BY MARCEL CAMERON
BRISBANE — It's not surprising that Premier Peter Beattie and his ministers have consistently underestimated the anger and determination of nurses. When was the last time a minister had to visit a public hospital outside of an election campaign?
With courage hardened by daily exposure to the intolerable and worsening condition of the state's grossly underfunded public health system, nurses are fighting for far more than decent pay.
They've been at the front-line of defending what's left of the public health system in Queensland, something that's in the interest of all working people.
The nurses' defiance, and the decision by other health workers to take action and dramatically escalate the dispute, has been an inspiration to working people longing to see Queensland unions fight back against the anti-worker, economic rationalist agenda of the Beattie Labor government.
The stakes are high in this dispute. Beattie has shown that he's prepared to use an industrial tactic that not even former premier Sir Joh Bjelke Petersen would have contemplated. Had Beattie been able to force the union to an undemocratic secret ballot, it would set a very dangerous precedent.
If the nurses can win this dispute, it would be a clear signal that workers can take on the state government and win.
This is precisely what Peter Beattie fears most of all. In 1998, the federal Coalition government conspired with waterfront boss Chris Corrigan to sack Maritime Union of Australia members and replace them with scab workers. The turning point in the dispute was when thousands of unionists and other members of the community joined MUA members in mass, peaceful pickets on the wharves.
This lesson is important — health workers can win this dispute and can force improvements to the sorry state of public health, if they are supported by thousands of others prepared to join their actions. Beattie is already on the back foot — let's go all out to support the nurses in winning a victory for all of us!
[Marcel Cameron is a member of the Democratic Socialist Party.]
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, July 10, 2002.
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