Speaker 1: Welcome to do do it can happen here a podcast increasingly
Speaker 1: about nurses strikes and yeah, this is part two of
Speaker 1: our Inny of You with Nick, a nurse in the UK. Enjoy.
Speaker 1: We've entered the tafty Turviya land where the RCNC used
Speaker 1: to be the people who are like leading on the
Speaker 1: militancy in this in this French where yeah, yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think part of it comes down to is because
Speaker 1: the RCM was historically for a sneaking part city was
Speaker 1: not a union, became a union late in the day
Speaker 1: for then eight was for ages anti strike. A lot
Speaker 1: of unions because like we can talk about the John
Speaker 1: critique of unions and particularly like institutional unions, how they
Speaker 1: service providers, how they build up like a protective bureaucracy
Speaker 1: against Burton struggle or against like glass roots militancy. The
Speaker 1: RCM it's not a particularly democratic as these things go,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't have that kind of built up institutional
Speaker 1: inertia in the trade union side because historically it hasn't
Speaker 1: needed it, and that meant I think it was actually
Speaker 1: far more susceptible. It's two grassroots pressure and militancy then
Speaker 1: some of the other more established unions were and that's all, Oh, sorry, no,
Speaker 1: and that kind of like was the thin end of
Speaker 1: the webs that the rcenter taker's bostrong stance over the
Speaker 1: pay rise in response to like grassroots organizing and like
Speaker 1: a demand from the grassroots to do that, which then
Speaker 1: results in them like batting for strike action first, which
Speaker 1: then meant other unions had to and then we got
Speaker 1: the and then the cascade of like strikes in the
Speaker 1: NHS have occurred since then. So this is this is
Speaker 1: a very very broad question to be asking, but how
Speaker 1: how have the strikes has been going. That's kind of
Speaker 1: a differ got one to say. So Scotland, for instance,
Speaker 1: has not been called out, has not actually had any
Speaker 1: strike days because the Scottish government went into negotiations to
Speaker 1: begin with and then made an offer, it was rejected,
Speaker 1: strikes were announced, they made another, agreed to come back
Speaker 1: to negotiations. So like it's been effective in getting something
Speaker 1: moving in Scotland. Their current offer of fifteen percent over
Speaker 1: two years, so six something this year, five something next
Speaker 1: year is currently being voted on by the RCA membership.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not a good but it's a significant
Speaker 1: movement of what came before Wales. The Welsh government, after
Speaker 1: saying no, we can't have any more money. We can't.
Speaker 1: We literally can't because Westminster controls our budget. Westminster won't
Speaker 1: give us any more budget for this has now made
Speaker 1: an improved, an improved offer. It's crap, but it's like
Speaker 1: something it's forcome to shift when they were claiming it
Speaker 1: was physically impost for them to do it, which every
Speaker 1: single time, like I can think of exactly one time
Speaker 1: ever where I've seen an employer make that demand and
Speaker 1: it was actually true. But this is not like that.
Speaker 1: That was that was like what Norfolk Southern in like
Speaker 1: like the nineteen seventies, and it was only true once
Speaker 1: and it's never been true ever since then. Like you
Speaker 1: will hear this from every fucking employer who you attempt
Speaker 1: to go on track against, and they're always lying, like
Speaker 1: every single time. What I will say is like in
Speaker 1: the case of Wales, it is very true. The Welsh
Speaker 1: government's budget is set by Westminster, by the CeNSE of government,
Speaker 1: so it's a lie, but it's a plausible lie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And Wales is generally massively Wales is like some of
Speaker 1: the highest rates of child poverty outside of Eastern Europe.
