Nurses march to defend bursaries

by New Worker correspondent

MORE than 1,000 nurses, NHS campaigners and trade unionists marched through London last Saturday from St Thomas’s Hospital, along the Thames South Bank to Waterloo Bridge, across the river and through the Strand to Whitehall and the headquarters of the Department of Health, to protest at Tory plans to do away with student nurse bursaries.

Student nurses, unlike other students, work on hospital wards doing strenuous and difficult work looking after patients whilst they are learning. And for this they are paid a bursary by the Government to cover their living costs and their education.

When they graduate they get a wage but it still does not put them in the top flight of earners that other students aspire to.

Now the Government wants to treat student nurses like other students and do away with the bursaries, forcing student nurses to take out huge student loans to cover the costs of their education. Effectively the student nurses will be paying in order to be able to work – instead of wages they will be given a mountain of debt at the start of their career. This plan is due to be implemented by August 2017.

Nursing unions fear that scrapping NHS bursaries will leave student nurses, midwives and other health professionals with over £52,000 worth of debt, and will discourage many people from becoming healthcare professionals, with disastrous repercussions for patient safety.

UNISON and the National Union of Students (NUS) commissioned a report by London Economics and found that removing the bursary will:

• ·         Put thousands of healthcare students and graduates into debt.

• ·         Reduce the number of people taking up healthcare places in higher education by as many as 2000.

• ·         Cause a fall in income for Higher education institutions of between £55 million and £77 million per student intake.

• ·         Lead to a significant increase in staff shortages in the NHS, which will increase dependency on agency and overseas staff. The costs associated with this could wipe out all the potential savings the government claims removing the bursary will make.

The nursing unions were out in full force on the march: Unison, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), Unite and other unions, along with activists from People’s Democracy and many other groups campaigning to save the NHS.

Also on the march were designer Vivienne Westwood, Green Party leader Natalie Bennett, NUS leader Malia Bouattia and the NHS Singers.

And along the route, near Charing Cross Station, the march was joined by a contingent from Disabled People Against the Cuts (DPAC).

The march finished in a rally outside Richmond House in Whitehall, which is the headquarters of the Department of Health.

After some songs from the NHS Singers, Vivienne Westwood told crowds to “fight for the economic conditions necessary for our nurses to survive and thrive”.

Natalie Bennett of the Green Party said: “If you’re paying fees you don’t have a bursary –you’re actually paying to work in the NHS, you are paying to work for the Government, which really is a new low at austerity.”

Unions such as The RCN, Unison and the British Medical Association (BMA) have shown their support to the campaign.

Unison said the plans would mean around 2,000 fewer people studying healthcare every year, based on economic research.

Sarah Nash, a junior doctor and a member of the singing group, said: “We need more nurses on the wards, not less, and removing nursing bursaries is only going to reduce nursing numbers in the long term. It’s no incentive to go into nursing.

“Nurses are already paid little enough for the valuable job they do, so I absolutely back nurses in this, 100 per cent.”

The campaign has received support from the public and a petition set up by student Danielle Tiplady to protest against the cuts has now been signed by more than 100,000 people.

Danielle, who organised the Bursary or Bust demonstration, said the turnout was “amazing”. She added: “This demonstrates how much support and energy is behind bursary or bust and we urge the government to reconsider their cuts to funding immediately.”

The London Recruits at Marx House

Ronnie Kasrils sets the scene

 by Neil Harris

Last Saturday comrades and friends returned to the historic Marx Memorial Library in London to raise funds for a special film about a very special group of people.

I suppose one of the great struggles of my life was the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa – preserving minority white rule by using great violence over the majority of people in the country.

In 1962 the leadership of the African National Congress (ANC), including Nelson Mandela, were imprisoned at the Rivonia trial for life. The underground was effectively broken up and many ANC activists were forced into exile.

Oliver Tambo, Joe Slovo and Yousef Dadoo tasked Ronnie Kasrils to organise underground operations from London to restart the struggle back in South Africa.

To that end, young idealistic white people were recruited from left-wing organisations and trades unions to go to South Africa. There they did some extraordinary things; they posted out letters to thousands of people, distributed leaflets they had smuggled in, set off explosive devises that scattered leaflets over crowds of people in public places, left hidden tape recorders to relay speeches and anti-apartheid messages to the people.

These may have been stunts but they were very dangerous and were widely reported at the time. They kept the flame alive until the underground could reorganise.

And now there has been a book written about The London Recruits, as well as a website and even exhibitions. The recruits have got together (they never knew each other at the time) and there may even be a film.

The evening started with a brief scene-setter from Ronnie Kasrils, who organised everything from a dusty office above Goodge Street in London, and went on to become Deputy Defence Minister and later Minister for Intelligence in the new non-racial South African government.

We also heard from various “London Recruits” in the audience, who described what they did and the effect this had on them. One of them described how he set up tape recorders and amplifiers in South Africa. Another, Ken Keable, recruited from the Young Communist League (YCL), went to Johannesburg to send out 1200 letters and was responsible for putting the book together.

