Day of Action
I was a fullt-ime official with NUPE at the time - which has since become part of Unison - but I remember we had a big national day of action in the health service - in 1988 - over pay.
I remember it vividly because I worked with a great bunch of young union reps at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington - one of the big London teaching hospitals - who were all nurses.
And they were all extremely bright, articulate and unafraid of speaking up in front of the media - whose cameras loved them especially if they were in uniform.
But when it came to the 'day of action' - which we called a strike to attract maximum attention and publicity - virtually no one was on strike.
We negotiated with the hospital management so that nurses and other staff could join the protest outside the main hospital entrance - in their uniforms - and the key players either had time-off from work or flexibility to attend at the beginning and end of their shifts.
Result - a massively popular 'day of action' - but no union members lost money, no operations or appointments were cancelled - and no patients or relatives were incovenienced.
And we got our message across in a hugely successful way - with one of the young nurses doing a live interview on the BBC's flagship 6 o'clock evening news.
Compare that with what's likely to happen tomorrow over the public sector pensions strike.
Seems to me the trade union movement is going backwards not forwards - and has learned very little in the past 25 years.