Speaker 1: In Europe, the reasons. Part of the reasons for this
Speaker 1: is because the Wales government is chronically underfunded. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: due to political desinis has made in England, but it's
Speaker 1: still not true. And then in England, like it's got
Speaker 1: to the point where a government who are categorically opposed
Speaker 1: to any negotiations with trade unions have actually come to
Speaker 1: negotiating tables. So from that, although a suspective, loads of
Speaker 1: preconditions that haven't been publicly talked about, and they're going
Speaker 1: to not make a credible offer in my view and
Speaker 1: as a stalling tactic, but the fact they even chose
Speaker 1: to come to the table at all. I hate saying
Speaker 1: this because it makes it's the kind of thing that
Speaker 1: makes people complacent. But that is actually quite big that
Speaker 1: the Conservative government actually agreed to do it, to come
Speaker 1: to negotiating table. Stopped hiding behind oh there's an independent
Speaker 1: paybody that decides these things. Stop saying it's we can't
Speaker 1: afford to fund the NHS anymore. Actually just coming and
Speaker 1: sitting at the table at all to negotiate. It's like
Speaker 1: a big movement of itself. Now if we talk about
Speaker 1: numbers of participation in strikes. There's been a lot of difficulties,
Speaker 1: a lot of nowhere near as many people have participated
Speaker 1: in the strikes as should have been. I will be
Speaker 1: frank and say so now we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: the derogations, the situation delegations, which is like the RN
Speaker 1: voluntarily saying we will allow this many people to continue
Speaker 1: working these days and these areas in order to maintain
Speaker 1: patient safety, which is, on one hand, we don't want
Speaker 1: any patients to die obviously, on the other hand, it's
Speaker 1: a very easily abused stance to take. And there are
Speaker 1: just nurses who are other trade unions who who aren't
Speaker 1: a trade unions as well, and ultimately, if they want
Speaker 1: that not to happen, they need to just come to
Speaker 1: the table earlier. And so this results in a process
Speaker 1: where so by to you and like time sensitive chemo
Speaker 1: and pediatric A and ees were derogated by default, and
Speaker 1: then there was an agreement of if the wards had
Speaker 1: less than like nighttime numbers, we would agreed for a
Speaker 1: small amount of our of our membership to go in
Speaker 1: to work on those wards to maintain nighttime numbers for
Speaker 1: the sake of patients safety. But that had to be
Speaker 1: applied form on a case by case bas basis. But
Speaker 1: there's a couple of problems with this one. Trust just
Speaker 1: not taking it seriously, lying and not trying to establish
Speaker 1: these things to make accurate requests, leaving it to the
Speaker 1: last minute, and then asking for blanket derogations. We don't
Speaker 1: know if it's going to be safe or not. Managers
Speaker 1: like ward managers not actually knowing what was agreed and
Speaker 1: to giving incorrect information to their staff, people not understanding
Speaker 1: what was of wasn't derogated, And just generally it was
Speaker 1: a system that was very open to abuse, and so
Speaker 1: like a lot of a lot of things were just
Speaker 1: left open in general or like that shouldn't have been
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I know that it didn't
Speaker 1: happen in every case, but like there was a success
Speaker 1: in like members the strike committee going around wards and
Speaker 1: saying no, you're over number, you need to come out,
Speaker 1: and people doing it. Of like surgeries being canceled, like
Speaker 1: elective surgeries, nontime sensitive surgeries being canceled due to it,
Speaker 1: of like really making hospital managers sweat over like proving
Speaker 1: each thing needed to happen they wanted needed to happen.
Speaker 1: Those days, all of it's built up. Even if we
Speaker 1: didn't get the full amount of people we should have
Speaker 1: had out on strike, on strike really built up the
Speaker 1: pressure significant degrees from them to then put the pressure
Speaker 1: up the chain of the NHS to the government's like
Speaker 1: we can't keep on going on like this. And at
Speaker 1: the same time each set of strikes, the number of
Speaker 1: people participating did increase, so like, for instance, I've just
Speaker 1: got the government statistics from that the fifteenth of December,
Speaker 1: I think it is so this was the first strike
Speaker 1: day that was called. It was nine thousand, nine hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety nine absences due to industrial action. Then on
Speaker 1: the twentieth it was eleven thousand, five hundred and nine.
Speaker 1: Then on the eighteenth and nineteenth of January, and just
Speaker 1: one important factor, they didn't call all hospitals out at once.
