Time to demand a "Nurses Charter '82"

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despite the groundswell of for the reluctance of RCN opinion that way amongst members to strike. Popurank and file RCN mem- lar myth is that it would bers. (Recently the student harm patients. However, section voted to overturn all nurses must recognise the iniquitous no-strike the fact that low wages and rule). poor conditions of work Management, Nursing harm patients more, and officers and the like, are the RCN is guilty, not only usually the shop stewards of depressing wages, but of of the RCN. Thus you could allowing nurses to be exget the situation I was faced ploited in hospitals with "More nurses are joining picket lines and demonstrations ward 117-1 150 YEARS ago there were no nurses as we know them today. There were no properly organised hospitals.

Nursing as a job was carried out in workhouses by the inmates. The rich were always nursed at home, and the few hospitals around were largely the resort of poor people.

As doctors began to rationalise treatments, hospitals expanded. Florence Nightingale started nurse training schools. Nursing came to be seen as a suitable occupation for young ladies from wealthy backgrounds. In 1916 the newly formed Royal College of Nursing (RCN) finally won a register of trained nurses.

The RCN's articles of association specifically prevented the college from imposing on its members or supporting with its funds any regulation which, if an object of the College, would make it a Trade The real object of the RCN at this time was to become the controlling body of nursing. It was never meant to be a body that would campaign for higher pay and better conditions at work.

But instead the General Nursing Council (GNC) was set up land this body still exists today) to keep the register of trained nurses.

The GNC maintains standards: but it can throw nurses off the register land out of their jobs) for all sorts of reasons. The most notorious is for striking — any nurses seen leaving her patients in jeopardy by striking can be held to be acting unprofessionally.

Drugs offences, drunken driving, and being involved in fights, can be enough to lose a nurse's registration. The code of ethics for nurses drawn up by the. GNC states that even in private life outside of work, a nurse must always set an example!

The RCN went on to develop as an independent _ La-.a professional organisation. More middle class nurses were being recruited. Unlike the ladies of the previous generation of nurses they wanted proper In 1919 the RCN published 'The Nurses Charter' calling for a 48 hour week and better pay.

In 1926, however, the Labour Party declared that the only way that nurses could advance their pay and conditions was to be organised into Trades Unions. So started the battle for nurses to be organised.

Some joined the RCN, and others Trade Unions. Even today about a third don't join anything at all. The RCN maintained its elitist, protectionist, nonmilitant stand. In 1939, the Athlone Committee met to discuss nursing conditions, and the RCN recommended AGAINST high salaries to student nurses on the grounds that this would attract unsuitable applicants.

Although that was 40 years ago, and things have moved on, among the hierarchy of the RCN this attitude still lingers on.

In 1982, they still refuse to recognise the necessity with last year. yve were called to a disciplinary hearing involving all the staff. The Ward Sister, a RCN member, was being renresented by the Nursing Officer who originally brought the charge! With this sort of organisation, who needs management?

The RCN stewards (although some are very good) are usually hand in glove with senior management - being 'professionals' themselves, they often provide very ineffectual stewarding and representation.

The 'No Strike' clause is seen as almost a type of religious commitment -frequently it is called a no strike vow in RCN circulars.

There are many reasons dispute than ever before" appalling conditions.

In particular the RCN has never conducted a real campaign against the enforcement of night duty rotas on student nurses. Although training • only stipulates 3 months of night duty to be necessary for registration, all British hospitals force student nurses to work 9 months, using them as cheap Harming patients is the myth - reality is a number of other depressing reasons:1. Some nurses are snobs! Trades unions and striking is for factory workers, picket lines for nasty ancillary staff. 2. Low Trades Union consciousness - never having seen what strong organisation can do to improve matters, nurses see no need to organise. 3. The majority of nurses are women, and women are traditionally poorly organised. 4. Nursing has a special structure. Student nurses are always the most militant, but the most easily sacked.

