privatisation
NHS to start advertising
The government has announced plans to introduce marketing into the NHS alongside a pay-per-patient funding system that would see hospitals compete for patients and funds.
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.
Ireland bus fare-free day, 2003
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.
NHS staff protest outside parliament
Hundreds of NHS workers from 16 different Trade Unions rallied outside Parliament yesterday in opposition to health service privatisation.
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.
Oldest council estate says no to private landlord
In 1900 the Boundary Estate, just north of Brick Lane in the Whitechapel area of east London, became Britain's first council estate and, following a vote last week, it will continue to be so for the forseeable future.
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.
Mass demonstrations against NHS cuts
Thousands of people have been marching today against the ongoing NHS cuts that are part of ‘cost saving’ privatisation measures designed to create a for-profit health service.
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.
Health
Our analysis of what is wrong with the UK health system and National Health Service, the reasons behind it, and what we as ordinary people can do about it.
One-day national NHS strike
Workers at the supply agency NHS Logistics have walked out on a symbolic one-day strike to protest the planned privatisation of the logistics service, in the first national NHS strike for 18 years.
NHS Logistics is due to be sold to the transport company DHL at the beginning of October, and little more action is planned except potential further one-day strikes. According to Unison, other public-sector workers including fire-fighters and nurses have been visiting the pickets to show solidarity.
1993-1996: The Dublin fight against water charges
A short history of the successful direct action campaign of non-payment which prevented the imposition of charges for water in Dublin, Ireland.
Winning the water war
Iraqi oil union bank account frozen
The Iraqi regime has frozen all the bank accounts of the Iraqi oil workers' union, both abroad and within Iraq.
The Iraqi regime’s decision comes in the wake of a series of anti-union measures, including the disbanding of the council of the lawyers’ union, freezing the writers’ union accounts and the September 2005 decree making all trade union activity illegal.
Private finance ‘draining’ NHS trusts
In the wake of a renewed drive to expand Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) across the public sector, it has been revealed that earlier projects have been draining cash at the expense of Trust-owned properties.
PFI allows companies to take out private loans to build major projects such as new hospitals, which are then underwritten and repaid by state funds over long periods of time.