Speaker 1: Again I think a mistake of strategic mistakes should have
Speaker 1: gone hard, gone hard fast. But the argue was we
Speaker 1: just we don't have the facilities to organize all of
Speaker 1: this effectively on all of these last amounts, because like
Speaker 1: it was a huge amount of trusts they needed to
Speaker 1: do that with. But then on those days it was
Speaker 1: then eleven thousand, three hundred and sixty three and eleven thousand,
Speaker 1: two hundred and nineteen across those two days. Then in
Speaker 1: February it was fifteen thousand, nine hundred ninety eight, and
Speaker 1: then I'm fourteen on the second day, fourteen thousand and
Speaker 1: then fifty eight to people, which is far lower than
Speaker 1: it should have been. I can't remember how many people
Speaker 1: there are nursed are on the NHS, so I should
Speaker 1: have had that statissecretity, but it's not an inconsiderate amount.
Speaker 1: It meant lots about patients appointments being canceled, a lot
Speaker 1: of surgeries being canceled, a lot of chaos and stress
Speaker 1: for the managers of the NHS and therefore for the government.
Speaker 1: Are looking really bad for them. And it's a clear
Speaker 1: upwards trajectory, which meant that when they are seeing announced
Speaker 1: we're going to do two days consecutive, we're not. We're
Speaker 1: going to keep it going through the night, which they
Speaker 1: han't done previously, and we're not doing derogations. I to
Speaker 1: you will be staffed. I think we're not doing anything else.
Speaker 1: I think no even it TOU wasn't staffed. We'd considered
Speaker 1: on a case by case basis, we won't be considered
Speaker 1: what sorry, intensive care, I see you for America. Actually okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: So that meant that at that point the government prob like, okay,
Speaker 1: we need to move to a new delaying tactic. They're
Speaker 1: not just going to give up. And I think with that,
Speaker 1: as it went on, like people were itching and itching
Speaker 1: to go further. And so for instance, like A and
Speaker 1: E was derogated, So which is the area I work in?
Speaker 1: But like a lot of people and this is reflective
Speaker 1: of like most areas that were derogated. When I spoke
Speaker 1: to people, we weren't them like, no, we need to
Speaker 1: be out, we need to be out the picket line.
Speaker 1: And like after the first two rounds, there was also
Speaker 1: a growing effort to like try and find out from
Speaker 1: the membership of what the actual situation was. So unlike
Speaker 1: staffing on the wards, because all wards are chronically understaffed.
Speaker 1: So when they said, oh, well neath this, aren't people
Speaker 1: who say, no, we know that's alive, we know one
Speaker 1: nights there's actually only three registered nurses. There's not the
Speaker 1: four you're claiming and stuff like that. It's again I
Speaker 1: think it was a really positive move in like embedding
Speaker 1: a kind of like workers, inquiry of workers nor it's
Speaker 1: about their workplace into the organizing of the strike that
Speaker 1: had been quite a top down process. But yeah, and
Speaker 1: I'm kind of worried about how this delay and break
Speaker 1: in the strike action will affect that momentum that had
Speaker 1: been building up. I think, like to a large degree,
Speaker 1: people are like itching to go again, and I think
Speaker 1: that desire to go again is building as it goes.
