ABSTRACT
The Confederation of Health Service Employees is in theory the industrial union for the National Health Service (NHS), but in practice its real base is among the predominantly male mental hospital nurses and some of the more senior nurses in the general hospitals. As inflation and the newfound refusal of NHS employees to subsidize the service by derisory wage levels combine to squeeze the NHS budget, the whole future of our health service is being thrown into question. The establishment of the NHS brought automatic recognition of the right of all hospital workers to join a union of their choice. The Cinderellas of the hospital service, the porters, theatre technicians, domestics, telephonists, and boilermen, went on a one-day strike, joined by union members in St. Mary’s and Bethnal Green Hospitals. The hospital ancillary unions responded by calling an official national one-day strike on December 17, 1972, which had a massive response.
