British
doctors have gone on strike today for the first time since 1975 over
the government cuts to pensions. Unsurprisingly, this has been met with a
chorus of indignation by the Tories who have accused the doctors of
“penalising patients” by taking industrial action.
British
doctors have gone on strike today for the first time since 1975 over
the government cuts to pensions. Unsurprisingly, this has been met with a
chorus of indignation by the Tories who have accused the doctors of
“penalising patients” by taking industrial action.
8 out of 10 doctors voting in the ballot of BMA (British Medical Association –
the doctors’ trade union) members chose industrial action.
Nevertheless, the effectiveness of the strike has been partial, despite
the overwhelming yes vote to strike.
As
is always the case in the caring and emergency professions, the ruling
class uses the media at its disposal to emotionally blackmail those
workers who are directly responsible for caring for the elderly, infirm
and vulnerable. They prey on the natural instincts of the doctors,
nurses, firefighters, etc, for the individual concerns of their
patients.
The
Tories see this as the natural weak-point in the Doctors’ armoury and
are determined to fully exploit it. And the results are not surprising.
“Non-emergency
healthcare only” was the concern of the BMA leadership. In Barnsley
Hospital the director of human resources, Hilary Brearley, told the BBC
that less than half of the doctors went out on strike. Just 29 out of
225 GP surgeries in Southampton are reportedly closed, 24 out of 148 in
Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. Reports from the Royal University
Hospital in Liverpool described the impact to hospitals as “minimal”.
Understandably,
with the last strike having taken place in 1975, the Doctors are not as
“well rehearsed” as other sectors for industrial action. Yet the fact
that the Tory austerity measures have even aroused the indignation of
the doctors – a relatively privileged section of the working class –
shows how deep and thorough-going the cuts are. And this first,
tentative response, is from what has been traditionally considered a
“non-strike union”, more akin to an employers association, than an
actual trade union with the power to call strike action.
Today
is the just tip of the iceberg. Only 10% of Chancellor George Osborne’s
cuts have been implemented. N A Butt, from Glasgow, said on the BBC
website:
“I’m
a doctor with six years graduate degree and eight years postgraduate
experience, two specialisations and I earn 18 quid an hour! What makes
them think that they can cut over 14% in pensions? And will anybody feel
it safe that I operate upon human lives when I’m 68! This what these new
changes mean!”
The
last time doctors took strike action it was against a Labour government
attempting to curb private practice by NHS doctors. The doctors
operated a work-to-rule policy (strict observance of contracted hours,
no overtime) for four whole months, until the government finally
settled. Later in the year junior doctors took industrial action against
attacks by the government on pay and conditions. Just the threat of
action brought the government to the negotiating table and an agreement
was achieved.
This
time the government is tearing up the agreement over pensions reached
in 2008, and is asking for an increase in contributions from doctors
above the public-sector average and an increase in the pension age,
meaning doctors will have to retire at 68.
The arguments that the Tory press make are nothing new and have been heard throughout the public sector:
1.
People are living too long and claiming too much from the pensions pot.
If only people would be more obliging, and die relatively quickly once
they have stopped working, then there would be more than enough pension
money to go around.
2.
Divide and rule. The Tories seek to divide working people by fudging
any questions on the causes of the huge public debt, which they take for
granted. They talk in terms of “the nation” having spent a little too
much, as if it was a household budget, talking about workers and bosses
as in the same breath as equally liable for the crisis. Therefore the
“household” will need to make sacrifices: the public sector workers must
accept the same pay and conditions as the private sector workers. Even
if we accept that the answer is a “race to the bottom”, which we do not,
the doctors are being asked to pay an over the average increase in
pensions contributions compared with other public sector workers.
3.
The doctors are taking out their frustration on the patients! The
Tories shed crocodile tears for the sick and elderly who will lose out
if the doctors are forced to take strike action. The logic of this
argument is that workers in the professions which are involved in the
emergency services can never take action but must accept what the bosses
offer them because if they do not, they risk endangering lives.
The
argument that must be made in opposition to the slander thrown at all
workers, is that the planned 25% cuts to the public sector across the
board is what really endangers lives.
We
only have to look at Greece today, where hospitals are being closed
down and medical supplies are not making their way into the hospitals
that remain open. The cuts to the public sector are not being carried
out by the doctors but by the Greek and European bourgeoisie who are not
concerned with the human cost, only the health of the capitalist
system.
In
fact, it is the heroic Greek health workers like the ones in Kilkis,
near Thessalonika, who have the patients interests at heart, regardless
of whether they are being paid. They have taken over their hospital
despite the austerity and are keeping it running in order that the
public have somewhere to go. But such a situation cannot last
indefinitely. Over-stretched, under-paid and exhausted doctors with
diminished resources and a skeleton support staff will only undermine
the ability of any doctor or nurse, no matter how dedicated, to care for
their patients.
Health
Minister Andrew Lansley, according to the BMA website, told NHS
managers that “…if doctors’ contribution rates were left unchanged,
nurses earning £30,000 a year would see their take-home pay fall by £100
per month to cover the shortfall.” The Tories hold the gun to other
health-sector workers and ask the doctors to come quietly, without a
fight.
It
is also a lie that pensions have become less affordable. Since 2000
contributions to public sector pensions has increased by 56%, faster
than the increase in payments (38%). The only reason that the existing
pension pot looks strained is because it has been used to help bail-out
the banks.
This
destroys the myth of there being “too many old people” for decent
pensions. Productivity in the last century has completely outstripped
the increase in that part of the population that draws a pension. Erik
Rauch of the Michigan Institute of Technology, looking at the statistics
in the USA, shows that the average productivity of labour has increased
400% since 1950:
“An
average worker needs to work a mere 11 hours per week to produce as
much as one working 40 hours per week in 1950… And, if the
productivity measures have any meaning, the average worker could have a
29-hour workweek if he were satisfied with producing as much as a
40-hour worker as recently as 1990.”
The
question of pensions is not an exclusively British problem, but is
under attack throughout the capitalist world. And the trends are the
same when it comes to productivity. Broadly speaking the increase in
productivity in Britain in the same period has been the same. The
increase in the number of pensioners in Britain from 1949 to today has
gone from 4 to 10.5 million, a rise of 250%, far behind the increase in
productivity.
The
only reason why a working population that can produce 4 times the
amount of value cannot sustain a pension population only 2.5 times
larger is because, on the one hand, the inability for capitalism to
utilise that productivity and at the same time make a worthwhile
profit, i.e. the problem of overproduction, a shrinking market and
unemployment; and on the other hand the huge public debt that has been
created to sustain the banks that the Tories represent. In other words
the attack on pensions has nothing to do with an ageing population and
everything to do with making working people pick up the bill for the
crisis of capitalism.
The
myth of “gold-plated” pensions is being used against all sections of
the working class to pit worker against worker. It is the argument of
those who see need no alternative to austerity. Sections of the
workforce who may have considered themselves privileged in the past,
such as the doctors and the police, are receiving a rude awakening in
the light of a crisis that is far from over, but has only just begun.
The
action of the doctors is part of the overall process of radicalisation
that is taking place throughout the working class. More and more,
workers everywhere are drawing the conclusion that in order to defend
the conditions of the past, a fight must be waged. Ultimately this is
intolerable to the bosses, who will not pay for the crisis but attempt
to sweat it out of the brows of ordinary workers. Therefore the question
of who runs society must be posed.
The
British Medical Association needs to make this case, and link up with
other public sector trade unions whose members are undergoing the same
attacks, to make their action effective.