Speaker 1: Like when it initially happened, but this social instally called off,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of like trust, like in like
Speaker 1: the big WhatsApp groups and stuff and talk to people,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of like people thinking of at
Speaker 1: least I don't know if this was represent general opinion,
Speaker 1: but people being quite Vocnate Beau say no, we need
Speaker 1: to trust like Pat knows what she's doing, they wouldn't
Speaker 1: have called it off of this thing. It's like it's
Speaker 1: getting more and more those people being like, no, we
Speaker 1: need to, we need to go, we need to we
Speaker 1: need to get back on the picket line. And there's
Speaker 1: been a petition that's been going around that's been getting
Speaker 1: quite a bit of news, like setting out some hard
Speaker 1: lines like four to the end R and C leadership
Speaker 1: about what kind of stuff they should accept, like saying, no,
Speaker 1: we need to stick to the above inflation busting, we
Speaker 1: need to not compromise on this, we need to not
Speaker 1: compromise in this, which is I think got eight hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty signatures at the moment. It doesn't sound like
Speaker 1: a huge amount, but like again you're going through quite
Speaker 1: a lot of immersia of like attitude of like you've
Speaker 1: got to leave it to the leadership among the membership,
Speaker 1: even when they were unhappy with it. And it's only
Speaker 1: a thousand signatures that are necessary in the RCNSU where
Speaker 1: the RCM works to call an extraordinary general meeting, which
Speaker 1: they can do pretty much whatever it wants. And that's
Speaker 1: how the leadership in two and eighteen was kicked out
Speaker 1: after the bad pay deal. Then well that's really interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so like the very undemocratic except for this one particular thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: is it is it a normal thing? That? Is it
Speaker 1: like a normal thing for unions in the in the
Speaker 1: UK or is that just like a most most I
Speaker 1: think all unions have of an amount of people set
Speaker 1: amount where if like memberships calling for an extraordinary general meeting,
Speaker 1: they have to do it. The RCNS one is really
Speaker 1: low interesting essentially, and like there were some moves were
Speaker 1: like people in the r C a least say, oh,
Speaker 1: we need to change it, we need to give it
Speaker 1: a v we need we need to raise it to
Speaker 1: be more in line with other unions. But that again
Speaker 1: is something that will have to that if that does happen,
Speaker 1: that kind of change we'd have to go through like
Speaker 1: a membership wide vote. It's not something the executive leadership
Speaker 1: could just impose. That's good. Yeah, So like there is
Speaker 1: a process of like these strikes were like a result
Speaker 1: of like increasing general level of militancy with among nurses
Speaker 1: in general and among NHS workers. And I think particularly
Speaker 1: because everyone knows it's awful the situation, and then with
Speaker 1: like a slightly more organized than spearing it the resulted
Speaker 1: in that in that petition in twenty eighteen, arguing for
Speaker 1: stuff at like compass and things, and then that's all
Speaker 1: actual strike has like got the membership feeling like they
Speaker 1: should have a more active role, and I think it's
Speaker 1: pushing things in a positive direction, even though I think
Speaker 1: the rc AND leadership has gotten to a point where
Speaker 1: by mistake, it ended up way ahead of the other
Speaker 1: unions and it's now trying to beg attle, but I don't.
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of potential for like more
Speaker 1: glass roots organized by the membership to prevent that happening. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We are in a difficult position though that the time
Speaker 1: is running out. Strike mandates in the UK only last
Speaker 1: for six months. We are when the government that greed
Speaker 1: negotiations were to and a half months left of the mandate.
Speaker 1: It's now two months left of the mandate. You have
Speaker 1: to give two weeks notice before strike action. Oh so
Speaker 1: that's that that that's that's what to sort of like
Speaker 1: run out the clock strategies about on their side. Okay,
Speaker 1: that makes sense exactly. Now, nothing's to stop us from reballoting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it will be a whole process. It has to
Speaker 1: be a month. You have to go through the mail. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it will be drawn out. We'll buy them a lot
Speaker 1: more time. Yeah, that's postal workers I think are on
Speaker 1: strike again today too, I think maybe, I think so,
Speaker 1: let me, I've got the strike calendar up on my computer.
