Victory – albeit limited – at San Raffaele hospital
Submitted by StrugglesInItaly on May 20 2013 09:16
After months of difficult struggle – in which workers blocked major roads, occupied rooftops and fought with police – an agreement has been reached at Milan’s San Raffaele hospital. The agreement was reached with unions early on the morning of Friday 10th May, after 16 hours of negotiation, and was finally accepted by workers on the 16th after a series of assemblies.
As with the previous agreement, which was rejected by workers earlier this year, all redundancies have been stopped in return for workers accepting a 9% cut in pay. The 66 workers who had already received redundancy notices will also be reinstated.
Strikes and scuffles in Milan to defend public healthcare
Submitted by StrugglesInItaly on May 9 2013 09:35
Health workers across the Lombardia region took part in a 24-hour strike on Wednesday 8th May, as part of the ongoing struggle against 244 redundancies at San Raffaele Hospital. Already, 66 workers have been served with redundancy letters, effective immediately.
However, while officially about the current struggle at San Raffaele, many health workers see this as part of a wider struggle to defend public healthcare, with workers displaying banners saying “Healthcare is a public good”. As one striking worker told Struggles in Italy, the attack on workers at San Raffaele is “part of a wider attempt to open up healthcare to the private sector”.
Consumer Medicine: what sort of power do we have?
Submitted by s.nappalos on May 5 2013 22:26
An article about the role of power in the medical system from the perspective of a healthcare worker.
In The Subject and Power, Michael Foucault lays out a framework for understanding relationships between how we are placed as subjects, power, institutionalized power, and struggles surrounding these issues [1].
Hospital workers fight police in Milan
Submitted by StrugglesInItaly on Apr 21 2013 17:07
Healthcare workers at the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan protest after receiving the first 40 letters of redundancy. After a general assembly, the struggling workers occupied the hospital reception and the roof of the building, prompting the heavy-handed response by police.
It has been a week of renewed struggle at Milan’s San Raffaele Hospital, with mass meetings, rooftop occupations, demonstrations and fights with the police.
Callout for submissions: depression and the class struggle
Submitted by Chilli Sauce on Apr 7 2013 07:53
A number of us have begun work on a pamphlet/online text which seeks to offer advice to those who suffer from depression. While the bulk of the text is complete, we’re still looking for submissions from those who’ve dealt with depression, how it’s affected their involvement in class politics, and what strategies folks have found useful for managing mental health in general.
It’s no secret that depression is common in the class struggle community. Coming out of a libcom discussion thread, we realized there was a need for a simple text to which those who are suffering from depression could be directed.
South London Women’s Hospital occupation 1984-85 - Past Tense
Submitted by Jim Clarke on Feb 6 2013 10:10
Past Tense tell the inside story of the work-in and occupation of a women's hospital in South London faced with closure.
First I’ll give you some background on hospital occupations, which goes back to the late 1970s. In the early 1970s both the private and private sector was being restructured: partly in response to IMF directives, and in response to the relatively high wages and defenses (‘restrictive’ work practices that workers built up through the years.
Healthcare workers: where we stand-fighting on two fronts
Submitted by Between Your Teeth on Jan 23 2013 01:18
Basic overview of the terrain that health workers defending their terms and conditions is being fought on; Fighting both their employers, as well as a supine and complicit trade union bureaucracy. Written by a Solidarity Federation/Anarchist Federation dual carder and Unison steward working in Healthcare.
UK health workers find themselves under the biggest attack on wages and terms and conditions in living memory.
Are communities of care a possible site of struggle?
Submitted by Operaista on Jan 2 2013 02:00
Raising the question of whether intentional communities of care can be a site of struggle, rather than just a place of support.
I have personal experiences in creating and expanding communities of care, street medicing, radical mental health, as an herbalist initially trained through an informal apprenticeship, and in radical clinics.
Anarchy #17
Issue 17 of Anarchy magazine with articles on healthcare, letters and book reviews.
USI-AIT hospital workers strike in Florence
Submitted by Ed on Dec 22 2012 12:20
On 12 December 2012, the workers at Careggi hospital in Florence went on strike against the proposal by the company, made unilaterally and signed by the mainstream CGIL and CISL unions, setting new working hours and annual scheduling of holidays, a shift requiring maximum flexibility for workers.
About 300 workers came to the demonstration called by Cobas and USI-AIT, in the realm of the strike called by Fials. Workers and delegates from Uil Careggi also took part, with their flags.
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