Across Canada the nurses have proved themselves the most resolute fighters against right-wing cut backs. In every province the issues are the same. Nurses have had their wages frozen for a number of years, many nurses find themselves doing 3 or 4 part-time positions with no security, and subsequently, enrolment is at an all time low leading to chronic understaffing.
Governments hell-bent on cutting taxes always looked at the predominantly female nurses as an easy target. They thought that nurses cared too much for their patients to go on strike. Now they care too much not to. Romanov tried the same trick as Brian Tobin in Nova Scotia by throwing the collective bargaining process out the window and enforcing a legislated settlement, he underestimated the anger of nurses. Picketers wore t-shirts saying, "VIAGRA WORKS - Romanov screwed 8400 nurses in a single day!". Attack adds in the press only served to solidify public support. After 11 days of illegal striking the nurses won major concessions and there may be further strikes to secure more. Strikes also look likely in Alberta and Ontario, plus the 47,000 Quebec nurses have just gone on strike after voting 77% in favour of illegal wildcat action.
Anybody who bemoans the loss of support for the NDP just has to look at this example for a way forward. Working people need universally funded healthcare, capitalism is showing itself unable to provide this. We must take the nurses lead and put forward socialist policies that can assure the future of healthcare and mobilize working class support. Eventually workers on strike will see the need for political as well as trade union activity. They will join the NDP to take back the party from the careerists and the bureaucrats. In Saskatchewan 8400 nurses could do a good job of booting out Romanov, and replace him with somebody who does not show contempt for workers rights.
First published in the Canadian Marxist paper L'Humanite