Speaker 1: Let's see who's on strike and absolutely fraud. I have
Speaker 1: it on my other computer, but I don't have it
Speaker 1: on this one. Yeah, so days the fifteen today Amazon's
Speaker 1: on striking, Coventry, the BBC's regil services, the civil service,
Speaker 1: which will kind of be equivalent to like a federal
Speaker 1: stuff um in America. So like fince, it's my dad,
Speaker 1: who's a Health and safety inspector is on strike today,
Speaker 1: h MRC, which is the tax officers on strike, junior
Speaker 1: doctors on strike, off stead, the School of Structors on
Speaker 1: spike strike, the rail the two main rail unions on strike,
Speaker 1: teaches on strike, and university stuff on strike. Not the
Speaker 1: postal service today. But yeah, yeah, well I guess, I
Speaker 1: guess I wanted to ask a bit about that too,
Speaker 1: about sort of just what what's been happening. I don't
Speaker 1: know what what what you see as sort of the
Speaker 1: potential of the of the broader strikes have been happening,
Speaker 1: because this is this is a I don't know, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not it's not like a like it's
Speaker 1: it's not like a nineteen seventies style like strike wave,
Speaker 1: but it's it's a lot of strikes for the UK
Speaker 1: in the last decade. It's it's big like that isn't
Speaker 1: the level of cross union corporation and talks that you
Speaker 1: would want. There's a lot of like people turning up
Speaker 1: to each other's picket lines. There's a lot of like
Speaker 1: solidarity present, but it's not coalescing into like a into
Speaker 1: like a unified movement, which you're hoping to be. Although
Speaker 1: I do think if something doesn't change, it is moving
Speaker 1: in that direction. And like the Conservative government is at
Speaker 1: like an all time loan it's popularity ratings. Yeah, I think.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're aware from this quote from
Speaker 1: Margaret that's about how her main political goal was remaking
Speaker 1: the soul of Britain away because like up until that
Speaker 1: period there was a very strong trade union movement in
Speaker 1: the UK that it had like one of the best
Speaker 1: social democracies in the world, like comparable to Scandinavia today
Speaker 1: it was. It was far more like a collective attitude
Speaker 1: in the UK. And like Margaret factor is explicit. I
Speaker 1: can't remember the exact quote explicit project and the project
Speaker 1: or the Conservative Party at the time. Let's not put
Speaker 1: it all on her, great woman thee of histories, as
Speaker 1: bad as great man of history, to move the soul
Speaker 1: of the like general social attitude and personality of like
Speaker 1: people in Britain away from that like orientations like community
Speaker 1: and collective struggle and action. And there is a part
Speaker 1: of me that feels like this is a move away
Speaker 1: from that, because like everyone you go to, there's winging
Speaker 1: about like an inconvenience caused by strike, but pretty much
Speaker 1: everyone is like, yeah, those they have it. It's awful
Speaker 1: for them all the strike drivers. Good on them for
Speaker 1: standing up for themselves. Good on the teachers for standing
Speaker 1: up for themselves. Good on postal workers were standing up
Speaker 1: for themselves. Good on nurses were standing up for themselves.
Speaker 1: Like the amount of like stuff I've been brought by
Speaker 1: people on the picket lines has been in It's like
Speaker 1: I each to day I've been like rolling down for
Speaker 1: hill from my hospital to my house like a bloated
Speaker 1: stomach from like stuff members of the public import and
Speaker 1: dropped off at the pick it line. It's um. It
Speaker 1: makes me feel like it's there is the optimist part
Speaker 1: of me. It does feel like there is a reorientation
Speaker 1: in general of British public to the idea that we
Speaker 1: don't have to put up with this, yeah, and you
Speaker 1: don't have to struggle and try and get it on
Speaker 1: your own. And like it's early days yet, but I
Speaker 1: do see something positive moving in that direction in the UK.
Speaker 1: As to this strike wave, Yeah, that's a that is
Speaker 1: I don't know that that is great news from a
Speaker 1: place that does not usually generate great news. This is
Speaker 1: like the this is the deeply optimistic part of me.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, do you have like bad a
Speaker 1: lot of bad news coming out of the UK. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like this strike wave is good news. It is the
Speaker 1: fact that it's happening in the NTS in particular, which
Speaker 1: has been so resistant to industrial action historically, and also
Speaker 1: just because of how what significant part of the economy
Speaker 1: it is as well, because like you know, the NHS
Speaker 1: is the eighth biggest employee in the world. Wow, you
Speaker 1: know it's in the world. That's that's wild. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: it used to be like the fifth biggest in the world. Wow,
Speaker 1: it's yeah. It used to only be that the American Army,
Speaker 1: the Chinese army, McDonald's of Walmart would be it would
Speaker 1: be overtaken by Amazon and such now but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: like like strike action, so like from like a worker's perspective,
Speaker 1: like strike action of like the largest section of the workforce,
Speaker 1: nurses in the NHS, the biggest flow in the world,
Speaker 1: leaving aside the situation for everything else in the UK,
Speaker 1: leaving aside their history of the opposition, like the active
Speaker 1: opposition to the idea of striking within nursing historically in
Speaker 1: the UK, is huge news and something to be hopeful about,
Speaker 1: and then put into context of the more border strikeway
Speaker 1: in the UK and within the NHS in general, this
Speaker 1: is huge and it is a sign I think or
Speaker 1: positive change and like reortation towards workplace struggle occurring. I think.
