Invitation to a discussion and organising weekend

We re-publish below an article that was featured in Race Today, a political magazine written by black radicals and revolutionaries between 1973 and 1988

A group of colleagues who work at the two main hospitals in Bristol met at our regular meeting

NHS Bands – not only paying us peanuts, but also different amounts of peanuts

We visited a comrade who has been working and organising as a nurse since the late 1980s

We need a culture of speaking up, but for that we need a collective self-confidence

We document this ancient article on the situation of nurses in the mid-1980s by Carl Pinel

We translated the introduction to an interesting book on the pharmaceutical industry

If you are interested in helping with the distribution of the hardcopy, give us a shout: vitalsignsmag@proton

The subtitle of this magazine is ‘The struggle for a new society’

A handful of us who work at Southmead hospital and the BRI met up to talk about things at work and beyond

It is interesting to read how the group started as part of the mainstream trade union and then had to organise itself independently

We translated the intro to a new book published by rebellious health workers in France

A handful of us from Southmead hospital and the BRI met and primarily talked about the various cuts due to the ‘financial crisis’ of the trust

The recent junior doctor strike was significant, not just for doctors, but for all NHS workers

We need to foster new relationships of solidarity between health workers and patients that doesn’t reduce patients to objects or clients

‘Critical’ provides us with good material for discussion, which we can use to engage in a series of interviews with doctors and other health workers

Starmer himself knows how to use state power in more subtle ways than a lofty money-bag like Sunak

The following conversation with a NHS IT worker took place before the CrowdStrike cock-up…

We document two recent struggles of health workers in Toulouse, France

We document a speech by an apprentice care worker held at a recent ‘Walk of Care’ in Berlin

On the current cuts of bank and agency shifts in the NHS and the local hospitals in Bristol

This series will present reflections on the relationship between health workers and patients

Since the pay dispute in 2022/2023, there have been a number of local strikes across the country within the NHS

Imagine 18,000 hospital workers blocking the M32 or the port in Avonmouth depot demanding a rent cap for Bristol

In the coming issues of Vital Signs we will interview nursing and medical students about their experiences

Why we have to oppose all states in their military race for markets and create unity amongst our fellow workers worldwide

If we don’t stick together and stand up for ourselves against stress and low wages, the bitching will start sooner or later

Health workers migrate and bring with them experiences from around the globe

There are good reasons why we need more workers’ and patients’ control over the health system

In this series we‘ll look at how our work and the conditions of work change

This magazine represents an effort to create a forum where together with co-workers we can reflect on our experiences, our struggles and our potential to create solidarity

The fact that, after three decades, nurses have gone on strike again in the UK is positive, at the same time we need to have a careful look at the weak points of the strike in order to learn for the future

A book about the autonomous workers’ committee at the university clinic in Rome in the 1970s, bringing together medical students and porters, workers and patients

This book documents an inquiry into a recent struggle against class medicine and for the proletarian management of a hospital in which the workers on the Policlinico Umberto I in Rome have been involved in since 1971

The collective’s outstanding character was based on the fact that it included medical students, nurses, porters and doctors, and aimed at the socialisation of the divided knowledge within a project of workers’ control of the clinic

Welcome to the fourth newsletter for a worker-led pay dispute from below…

Welcome to the third newsletter for a workers-led NHS pay dispute

Welcome to the second newsletter for a workers-led NHS pay dispute

Analysis and intervention in the debate during the pay dispute in 2021/22

We document a leaflet written by friends in France and Czech Republic

Leaflet written for the NHS pay campaign in 2021

Leaflet written for the NHS pay campaign of action in July 2021

We translated this article as a general framework for discussion

We translated the following two texts from 1988, because we think that there are still things we can learn from the strike movement back then

We translated this text from the late 1980s because it can still serve as a reference-point when searching for new ways that we can organise ouselves as health workers from the bottom up, rather than waiting for orders from the top

It is a short and readable book, full of useful and interesting information about the wider social and political context in which NHS nurses went on strike in 1982

Friends from France have written a detailed paper on the question – read it here

Left politics, which claims to represent a democratic perspective that goes beyond capitalism, cannot be satisfied with the goal of merely redistributing the social wealth generated under capitalist conditions

During the last week of April I participated as a delegate of my Unison branch of a local NHS Trust in this annual meeting that brings together all Unison reps in the private and public health sector

UNISON Scotland recommended their members in the NHS to accept a 4% pay offer of the Scottish government

The action of the ICU nurses show that management reacts to collective pressure from below, even if only a small group of workers are involved

Interview with a registered mental health nurse in the UK who works in South East England in an NHS community mental health and addictions service

What started as a health workers’ dispute has turned into a regional uprising

A form of labour dispute – while the collective bargaining dispute was on paramedics refused to do the bureaucratic work that is necessary for the billing of services

On the 23rd of August 2021, workers of the Berlin hospitals Charité and Vivantes went on a three-day warning strike

The Nurses’ Initiative has been operating in the Karlovy Vary Regional Hospital

In Germany we have seen hospital workers going on strike over staffing levels – initially in the two biggest hospitals in Berlin, then more recently in six university clinics in North-Rhine Westphalia

The strike in the state-owned Berlin hospitals 2021 will go down in the history of the hospital movement for its length of more than 30 days alone

Interview with a worker in an acute medicine walk-in clinic in a hospital in England about the situation during Covid

This interview reveals, amongst other things, the amount of unpaid overtime worked in the NHS during Covid and the transformation of ‘professional online forums’ into channels to discuss working conditions during the lockdown

The struggle for better staffing levels is a struggle against stress, burnout, bitching and bad vibes amongst colleagues and against the neglect of patients

Read the PDF of Vital Signs issue 1 by clicking on the link above

Wir sehen, in welchem Zustand die Gesellschaft ist, als würde sie mit einem Barometer gemessen