Nurses'
strike shakes up
Tories
THE NURSES STRIKE on
February 3 was a warning sign to the Tory government that 500,000 nurses and midwives are no longer prepared to be the underpaid "angels" of the British popular press.
The nurses deliberately limited their strike so that it would not harm patients, but many other nurses and healthworkers joined the picket lines and protest demonstrations, including members of the Royal
College of Nursing (RCN), which has a no-strike rule.
PENNY DUGGAN
N URSES' DEMANDS are essen-
tially on the question of pay. They want a 20% increase now so as to be paid in line with their training and responsibility, at similar levels to other skilled employees in the public services.
The Department of Health and Social Security is quick to point out that at £147 per week nurses earn slightly more than the median earnings of non-manual or manual women workers at £142.20 or £108.20 respectively. But women's wages in Britain are on average 30% lower than men's. A student nurse who has already done three years training and is often taking responsibility for an entire ward of patients at night is paid f5,170 per year, while predominantly male fire or police officers are getting over £8,300 on entry.
For many nurses, particularly in London 28 where the cost of living has risen dramatically in the last few years, a second job is International Viewpoint • February 22, 1988
NUPE
NURSES
AADE vital to covering the basic expenses of somewhere to live and something to eat. Some nurses work as barmaids or waitresses on their evenings off. Others continue their work as nurses through private agencies, often coming back to the same ward and same hospital they left a few hours previously. The National Health Service (NHS) is forced to spend thousands of pounds on bringing in agency nurses to compensate for its unfilled posts.
Nurses regarded as
"handmaidens"
Nurses suffer from the discrimination facing all women workers in an even more exaggerated form. Nursing as a profession is 90% female, but 50% of the "top jobs" are filled by men! One leading doctor only recently stated that he regarded nurses as "handmaidens", yet these women have at least three years training behind them and a great deal of practical experience. Not surprisingly, the NHS is unable to recruit sufficient young people to fill its nursing requirements and over 30,000 trained nurses left the NHS in 1986. They give the low pay and the lack of recognition for their long training and the responsibility they shoulder as their reasons.
Limited strikes by nurses in a single hospital have already proved effective but this was their first nationally-coordinated strike action. Although just over half the nurses in Britain are members of the RCN which is not affiliated to the national trade-union federation, the TUC — reports indicate that nurses are leaving it to join the two health service unions NUPE and COHSE because they see no other option for pressing their case than to use traditional
However, the RCN agrees with the two unions that the wages and working conditions for nurses are intolerable, primarily because it is a predominantly female sec-
Stand Up
or N
tor. Not only are there low rates of pay, but nurses are forced to do additional work because of the privatization of cleaning services in hospital. Cuts in the number of beds available have led to a situation where 90% are occupied by seriously ill patients, greatly increasing the work and stress for those taking care of them. Too often patients have to leave hospital before they are fully recovered in order to free beds for oth-
Over the last few months British newspapers have been headlining the lack of money in the NHS. The whole country was shocked to learn of the case of a four-year old child who died after his life-saving heart operation was postponed five times because of the lack of the necessary facilities. A consultant heart surgeon recently estimated that 5,000 people a year are dying because of the inadequacies of the NHS.
Opinion polls show that, for the first time for seven years, the health service has toppled unemployment from the number one spot as the issue most concerning the Healthworkers' unions fight government policy
The healthworkers' unions have launched a month of action to continue to press the case of specific sectors of healthworkers and to protest against general government policy on the NHS. The government has added fuel to the fire by "deploring" the nurses' actions and making clear that there will be no substantial pay rise for them this year.
The NHS is the largest employer in Britain and hospitals are the biggest workplaces in a majority of parliamentary constituencies. A concerted fight-back by NHS workers, led by nurses who enjoy broad support from the public, could make life difficult for Margaret Thatcher and her government in the months to come. *