Speaker 1: So I've now heard two different places do this, which
Speaker 1: was I heard this in Chile in twenty nineteen, and
Speaker 1: I heard this also on my picket line at the
Speaker 1: University of Chicago in twenty nineteen, which is I had like,
Speaker 1: I this is this is the place deal liberalism was born,
Speaker 1: and we will kill it here. And I mean those
Speaker 1: are the three places, Yeah, Chicago and the UK. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think. I think also arguably Germany, although that has
Speaker 1: a whole other The d Libs aren't I think Aldo
Speaker 1: Libs from my understanding of from listening to some things
Speaker 1: about years ago, it's more of a family resemblance than
Speaker 1: the exact same thing as neoliberalism. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think if we're gonna I think they got absorbed into
Speaker 1: the neoliberal bubble so far as like like they're they're
Speaker 1: the order libs are where the neo liberals got the
Speaker 1: sort of like we need to have like an international bureaucracy,
Speaker 1: like the legal bureaucracy from like hyak is also like
Speaker 1: heavy of all. Yeah that that's that's a whole this right,
Speaker 1: But yeah, like it is. It is encouraging to me
Speaker 1: that it's like, I don't know, like like the it
Speaker 1: really does seem like in the places where the liberalism
Speaker 1: was bored, it's like it's starting to come apart. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know, I know people people have been predicting
Speaker 1: the death neoliberalism for like long, well almost as long
Speaker 1: as I've been alive. But I don't know this this
Speaker 1: like the fact that it's happening in these places seems
Speaker 1: different than it does seem look on it. I think
Speaker 1: it is significan can I think I'm I am cautiously
Speaker 1: excited every time I hope something bad happens, but I
Speaker 1: am hopeful now. And you know, my brain isn't magic,
Speaker 1: so it can't be a cause of effect there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I don't know. I mean, like you are the
Speaker 1: second person I've interviewed from the UK who actually seemed
Speaker 1: to be like somewhat optimistic about the direction you could
Speaker 1: possibly be going, which is the first time I've heard
Speaker 1: that in Like, I mean, I guess you're people who
Speaker 1: are optimistic about Corbin, but yeah, I don't know. This
Speaker 1: is this is the first sort of like signs of
Speaker 1: that since I don't know a long time, and I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: look like if I was honestly the American listeners, like,
Speaker 1: if turf Island isn't doomed, then we're not doomed either.
Speaker 1: I don't know. He's what I canna say. You're over
Speaker 1: taking us on that. It's true. Yeah we have Yeah,
Speaker 1: I am Yeah, I don't know when this is out,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna I'm going to be honest man. Like
Speaker 1: there's a lot of ways the UK is better than
Speaker 1: the MASTER. Yeah, the US like it's a it's a
Speaker 1: real disaster, like it's it's yeah. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: think we're both equally banned a lot of ways. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the things and the things that like people
Speaker 1: in the US look at England say this is awful,
Speaker 1: and the things people in the UK look at the
Speaker 1: US and say this is awful. It's it's kind of
Speaker 1: a a child looking at their parent and being pissed
Speaker 1: off at them, and a child and a child and
Speaker 1: a parent looking at their child and being disappointed in them. No, no,
Speaker 1: you both suck. It's family resemblance. It's we hate us
Speaker 1: for It's a narcissism of small differences, like yeah, between
Speaker 1: the US and the uk K a lot of the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess do you have anything else do you want
Speaker 1: to say about the strikes? I think the fact it
Speaker 1: got this far is incredible. There's so much further that
Speaker 1: needs to go. Um, I'm really excited and I'm really scared.
