The Hillingdon hospital strike, Trotsky's birthday and the revolution

 

A birthday boy

Here's another extract from my memoirs, the true enormity of which you can purchase for a nominal price at https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/an-obscure-footnote-in-trade-union-history.

In 1996 I spent a year serving as UNISON deputy regional convener in Greater London and in that capacity regularly attended meetings of the strikers at Hillingdon hospital;

By February of 1996, when I was elected as Deputy Regional Convenor, cleaners at Hillingdon Hospital had been on strike against their employer, Pall Mall for several months, as the employer had sought to impose reductions in their pay and conditions. The strike action had begun unofficially but had been endorsed by the UNISON Industrial Action Committee in late 1995.

The dispute was a long and bitter one, the employer having replaced the striking workers who nevertheless held out for months (indeed for years). The Regional official had not believed that the workers (almost exclusively Asian women) would strike and had tried to persuade them to accept some negotiated solution. The bulk of the UNISON members at the hospital were either unsympathetic to, or agnostic about, the strikers and were certainly not eager to organise any solidarity action.

The UNISON Regional Committee - although it had no particular locus in relation to industrial disputes (which in UNISON’s structures are matters for our autonomous Service Groups) - accepted my argument that we should show our practical support for this dispute, and consequently asked me to attend the weekly strike meetings which were taking place at Hillingdon Civic Centre. So it was that, for the next year, I spent every Sunday morning travelling from Lewisham to Uxbridge where the strikers met to discuss their dispute. The strike was under the leadership of the great Malkiat Bilku, the shop steward who had led the dispute from the outset (and would lead the remaining workers back to work victorious five years after they had first worked out). The meetings at this time were hosted by Wally Kennedy, a local Councillor and member of the Socialist Party who had managed to get elected as a Councillor before the Labour Party got round to expelling him.

The UNISON Branch and Regional officials responsible for the dispute did not attend the weekly meetings (because they were “unofficial”) but these meetings, between the strikers and supporters from the local community, were where the dispute was organised and although there was little support from Branch or Regional level, there were national UNISON officials who tried to coordinate public attacks upon the employers. 

Another group of absentees from these weekly meetings were members of the Workers Revolutionary Party (“the News Line”). On one occasion the WRP comrades were waiting outside the meeting to take Malkiat to their annual rally for Trotsky’s birthday. The strikers, being concerned for the welfare of their leader, who was exhausted, directed that I (as the closest thing to a union official present) should escort her to her bus stop and ensure she did not get in the minibus. Malkiat did not wish to offend any supporters and offered to the waiting comrades that she would speak at their rally the following year, to which a young WRPer responded in all seriousness “there won’t be a rally next year, the revolution will have happened.” When I commented that he had doubtless said the same thing the previous year, he retorted “look, you see Malkiat, a cynic, he is a cynic!”

Malkiat got on her bus home, Trotsky’s birthday passed - and the revolution has still to happen (at the time of writing).