these changes will cost or whether they can afford to implement the new ones, all during a period when the country is in masses of debt. The bill does not guarantee that the treasury will be able to get new savings i.e. efficiencies out of the NHS when the system is put into place



New NHS structures are being created and old ones dismantled and no one knows whether the old or the new teams will control the budget and when the Gps’ will be in a position to take over holding it. Also no one really knows who will be accountable if things go wrong as there are no clear lines of responsibility. This means that if things fall apart and the new NHS system doesn’t work everyone will point the finger at everyone else and there will be no one to take responsibility. If, for eg; a private company takes over a community health team and a patient suffers harm or neglect and that same company then goes bust what happens then? Where does the patient or their relative get redress during the transition to the new system?



The register highlights that GPs are not trained properly to either hold the budgets or to buy the care that you and I might need in future. When GP’s are spending their time training for this new job they will have less time to spend with patients. The GP’s haven’t even reached an agreement with the government regarding how they will operate within the new system



It is worth noting that if the new system falls apart or doesn’t work there are no plans in place to deal with emergencies that may arise off the back of this and there appears to be no fall back plans



Staff morale will be low because of the changes and with commissioning and senior management staff at risk of loosing their jobs but being expected to dig their own graves by setting up the new system. Frontline NHS Staff are already being shifted from post to pillar around the NHS and staff may be redeployed to sites miles away from training and occupational health facilities. This problem is likely to get far worse as the NHS gets more fragmented and bits of it get taken over by more and more private firms (any qualified provider). Industrial relations are getting increasingly strained and unions may have no choice but to ballot for industrial action if the pay and conditions of NHS staff are attacked even more. Unnecessary and awkward redeployment plans add complication to an already complex situation.



Healthcare records will also become an open book as the Health and Social Care bill is going to loosen the regulations and make sharing our personal information much easier to accommodate ‘any qualified provider’. In what appears to be a chaotic, less regulated and less accountable system change patient confidentiality will be an early casualty.



The risk register also seems to readily admit that patients are not being listened to during consultations and this problem is likely to accelerate thus giving the lie to the catchphrase ‘no care about me without me’.

Drop the bill!, mass action needed to save the NHS

As Nye Bevan famously said the NHS will be around for as long as there are people willing to fight for it. Well today in 2012 with the health and social bill making its way through the lords at present the signs do not look good. But medical groups and workers are rising to the task in hand.

The National Health Service (NHS) is being broken apart by the hammer blows raining down on it from the Con-Dem government. Huge job cuts and closures of hospital wards and departments, including Accident and Emergency, are wreaking havoc. On top of this, the widely criticised Con-Dems' Health and Social Care Bill will accelerate the privatisation process in the NHS.
How the NHS is being undermined:
'Efficiency savings' ie cuts. The Royal College of Nursing said last November that 56,000 jobs have been axed in the last two years as part of the current government's drive to achieve £20-£30 billion of 'efficiency savings'.
Privatisation. Begun by John Major's Tory government in the 1990s, most non-medical NHS staff have been outsourced to private contractors. The resulting job cuts have meant a deterioration in cleaning and other vital services. And a fortnight ago an entire hospital, Hinchingbrooke in Cambridgeshire, was taken over by a for-profit private company, Circle.
Heralded by Labour's Tony Blair, Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contracts - under which hospitals are built and maintained - are licences for private corporations to make vast profits at the expense of NHS funds.
Mega-expensive PFI schemes have put 22 health trusts in jeopardy of becoming bankrupt. But instead of scrapping these rip-off schemes, health secretary Andrew Lansley has agreed to subsidise the contracts with £1.5 billion of public money!
The move to Foundation Trust hospitals (another Labour inspired scheme) will increase 'competition' between hospitals for resources and lead to more cuts and closures. Under the Health and Social Care Bill self-governing Foundation Trusts will also be allowed to raise 49% of funds through non-NHS work. In other words, prioritising higher fee-paying private patients over NHS patients.
A leaked NHS report last year spelt out how private companies will direct the commissioning of patient services when 80% of the health budget is transferred to GP consortia under the government's Health and Social Care Bill. A clear admission that the Con-Dems intend to privatise the NHS.
The Socialist Party calls on the trade unions and community NHS campaigns to unite and fight to stop Lansley's Bill and the threats to our NHS and instead demand a fully funded, publicly owned and democratically run health service.

Kill the Bill. Stop Tory health minister Andrew Lansley and the Con-Dems turning the clock back on health care in Britain. We want free, accessible, high quality and publicly funded healthcare
No cuts, closures or job losses in the NHS
No mergers, or any other 'reorganisation', on anything other than clinical grounds
End the postcode lottery. Fully-funded, high quality, health care should be accessible in every area
Kick big business out of the NHS. End PFI and refuse to pay the debt
Nationalise the pharmaceutical companies under democratic control and integrate them into the NHS
For mass action to defend the NHS with trade union strike action at its heart

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is just the start of the fightback whih needs to be ramped up. With the threat of privatisation at its core this piece of tory legeslation threatens the whole idea of a national health service for the benifit of all.
Part and parcel with this profiteering are the enormous cuts. £20 billion of so-called savings planned since 2010 are ravaging the NHS.

But resistance is growing. Health workers' trade unions and organisations, including the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, with members numbering hundreds of thousands have come out against it.

