HOSPITAL WORKERS in Wessex will be urged to stop work for half-an-hour on 11 September, the anniversary of the bloody overthrow of the Allende government in Chile.
The news that the Wessex hospitals shop stewards have made the call for the stoppage was announced at a demonstration in Portsmouth last Saturday organised by the local Chile Solidarity Campaign.
About 130 people marched through Portsmouth city centre to the main gate of the dockyard to protest against the presence of two frigates supplied by the Government to the Chilean junta. At the dockyard the demonstrators observed a two minutes silence in memory of all those murdered by the Chilean junta.
Another step forward for the solidarity campaign was taken in Newport last week. After an IMG public meeting in the town with Tariq Ali, local EEPTU convenor Roy Morgan and Ken Holmes of the Labour Party, a local Chile Solidarity Campaign committee has been set up. One of the committee's tasks is to prepare for a 'Chile week' in the autumn to include the planned national half-hour stoppage on 11 September.
This planned stoppage is now gathering support up and down the country and all trade unionists should ensure that they come out on that day. Such protest strikes will help to spread the idea that action needs to be taken against the junta, and to prepare for a really massive national demonstration on 15 September.