JUY- and other work-places in the area. And contact is with the ambulance drivers and the unions at Whittington in the hope that they will refuse to co-operate if AHA .COES try to patients.
But this struggle, especially if it does reach the point of the first hospital occupation in this country, cannot afford to be contained within the locality.
Red Weekly supporters will be pushing for the joint shop stewards committees in both Camden & Islington and East London to support and raise the defence of the EGA at the London-wide meeting stewards and branch officials called by Hammersmith Hospital stewards. We shall also be pushing for the local trades councils in Camden and Islington to start acting resolutions they have both recently passed calling for workers inquiries into the needs of the working class in the area and the effect of the cuts on them.
Mike FitzGerald (North London Hospitals G&MWU).
'settled" of NHS upon the March.
O VeH UCCUCE EAST LONDON hospital workers will be striking again in a Day of Action thi s ealtk. Thinr Sently Somad o oEast London Area Health Joint Shop Stewards mmittee has called the area-wide strike on 14 October following the successful walk-out three weeks ago when 4,000 hospital workers in the City & Hackney District left their jobs in a half-day demonstration.
The immediate reason for the strikes is the AHA's decision to close four hospitals in the next five months - one of which, the Metropolitan, is to be closed immediately. In addition, they want 400 jobs to go in Hackney alone and 1,000 in the area as a whole by 31 In order to achieve this target, the AHA has asked the Regional Health Authority for permission to explicit redundancies (as opposed to 'natural wastage', which has been used in the health service up till now to cut jobs). These panic measures are an example of what health workers across the country can expect as the cuts class East London.
workers would decisively change the situation.
Loneon meetine make together. A big item for 17 November.
Committee] This East London hospital is facing immediate closure.
However, strike action by hospital workers alone will not be enough to stop the cuts. It is vital that the Area Stewards Committee goes out to the organised working In parucular COCKER should be drawn into the struggle. Strike action by these Meanwhile, the Joint Shop Stewards Committee at Hammersmith Hospital, which has itself been involved in strike action against the cuts, has called for an allof health service shop stewards to discuss the policies and strategy needed for the fight against the cuts. This meeting would enable the isolated struggles - such as in East London, at the EGA, and the Hounslow Hospital in West London - to be brought discussion should be the biggest possible united turn-out of London hospitals on STEVE JOB [Camden and Islington AHA Joint Stewards