90 per cent of ancillary workers earn £16 a week Low-pay revolt bursts onto the hospital scene

NINETY per cent of hospital ancillary workers take home a paltry £16 a week it was revealed yesterday on the eve of a wave of selective strikes due to begin on March I. Mr. James Jewell, G&MWU shop steward at London's Whittington hospital, claims you need £25 a week today 'before you can even think about the cost of living. Even then, including Saturday and Sunday work, hospital staff would only take home £21 to keep themselves and their families.

Laundry van driver Mr David Smart told me: "This strike is really over those on £16 a week. There are people who could get £15 on national assistance, so why come here for an extra £1?

'I think the government is at fault. The Tories have got their priorities all wrong. It is all very well to talk in terms of percentages, but there is a considerable difference between a man earning £20 and a man earning 20 grand.

'They have got to talk in terms which mean something lower paid.

'You've got your wife coming up to you every day now saying age set for a f in this day and something has gone up. What can age?

"The Tories seem to be very clever at saying no to the lower paid, yet look at the tremendous rises they gave themselves.

'We don't want to come out strike. Very few can afford But the feeling is that there nothing else to do' Already the accusations are beginning to fly in the Tory Press that the hospital ancillary workers are behaving irresponsibly We care But, said Mr Smart: 'We would not work in hospitals if we did not care for people. It is a bit hard to say we are striking to make people suffer.

'The ancillary workers are low paid. They are not greedy. They are coming out on strike for the wage they need to survive. Forget about percentages. These people need £25 a week to live on.' As the 220,000 workers prepare for selective strike action from March 1, many are worried that the unions will not act decisively to halt scabbing and victimization.

Driver Michael Bowman told me: 'Last time we had a strike, the local vicar turned up with 20 people. By the evening there were 30 to 40 more. There were more people than jobs.' He added: "Management saw me handing out leaflets and next thing I knew I had lost my Saturday work.' The belief is widespread that anything short of a total national stoppage will open the door to scabbing and victimization.

Workers complain that during their last strike members of other unions did their jobs and Mr Jewell said this time they wanted guarantees from their unions and the IUC that this would not happen.

Women workers at hospital left no doubt that they SHOP STEWARDS leaders from engineering plants in London and the south-east yesterday called for a mass lobby of the March 5 recalled TUC and for a one-day strike on May 1.

George Guy, secretary Sheet Metal Workers' Union, failed as chairman to put meeting a motion calling TUC to mobilize an in lefinite General Strike for‹ Tories to resign. could not go on much longer wíthout bigger pay packets, and raised prices, ranging from rents to beef, were cited angrily.

But like the drivers they fear the effect of rolling strikes will be broken by volunteers.

'We don't mind striking' a cleaner told me, 'but we want to be sure we've got proper organization and backing. We are only labourers. They could sack us tomorrow and we don't want to end up outside.' The intensity of anti-Tory feeling among hospital workers, triggered by steep cost-of-living increases, is at white heat.

But all eyes are turned anxiously on the leaderships of the four hospital unions to see how they will measure up to the Tory pay challenge. • See north-west page 11. Women a ıcillary hospital i ngrily beef, to justify packets.

BRS drivers still set on f2.50 bonus THE BONUS dispute between lorry drive Services in the Midlands entared its third the union ranks unbroken.

The dispute has paralyzed the Midlands car and car components industry and BritishLeyland, BRS's biggest single customer, claims to have production losses of more than £35m.

Albert Caldicott, shop steward from the Bromford Lane depot, said: 'We are sticking out for the £2.50. We're not prepared to go workers at London's Whittington cite raisemand ronggents to their demand bigger pay rs and British Road week yesterday with back for anything strings attached.' At Cheapside depot, drivers said they thought that BRS management was going on the offensive in the bonus fight.

Management, they said, was preparing to make conditions worse than they were before the dispute began. Basically, management is demanding that average miles an hour should increase.

Aidan Lee, steward at the BRS Contract department, remarked: menace on the road 'This would drivers a menace on tae road.

The proposed schedules would may. This would break the pre sent national agreement. i saner sectary thee 5/538 branch, struggling for an eight-hour day and we're not going back for an 11-hour day.

'We want merit allowance as recognition of our skill.' The men scoffed at the claims by BRS managing director Mr Cook that some depots might be closed because of the dispute. They said the einsurec ad been threatened for a lon me and were not directly cor nected with the bonus dispute.

WAIDISWORIH Mandary Toven fiel Wandsword Higin Strem soeaker MIKE BANDA (SLL Central Committee)

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