the executive, whose sole demand has been for 'consultation over cuts' while calling on branches to monitor developments.
The results of this surveillance which include a 98 per cent increase in nurse unemployment, no guarantee of jobs for student nurses on qualification, bans on recruiting and replacing staff, compulsory retirement for the over-60s, and the virtual axing of building programmes met with a predictable response from the union leadership.
Shake-up An interim report on the monitoring operation accepted by the executive in March concluded: 'It is apparent that a considerable shake-up of labour is in progress, some of which is to an extent unavoidable. But what must be monitored carefully in the coming months is whether we can afford to lose quite so much." Two years ago COHSE informed the Government that 70,000 more nurses were required for Britain's understaffed hospitals! Demonstrations A delegate from Sheffield said that members of his branch were taking home £28 a week. We can't tighten our belts because we haven't got a belt left to tighten.' Others firmly connected both wage and public expenditure cuts with unhave employment.
waue conse brancues un areds such as Macclesfield, Carlisle, Hertfordshire and the South-west have organised demonstrations against health cuts, and members in some half dozen hospitals principally in the psychiatric field -are presently working to rule against understaffing, the left in the union has so far proved incapable of uniting opposition and action to the Government's policies.
While short on immediate proposals for action, a composite resolution which "deplored the cuts' and called for a 'vigorous and active campaign' by forming district and area committees to debate the Police harassment of gay people has increased alarmingly over the last few months.
beaten up after being arrested, and the the future.
reported in several other cities. Gays, could give the go-ahead to fascists and casual queer-bashers to increase their own activities against gays. underlines the importance of also putting into practice the decision by tees.
In Earls Court, gay men finally hit back on 2 June when a fight broke out as police attempted anotner arbitrary arrest outside a gay pub. One man was severely Earls Court Gay Alliance has now been formed to defend the gay community in Increasing harassment has also been like blacks, are a favourite target of the forces of law and order at times of crisis, when they can be made scapegoats for the misery - including the sexual misery -produced by capitalism. Unless they are vigorously resisted, these police attacks Already this atmosphere of intimidation has led to a refusal by Bradford Council to grant facilities for a conference of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality. Among the reasons cited was a fear of violence from the National Front - to which the Council preferred to knuckle under. This the last CHE conference to take part in the activities of local anti-fascist commitGays march for their rights in London over the weekend "capitalism's crisis', and that we needed a 'planned economy.