JOHN HARRIS On registering and com- An paristaring and ou pleting their training, they become staff nurses, and then ward sisters. Each ward acts as a very separate unit from the rest of the hospital. Each ward has its own loyalties and peculiarities, and this ward system does not encourage unity amongst hospital nurses, against management. It instead encourages competition and rivalry, particularly in the big general teaching hospitals.

The full-time ward staff consists usually of only 4 or 5 trained nurses, who all work different shifts. The Ward Sister is very much the central figure. She is usually management orientated, and her influence sets the tone of the ward.

If she doesn't approve of what a member of staff does, she can make their life a misery. A subtle system of staff appraisal, and a system of privileges which can or cannot be granted, make sure that staff toe the line.

So ideas are not exchanged and opinions formed among a large body of nurses. The system produces isolationism.

Except in wards with militant sisters, life can be very hostile for strikeminded nurses.

So it can be seen that the RCN and the nursing job, and the people that do it loften middle class, as you have to have at least one 'A'-level to train these days), conspire against militancy. However, more nurses are seeing the need to join a Trade Union.

In 1972, the TUC Health Services Committee established that some 30% were already in a TUC union. One third were in the RCN, and one third not organised at all.

Compete

Nursing auxiliaries are not allowed into the RCN, and in 1978 25% of nurses were this grade. COHSE, NUPE, NALGO, the T&GWU, and GMWU all competed for nursing members, leading to disunity.

All the union publish inaccurate estimates of their nur ing members, and union fight amongst themselver for nurses. It is a crazy situation.

Most psychiatric hospital nurses are organised into COHSE. COHSE organises nurses quite well, and has done quite a lot to improve conditions of work. However, they are notoriously non-militant over striking in some areas, and often discourage nurses from striking. COHSE stewards were heard to say in the 1979 dispute that it was OK for ancillaries to strike because their COHSE nurses would carry on working anyway.

Frightened

Nursing auxiliaries and militant trained nurses and students working in General hospitals are usually in NUPE, but it varies from hospital to hospital.

However, Alan Fisher didn't help when he said that NUPE doesn't expect nurses to strike.

All the unions are reluctant to call their nurses out to strike, and give a strong leadership, for they are too frightened of losing membership. With so many unions competing for members, it is very easy for a nurse to transfer her membership.

Changing

Things are changing though - more nurses are joining picket lines and demonstrations in this pay dispute than ever before.

We need a Nurses Charter '82 - calling for: 1. Nurses to be organised into Trades Unions, which will commit themselves to act in unity and to act in our interests. 2. For Trades Unions to take more interest in our job and working conditions than in our membership fee. 3. For major changes in working practices: •abolish enforced night duty for student nurses •greater staffing levels •better shift payments •end the elitist hierarchy -for patient orientated care, rather than task orientated.

This is not an exhaustive list! Nursing needs a major overhaul in the way that we organise our job and our conditions. Not only for ourselves, but for the patients we look atter. We've got a lot to fight for.

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Socialist Organiser, Thursday 7 October 1982 Paz THE TUC's regional days of action got off to a predictably slow start on Monday and Tuesday in Merseyside and the North-East.

Instead of giving a clear call for strikes, the TUC had just asked non-NHS workers to do what they could - and then had given local activists no time to organise. In the circumstances even small nonNHS turnouts represented a great deal.

On Merseyside, Cammell with a rally in Eldon Square.

Speakers at the rally, including a Northern Region TUC spokesperson and a local MP, seemed unperturbed at the lack of support from other workers, simply saying that they had issued no call for solidarity action.

The centre of attention on the day was Morpeth. Local ambulance workers were locked out by management, who insisted that they should work normally or not at all.

At St George's mental hospital, staff responded to management bringing patients in to help in the laundry by occupying the administration block for two hours before joining the march.

• Reports from Lol Duffy and Pete Cashman in Merseyside, and Deb Baxter in the North-East.

TOWU i * TAR DEA

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Ireson, a NUPE shop steward and sister at the University Hospital of wales, looks at now nurses nave organisea — and the way forward

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for industrial action Weneed