1,000 signatures reached
To: TUC
TUC: call a general strike in support of the junior doctors
We call for the Trades Union Congress to ballot members for a general strike in support of the junior doctors.
The Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt is pursuing a damaging contract for junior doctors. Following the failure of negotiations, he plans to impose new terms on junior doctors that the doctors have rejected on the basis of patient safety. We call on the Trades Unions to call a general strike to support the junior doctors in this dispute.
Why is this important?
Jeremy Hunt has made no secret of his opposition to the NHS as founded on the principles of the 1942 Beveridge report. His intransigence in the face of the current negotiations has to be read in this context. The NHS has the support of the whole country; it is now time for us to act in unison to support the junior doctors as part of a wider commitment to the principle of a free at the point of service, publicly funded and owned NHS.
We call for the TUC to weigh into the current pay and conditions dispute by calling a general strike against the imposition of the proposed contract on junior doctors. The contract is a mark of the hostility that the current Health Secretary has for the NHS as it is currently instituted. It does not serve any ends but those of a government fundamentally committed to the run down and decline of the NHS. We must unite in its defense and send a clear message that the country will not tolerate the piecemeal destruction of the NHS.
