In early August the nurses at High croft Hospital in Birmingham went on 24 hour strike the first time that nurses have taken actual strike action in this country.
The joint uction taken by NUPB and CORSE members was in direct defiance of the national decisions of both unions. The response to the strike call was ulmost 100%, only a few senior nurses turned up for work. (for whuch they are unlikely to get paid as the management said they were acting as volunters).
The picket line at the hospital showed the militancy of the rank and file nursing staff. At one point there was as many as 70 pickets. A change nurse on the picket line said that in many hospitals in the area the feeling was for strike action hut that no-one wanted to take action alone. He hoped that Highcrolt had now shown the way and that any future action would be spread amongst many bospitals in the arta.
One ssue which did annoy many of the strikers was that the management made no stipulation that the volunteers used to man the hospital should be qualified. As one striker said, 'half of those volunteers are just going in for a look round'. A patient said that he had gone to the drugs cupboard himself and pointed out to the volunteers which pill he should have.
On the Friday before the strike. members of the Working Women's Charter Campaign in Birmingham leafletted the Nurses' Hornes with copies of the Charter and at the strike meeting, altbough no-one from the campaign was present, the women cormented it's the best thing to happen to women trades-unionists for years!
COHSE have sent national presentatives to Birmingham to calm down some success. Al Highcroft Hospital, however, a decision has been taken re waiting for support from othe sospitals in the itea as there is som lear of reprisals being taken upainst the strike leaders at Highcroft.
Moves are also underway in Birmingham to spread the initiative taken at Highcroft so that not oaly other hospitals but other members of the trade union movement are BIRMINGHAM BRANCH HIMG).
LETTER Dear Edicor, Enote that in the last issue of the Red Weekly you report the demand of the