privatisation

The Bangkok Post reported that the State Railways of Thailand (SRT) labour union will resume striking against the Surayud government next month if the authorities fail to meet its demands involving the controversial leases of SRT property to the private sector and revision of SRT privatisation schemes.

The strikes were called after the company and its administrator failed to give the unequivocal guarantees on jobs, transfers and pensions that the union is seeking.

"The letter we have received from Metronet and the administrator falls way short of the guarantees our members need and deserve," RMT general secretary Bob Crow said today

Some hospitals have given up the strike, some hospitals are concluding private deals with doctors. Nurses have organised separately from the doctors with a slightly different agenda. And it well may turn out that the results of the strike are strikingly different salaries for health care workers throughout Poland and increased privatization of the health care industry.

While management tried to downplay the effects of the strike, the CWU claimed that members supported the strikes in overwhelming numbers. Post Office Limited (POL) Head Office was placed in disarray due to severe staff shortages as managers were once again forced to travel at great cost across the country to cover members’ jobs.

The Doctor’s Strike and the Nurses’ Occupation

The BBC reported that all flights in and out of Ryanair's Belgian hub at Charleroi airport were grounded on Friday after security staff walked out in a wildcat strike.

A row over the privatisation of public sector security personnel caused the disruption, which began at dawn and spread to Liege airport in the east.

An estimated 8,000 passengers have been affected by the action so far.

30 years ago: Rita Ward and the Great Northampton Hospital ‘lie-in”
We hear a lot these days about the ‘creeping privatisation’ of the NHS. We have a Labour government committed to turning our free National Health Service into just another business along the lines of the American model, which sees poor people refused medical treatment because they can’t afford it.

The trouble started when a train broke down 600 metres from Constitucion station, south of Buenos Aires. After 20 minutes a group of passengers (these trains are packed solid with no air conditioning and little ventilation) walked to the station to demand answers. When they did not get any they began to destroy the information offices.

Staff are demanding that the government honour long-standing promises over wages and contracts. Specifically they are asking for pay rises that were due in 1996, 1997 and 1998. Furthermore they are demanding that all employees be advanced 4 levels on the pay scale. They are calling for a long service bonus for staff.

The main reason for the action is the government-backed plans for the distribution of electricity, selling the network to Eirgrid, a state-owned private limited company, which workers see as a step towards privatisation and a loss of the rights held by state employees.

Following a demonstration of approximately 200 people against the cutbacks, 100 attempted to enter the "open" council meeting. They were refused entry, being told there was insufficient room in the chamber.

The often-successful struggles are over wages, jobs and privatisation at a time when prices are rising, government-owned industries are being sold off and jobs are being slashed.

Dan Morrison on sfgate.com reported:

Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, which reported a £16. 7m deficit last year, has sent staff a letter asking them to work unpaid for a day, take six months unpaid leave, take voluntary redundancy or defer taking five days of their holiday until next year to help balance its books.

A leading NHS watchdog has attacked the government’s excuses for continuing their flagship Independent Sector Treatment Centre (ISTC) programme, even in the face of criticism from their own health committee.

ISTCs are private-sector providers of operations which are currently being licensed by the government as an alternative to the NHS.

The plans come despite the apparent NHS 'budget crisis', which the government says makes their program of hospital closures and part-privatisations a neccessity. In recent months a series of mass demonstrations against these cuts have seen thousands take to the streets in towns accross the country.

Article about Irish bus workers organising a fare free day on 18 July 2003, in which they allowed passengers to travel for free in protest against privatisation of the services.

United under the banner "NHS Together", doctors, nurses, midwives and support staff rallied in Parliament Square to protest at the pace of NHS reform, financial cutbacks and the government's use of the private sector in health care provision. The protestors were also joined by members of the National Pensioners Convention and the Keep Our NHS Public group.

Last week the tenants of the Boundary and 3 other East End estates voted to reject the intense campaigning and enticements offered by vested interests to transfer their homes to a private Housing Association landlord. Despite a lack of investment in their homes due to funding cuts by central government, they chose to stay with Tower Hamlets Council as their landlord.

Police said that 7,000 turned out in Haywards Heath, West Sussex, where local press and even Tory MPs (despite privatisation being a core Tory policy) have been publicly speaking out in support of the march against cuts at the local hospital.

The British National Health Service is massively under-funded, overstretched and under-staffed. Over twenty years of Tory-initiated privatisation have wrecked the already-imperfect health system, leaving it bureaucratic and top heavy, and driven by government targets rather than the health of the population.