Mary Chamberlain, travelled with her partner as an emigrating, newly married couple, who brought with them 22 tea chests of belongings to set up their new home. Only the chests had false bottoms containing 7000 anti-apartheid pamphlets to be posted out a few at a time.

 Kathreen Solahi (formerly Levine) was a young student studying anthropology who had previously made trips to Tanzania. She was sent to Zambia from where she made numerous trips across the border to South Africa, smuggling people and leaflets.

Quietly and without fuss she described making regular trips with cargoes of weapons hidden in a false fuel tank, to be buried or hidden for collection later. These were trips made cross country, where there were no roads in an age before satnavs. They crossed the Zambesi river where on one side was South West Africa, a South African colony, and on the other the white settler state of Rhodesia, which was just as hostile.

She told us how they camped out on the 200 mile journey, in constant fear of breaking down or being discovered.

Because this was serious, “London Recruits” were captured, tortured and imprisoned, even though the majority made it through and back safely.

There were also tales (well known) of exploits carried out by people who weren't in the audience; the setting up of the notorious travel company "Africa Hinterland", which operated safari tours into South Africa for tourists. They were unaware that the specially adapted vehicles contained caches of weapons and ammunition under the floorboards beneath their feet.

There were tales of two volunteers who were captured and imprisoned by the South African authorities and managed to escape by carving out replica keys made of wood in the prison workshop. They just walked out!

It was an incredible evening, a privilege to spend it in the company of a special group of people who made a difference, however small or big.

But this was serious; South Africa was a country divided by race to the extent that on one occasion when an abandoned child was found, it couldn't be admitted to hospital for four days while investigations took place to work out what race it was.

Where a workman was sent to prison for five years for writing “Free Mandela” on his mug at work.

And I suppose the most important weapon that the “London Recruits” were able to use against Apartheid was that they were all white – they were able to turn the authorities prejudices against them.

Greek communist condemns the EU

 By New Worker correspondent

A packed meeting of members, friends and supporters of the KKE (Communist Party of Greece) in central London last Saturday heard Giorgos Marinos, Member of the Political Bureau of the KKE, deliver a profound analysis of the crisis in Greece and the European Union, and the European Union (EU) referendum in Britain.

Marinos said that new laws put forward by the social-democratic SYRIZA-ANEL government in Greece to implement the 3rd EU memorandum “have extremely painful outcomes for the working class and popular families”.

They will destroy “the social character of social insurance” and “impose unbearable direct and indirect taxation at the expense of the working class and popular families,” whilst “the path has been cleared for the seizure of the primary residences of workers who cannot repay their loans”.

Marinos said the EU plans for a "leap forwards" to “the permanent supervision of the economies of the member-states”, this could not “negate the objective trend towards uneven development inside the EU, nor can it erase the role of the bourgeois states.”

“Each monopoly has its headquarters in a specific bourgeois state and these states also constitute a significant field for capital accumulation. The bourgeois states constitute the basis for the implementation of fiscal policies, funding programmes and tax exemptions to benefit their monopolies.”

These contradictions “are factors that lead to the emergence and development of what is known as 'Euroscepticism'."

Marinos said that the section of British bourgeoisie supporting the Remain vote “assesses that it has the strength and robustness to meet the requirements of the competition inside the EU… utilising its historic exemptions and choosing to struggle in alliance with the USA for a better position in its competition with Germany.”

The bourgeoisie supporting the Leave vote “assesses that is at a disadvantage due to the strong presence of Germany, and is impeded by the EU’s legal framework of restrictions and controls.”

“It aims to form new conditions to maintain the markets it has already acquired, and to win positions in new markets in the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and elsewhere. It even looks to the formation of a centre in the framework of the British Commonwealth, which includes India, Australia, South Africa and other states that are former British colonies.”

Marinos noted that Britain “does not participate in the European system of bank supervision and consolidation, rejecting in this way the monitoring of its banking and financial system,” and added: “The special agreement between the EU and Britain signed in February 2016… provides Britain with the ability to monitor its own financial institutions, putting a brake on the unification process.”

He said that president Obama’s recent intervention in the EU referendum debate “underscores the USA's desire to have a loyal ally inside this predatory alliance and to jointly handle the developments regarding the TTIP.”

 Jeremy Corbyn “has been promoted as a people-friendly reformist, but has turned out to be a supporter of the EU and attempts to conceal the anti-people character of this predatory alliance,” and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) was “trying to turn reality on its head by presenting the EU as the champion of workers' rights”.

On a more positive note, Marinos said: “We warmly salute the communist men and women in Britain and Ireland, and we assess that a large section of the working class, popular strata and youth support a vote to leave the EU.”

But he stressed that whatever the outcome, “power will remain in the hands of the bourgeoisie, and the working class and popular strata will remain victims of the anti-people political line and capitalist exploitation.”