Occupy to Stop Cuts!

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THE IMPACT OF Tory spending cuts in Oxford health provision is already far more devastating than the highest point of last year's industrial action on The giant John Radcliffe hospital is currently on emergency admissions only. And now further cuts, if imposed, would cripple vital services.

With this ominous warning, Ruth Reid (NALGO) opened a packed meeting convened by the Oxford NHS Joint Trade Union Committee to begin a campaign against the cuts.

Over 80 people - trade unionists, Labour activists, and health workers -crowded into a tiny lecture hall which had been booked in expectation of a low turnout.

And - to an enthusiastic reception - floor speakers were insistent that the campaign should not restrict itself to pickets, posters and protests, but set its sights on the occupation of threatened facilities and the fight for supporting strike action within the NHS and the broader trade union movement.

Kate White, who had been active in the prolonged occupation of the nearby Longworth hospital, spoke of the need for the same tacties again.

Thanks to that struggle, Longworth is still open, while the much larger and central Cowley Road hospital in Oxford, where no action other than protest was taken, has long ago been closed.

Ken Williamson (MPU) and Sue Lister (ASTMS) and others drew applause when they stressed the need to call on the kind of solidarity shown by other unions to the NHS workers during last *year's pay dispute.

From the chair, Quentin Silas pointed out that the campaign committee is open to non-NHS unions and to political organisations, in the fight for serious action against the cuts.

A broadly representative 20-strong committee was elected. (neither can a "moonlight flit' be considered as a way of liberating resources for more urgent needs!)

Together with taxation of benefits, which means you are no longer likely to get a tax rebate should the impossible happen and you become employed; this means that income is becoming more and more eroded, and not even sufficient for bare subsistence.

As if that is not enough, the government has steadily increased the number of unemployment review officers, fraud officers, liable relative officers (chasing "defaulting" husbands or wives for maintenance) and special investigations attached to the local office. These have, however, been snowed under by the sheer volume of claims to be chased.

The latest innovation is the Special Claims Control Unit. These are teams of special investigators who move from office to office to 'blitz" claims.

The idea is that they systematically investigate one in every twenty claimants, looking particularly at women, long-term" claim-