Radical Healthcare Workers website/group

nice one magnifico, the blog looks good, aside from some slight colour clashes. look forward to seeing what happend with it.

Counter organizing against industrial organization in healthcare is reactionary not radical.

Is it counter organizing? Looks like political organizing in an industrial base, which surely, even you would think has its place thuggy. That can actually drive industrial organizing in positive ways.

As David says we never said we were 'counter-organising', as far as I know we're all members of various mainstream unions and have no plans to leave. Or do you (thug) consider any group of workers who disagree with their sell-out union leadership as 'counter-organising' scabs, a new low in your defence of union stooge full-timers - but I suppose at least you're being loyal to your class interests. Also what's so bad if we did decide to start 'counter-organising'? You need to realise that some capitalist institutions are not reformable and must be destroyed, the state is one and UNISON is another.

Could I ask the admins if thugarchist comes back with any more of this type of bullshit could it be split to thought for a discussion on whether or not we should all lick our union bosses' arseholes, rather than it clogging up this thread which is for trying to organise something.

Thanks you other guys, we've just started out and aren't sure how to get rid of those colour clashes just yet! we'll get the hang of it though. a lot of people are looking at the site so once we've come up with a coherent plan hopefully things can take off

If it was a specific organization geared towards developing cohesive politics and bringing them into the industrial organization in healthcare then I'm all for it. However, these things are always just loose networks of the disaffected who then engage more against their own interests as a class than against bosses. As for your unions in the UK... we have plans for them from across the pond. You will be assimilated.

I like this idea, use the Americans to organise workers into unions, do all the hard work and split and form independant unions that operate more or less the same way. Y'know like the Canadian Autoworkers, BC Carpenters Union etc. American unions are taking a real kicking in Canda (except unite-here which seems to be growing).

I'm not saying it's in violation of some rule, or that you shouldn't be allowed to say it (though i think a case could be made that it's not the best use of our time in debating with union bureaucrats who are against rank and file organisation on libcom in the same way as there's no point debating with tories, or fascists), i was merely asking that the debate on whether disagreeing with a union full-timer is reactionary could be split to 'thought' where it belongs, leaving this thread in 'organise' to organise something without being clogged up with your crap, is all.

He didn't say that though, did he?

You got it.

Just for clarifications sake though... if a subject is in organize its not appropriate to disagree with the concept but it is ok to say "good idea" and such?

No no. I'm a firm believer in rules.

This is an awesome idea! I've never seen anything as daring.

The colours are my fault. Yes, it was a case of picking a theme that looked ok and had the features I wanted and then not having the skills to fix the colours.

I mean I could probably figure out how to change the css, but then I'd have to decide on colours. Should it b red n black - which magnifico and i would like, but might be too much for others? It kind of segues neatly onto discussions about who and why we are.

So, here's why i think its a worthwhile initiative. Obviously others may have different ideas. We're still early on.

To raise level of militancy and awareness in our workplaces. eg Producing prop as an individual is hard. as an organisation the load is spread and the newsletter etc can then also be shared to be distributed in diff workplaces.

To disseminate news, disputes and relevant campaigns. Several on our email list so far are libertarian hcw (healthcare workers) that never come to libcom or indymedia. Anyway stuff is quickly buried on both of those. (though the libcom health newsfeed is cool to be embedded onto the site) And mainstream channels of communication such as our regular unions cannot be at all relied on. The fact that we know about eg the blood dispute allows us to 1) act as individs in supportive actions 2) hassle our regular union branches to show solidarity 3) share ideas and info. 4) provide a place for such info to reach much wider audience

To network to better organise interventions within existing unions if that is deemed useful. ~shrug~ i'm ambivalent and think its a tactical decision either way on usefulness in an individual circumstance.

To act as a route in to more radical ideas/politics for dissatisfied hcw who can see how its relevant o their lives because of the focus on how it affects something so meaningful to them.

To develop critiques and possibilities for healthcare systems.

As we are all at some time or another face-to-face with conservatism etc within our workplaces, we can support each other.

There's no point in organising to raise union levels within healthcare - i doubt any of my workmates are not already unionised. but in nursing they'll be either (like me!) in Royal College of Nursing "Its not [privatisation] we have a problem with, its the pace of change" (conservative about our Conservatism... ) or Unison... :-L

And I could just work on IU 610 (IWW healthcare industrial union) but i think there's a value in working not just within IWW (though i'm active within it) and i'm enjoying working with eg solfed members on this.

If you use my advice to make that whole site red and black, I'll be sad

(let me know if we should move this thread somewhere else. Maybe discussing the colourscheme for a peripheral barely there yet organisation's blog doesn't belong in "organise" despite me being unable to talk about anything but radical hcw and our stats for the last few days. "Just. One. More. Refresh. Of. Stats. Page. Before. Bed." )

This was the original banner : http://testingsandbox.wordpress.com/ (obviously (?) the text in the banner is configurable) The move to the lines was in response to comments that it was too dark at the top. dundee_united and anarchoal were quite constructive in their criticism.

I like red and black! But I do appreciate that while thats my preference, the Minnie the Minx look (ok, and Dennis) doesn't work for everyone...

Personally I'd prefer it if I wasn't involved in the design side at all as I have no aesthetic eye at all.

The site looks good. Good to see positive organising coming out of the anarchist bookfair.

No, it's a closely guarded secret, we certainly don't want anyone else getting involved, especially brighton hippies

Oh go on then, thanks that'd be great