Given that what is posed is the total destruction of the NHS this is not surprising. Even a survey by relatively wealthy governments in the OECD recognises the NHS as one of the world's best health systems that has been improving patient care for years.


We have seen the labour party and Ed Milibandwagon come out in recent days to jump on the ground swell of feeling against this bill ratehr opportunistically in my view.
Labour leader Ed Miliband is opportunistically attempting to claim the mantle of hero of the NHS but has no effective strategy to defend the biggest reform ever won by the working class in Britain.

"Now is the time for people of all parties and of none, the professions, the patients and now peers in the House of Lords to work together to try to stop this bill." But disability rights campaigners can explain how far opposition in the Lords got them in the campaign to oppose the vicious Welfare Reform Bill. MPs thanked the Lords for their amendments and ignored them, passing that bill up for royal assent, effectively making it law.

Like the bashing of bankers' bonuses Miliband has hit on a rich seam of anger among working class people. But Miliband and his party are not against all 'reform'. He has described Labour's reforms "including using the private sector where appropriate" as the reform the NHS needs. Labour is a big business party which, when in power for 13 years, went very far in preparing the ground for Lansley's bill through massive PFI privatisation and marketisation of the health service. So whatever happens do not let labou off teh hook here and think they are on our side as they are not the last 13 years showed exactly that.

To save the NHS we must be serious about defending it to start with not looking for short term political gains and boosts in certain polls and right wing tabloids but principled resistance to one of the greatest organisations this country has ever produced. If this goes and the break up of the NHS is started future generations will not forgive us for idolly

standing by while it happened.

Lets unite now to defend one of Britains best known treasures.

As winter approach's many face tough decisions on fuel bills

As we approach winter with the dark nights drawing in and the first frosts of the autumn arriving. People right across the country will be pressured more than ever to try and find ways of reducing their energy bills and to heat and keep their homes going.

Winter time can be particularly challenging for the elderly and the poor and this year as we face another hard winter of austerity and cut backs. The energy companies have felt the need to squeeze even more out of us and decided a few months back to put up their charges by eye watering figures.

Gas bills will rise by an average of 18% and electricity bills by an average of 16%.

The change will affect nine million households with the average dual fuel customer paying an extra £190 a year.

British Gas customers will have seen their bills shoot up by £258 or 25% within a year”
End Quote
Uswitch
In May, the company said its customers were not paying enough to reflect the increased cost of gas on the wholesale markets, and that this would depress its profits for the first half of the year.

But this argument was rejected by Mike O'Connor, the chief executive of Consumer Focus.

"Wholesale costs have gone up but they are still around a third lower than their 2008 peak," he said.

"Yet in this time British Gas' prices alone have risen by around 44% on gas and 21% on electricity and suppliers have made healthy profits."

Last year, British Gas' residential business made £740m.

Spending squeeze

In June, Scottish Power became the first of the big-six energy suppliers to announce another set of price increases.

It said it would raise the cost of gas by 19% and the cost of electricity by 10% at the start of August.

Energy price rises
Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar... ...Aug
*G= Gas E=Electricity

Scottish Power
G: 2% E: 8.9%
G: 19% E: 10%

Scottish & Southern
G: 9.4%

British Gas
G&E: 7%
G: 18% E: 16%

Npower
G&E: 5.1%

E.On
G: 3% E: 9%

EDF
G: 6.5% E: 7.5%

The latest increase in energy bills, which is likely to be followed by other big energy suppliers, comes after a round of increases last winter which saw British Gas put its charges up by 7% in December.

"Average household bill for a dual fuel British Gas customer will now go up from £1,096 to £1,288," said the price comparison service Uswitch.

"In total, British Gas customers will have seen their bills shoot up by £258 or 25% within a year, taking them from £1,030 a year to £1,288," Uswitch added.

Richard Lloyd, of the consumers' association Which?, said the energy firm's announcement was an unwelcome


He can say that again, it is very much unwelcome for many working class families across the land who are finding making ends meet a increasing struggle as this economic crisis of capitalism deepens. I am sure we will see many trying to go without heating this winter with the rise in costs trying to save money wherever they can to get by. After this con-dem government cut teh winter fuel allowance for elderly people i am fearful of this winter where if it reach's really cold temperatures over a consistent period we may risk loosing some of our elderly friends and family if we are not careful. Elderly people who by definition do noth ave bags of money would have been relying on teh winter fuel allowance to get them through the winter. Now it is gone i fer for many who are on the cusp of povety and those in what they call "fuel povety" those who cannot afford to have energy in their homes for long if at all.

This is something we must bear in mind over the winter and lend solidarity to the elderly and the poor if they are in need not to abandon them but offer them shelter in the warmth and not let them suffer. If the government of millionaires dont care the organised working class has got to. The trade unions and labour movement must step in to offer support and help wherever we can. We are all facing hard times but lets not let this actually claim lives we must fight for us all and this winter will be no different.

It is ok for the likes of Ed Miliband to announce to his middle class friends in the labour party that he'll take on the vested interests of the big energy companies its good he recognises thre is a issue here that huge profits are made and te service is poor and unfair to those at the bottom. But what Mr Miliband should be saying he'll do is nationalise all of the utilities and energy companies and bring them under democratic workers control. To be run for peoples need and boy we need energy today and not for the need to make a profit. Need first everytime for me and that way we will have a better all round social society .