Speaker 1: I think this is a potential for like a turning
Speaker 1: point around, both for the NHS, but for my profession
Speaker 1: for nursing and also like in general in the context
Speaker 1: the widestrike page for the UK. But you know, the
Speaker 1: higher the stakes, the higher the perils. Like this is
Speaker 1: our I think this is our fight to lose essentially,
Speaker 1: Like I think if we do it, if we go
Speaker 1: seriously and like the membership takes controls of it from
Speaker 1: like the leader from their union leadership, which is very cautious,
Speaker 1: which has been put put into position of being more
Speaker 1: miller of like unprecedented mills to see almost by accident,
Speaker 1: we're trying to appease the membership. We can achieve something incredible,
Speaker 1: but it's really the book's open. It can go either way,
Speaker 1: and like I'm excited and I'm terrified by it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if people want to support the strikes, where can they go?
Speaker 1: Is there a strike fund they can donate to? Ye,
Speaker 1: the RCM has an open strike fund. I would invite
Speaker 1: anyone listening to donate too. I would also like find
Speaker 1: the articles about the petition they've been going around, like
Speaker 1: the mind of the rcmle ship takes the stronger stance,
Speaker 1: and like just share that around generally create more visibility
Speaker 1: on that. Yeah, well we'll put links to both of
Speaker 1: those in the description. Yeah, those are the main things
Speaker 1: I would suggest. Again, the national nature of this struggle
Speaker 1: and the fact that it's not even really against our
Speaker 1: direct employers makes it harder to talk specifically about this
Speaker 1: thing or that thing in some ways. But yeah, those
Speaker 1: are the two things I would ask, Like, the big
Speaker 1: our strike poll, the easier it is to argue for
Speaker 1: more aggressive action, and the more visibility goings on that petition,
Speaker 1: the more it'll take a lot more than a petition
Speaker 1: to like shift things to the roots, to being in
Speaker 1: the forefront and the leadership position of this. But it's
Speaker 1: something that will make people feel more empowered to put
Speaker 1: more pressure on the leadership. It's like a small stepping
Speaker 1: point towards what we need. I'd also like to recommend
Speaker 1: a book to anyone who wants to find out more
Speaker 1: about the history of the NHS and the current situation.
Speaker 1: Some commrades of mind, like from a group called the
Speaker 1: Ambi Workers and also revolution. I always forget the other group.
Speaker 1: They did it with his name, this is embarrassing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: anarchist communist group and Healthcare Workers United, which is like
Speaker 1: a network I'm involved in, put together a book called
Speaker 1: Sick of It, which is like a collection of workers
Speaker 1: inquiries and reflections on the NHS. It's history, it's potentials
Speaker 1: and what and it and stuff. That's really a great book.
Speaker 1: Sadly not available as any book, but it's it's an
Speaker 1: excellent read and like it'll tell you, we'll give you
Speaker 1: a real insight into what the NHS has been historically
Speaker 1: and what it is now. If anyone who's interested in that,
Speaker 1: that's awesome. Yeah, the angry workers are really cool. By
Speaker 1: the way, they're on Twitter. I probably should have. It's
Speaker 1: probably just angry workers. Yeah, yeah it is. Oh wait, no,
Speaker 1: I'm wrong, it's it's workers. It's at workers angry I
Speaker 1: think wait, no, no, it's yeah, it's at work. Is angry?
Speaker 1: It is? Yeah. Yeah, I'm not on Twitter. I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know about these things. It is. It is
Speaker 1: a cursed place. Um yeah, getting workased. Oh god. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you want to want to find us at Twitter,
Speaker 1: we are at cours and Media. Um yeah, we're also
Speaker 1: on Instagram. I'm told we're on Instagram. I don't have one,
Speaker 1: so I don't know. This is what I've been being
Speaker 1: told for many years. If we don't, don't tell me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and thank you all for listening, and yeah, go do
Speaker 1: your own strikes at make bosses lives miserable. Please. The
Speaker 1: most strikes are going on, the more people want to
Speaker 1: go on strike. Hey, it could happen here as a
Speaker 1: production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool
Speaker 1: Zone Media, visit our website cool Zonemedia dot com, or
Speaker 1: check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for
Speaker 1: it could happen here. Updated monthly at cool zonemedia dot
Speaker 1: com slash sources. Thanks for listening.