A-Infos (en) Britain, Aanarchist journal Direct Action #41- Organising - Silent Nightingales: Karen Reissmann, the NHS and the ‘Threat of a Good Example’

In his 1992 book, What Uncle Sam Really Wants, Noam Chomsky attributed the role 
of the US administration in its interventions in places like El Salvador, Chile 
and Nicaragua in part to the desire to negate the ‘threat of a good example’.
He argued that these countries were showing their neighbours that ownership of 
the means of production could be retained within the country rather than handed 
over to US multinationals, and that it was possible to run a country reasonably 
successfully without it being a de facto colony of the US. Such ‘good examples’ 
had to be crushed as soon as possible, lest the lesson should spread. Various 
methods have been used in pursuit of this purpose over the years, from ‘agent 
orange’ in chemical weapons used in Vietnam to the backing of violent coups by 
US henchmen such as Pinochet and the bloodthirsty Nicaraguan ‘Contras’. They 
have, by and large, been successful.

all-out assault

Fast forward to the present and the same principle can be seen at work in our 
very own National Health Service. The all-out assault on the NHS and its basic 
provision of quality healthcare to all, regardless of ability to pay, has been 
well documented in this publication and elsewhere. The deliberate breakup of the 
service and the subordination of its constituent parts to market principles have 
been hard on both patients and workers, whilst providing an unprecedented 
windfall for an army of financial consultants, shareholders and other assorted 
parasites.

asset-stripping

The whole process is presented by the government and the media in a confusing 
way which leaves many unsure of what is happening, who is benefiting and who is 
to blame for the endless rounds of cuts and sell-offs. The general feeling among 
NHS workers has been one of disgruntled pessimism. ‘What are we supposed to do 
about it?’ and ‘hopefully things will turn around soon’ are the mottoes of the 
day and, as long as they remain so, the asset-stripping of the NHS by private 
capital will continue.

In this climate, activists within the health service who argue for the kind of 
response anarcho-syndicalists would like to see are often isolated both by the 
brick wall of the union bureaucracy and the pessimism of their fellow workers. 
It’s hard to argue for the kind of sustained, collective direct action that is 
needed to win this fight as an isolated, lone voice, especially when the idea of 
such a successful fightback seems so far from the meek capitulation which 
appears to be the norm across the country.

resistance
<image>

However, some groups of NHS workers haven’t given up quite so easily. A number 
of strikes have occurred at London’s Whipp’s Cross hospital by cleaners, 
domestics and porters who oppose the second rate pay and conditions which have 
resulted from the use of a private contractor, whilst some of our IWW comrades 
in the National Blood Service are involved in a promising campaign to catalyse 
resistance there.

Perhaps the most prominent and successful story of opposition to these attacks, 
however, can be found in Manchester, where employees of that city’s ‘Mental 
Health and Social Care Trust’ have shown us all that where the ‘proper channels’ 
fail, direct action can get the goods.

There has been a long standing campaign by the workers’ Unison branch against 
cuts and involvement by the private sector. This culminated in a January 2007 
strike which saved over 40 nursing, therapy and support worker posts. It also 
prevented a hostile regrading by management which would have seen a reduction in 
pay for many workers.

Activists working in the NHS around the country now had the ‘good example’ we 
had been craving – a concrete, contemporary demonstration of a successful 
fightback that stopped those who are trying to destroy the NHS in their tracks.
<image>
SolFed banners and flags on the march last November

Enter stage left Manchester’s answer to General Pinochet, new Chief Executive 
Sheila Foley. Appointed soon after the successful strike, Foley was given only a 
twelve month contract and, at 62, seems unlikely to want to work again – 
especially with the unusually high £135,000 she is being paid for her year in 
office to fall back on.

example

Subsequent events have demonstrated that Foley was brought in for one purpose 
and one purpose only – to break the union, crush the workers’ spirit and ensure 
the threat of this ‘good example’ does not spread any further. She has chosen to 
do this by making an example herself – by sacking one of the workers for 
speaking out against the ongoing cuts and sell offs.
Mental health nurse Karen Reissmann’s reinstatement campaign has used the slogan 
‘Silent Nightingales’ to highlight the ‘gagging’ of NHS employees who criticise 
cuts. In reality the shop steward’s statement to the local media was simply the 
excuse Foley and her henchmen were waiting for to sack a prominent activist and 
restore the Trust to the ‘business as usual’ of rampant cuts, sell-offs and ever 
poorer quality services. It has been clear from the start that the dismissal had 
nothing whatsoever to do with Reissmann’s work as a nurse. Indeed she was 
farcically promoted for her high quality clinical performance on the very same 
day she was fired.

The official reason behind Reissmann’s sacking was that she had criticised the 
transfer of NHS services to a voluntary sector organisation. It is alleged that 
she claimed such an organisation would find it harder to attract experienced 
nurses due to its lower wages and less favourable pension entitlements. She was 
suspended for this ‘offence’, then compounded this ‘gross misconduct’ by telling 
people she had been suspended, telling them that she was innocent, and “allowing 
the press to print misleading statements about her case”.

show trial

Karen’s colleagues recognised this for the show trial that it was and went on 
immediate indefinite strike to have her reinstated. This strike lasted six 
weeks, during which time donations and messages of support flooded in from 
across the country. Pickets were well attended and regular lobbies and 
demonstrations took place, including a large march last November. However, no 
reinstatement was forthcoming and, following the rejection of Reissmann’s appeal 
on December 11th, the strikers voted to return to work six days later.

At present the plan is to continue by means of a ‘national Unison campaign’ 
involving a tribunal claim for unfair dismissal, an early day motion by Unison 
sponsored MPs and a national lobby of parliament in the New Year. The ‘threat of 
a good example’ appears to have been negated – for now.

This is a dispute that came close to being won. The Trust was struggling to 
manage without the strikers. Strike pay was being maintained at a reasonable 
level thanks to over £200,000 of financial support from around the country and 
the action had the support of most people in Manchester. Crucially, this 
included service users, who passed a resolution calling for the Trust board to 
resign ‘for the good of the people of Manchester’.

failure to spread strike

The decision to return to work appears to have been based on the fear of losing 
momentum and strikers returning to work in dribs and drabs, as well as the legal 
statute allowing workers to be sacked once they have been on strike for 12 
weeks, even if the strike is entirely legal. A key factor was the failure to 
spread the strike. Astonishingly, social workers from a different Unison branch 
were used by Trust bosses to cover work of those on strike. Apparently they were 
not allowed to be balloted due to anti-union laws so the strikers were left 
isolated and were eventually frozen back into work. Whilst those involved insist 
that they haven’t given up and are still fighting, it is hard to see legal 
challenges and lobbying of politicians succeeding where industrial action has 
failed.

One positive feature is the further radicalisation of the workers involved. Many 
of them travelled around Britain to speak at support meetings, there were active 
picket lines, a significant increase in the number volunteering to be stewards 
and a raised consciousness of the depths the bosses will stoop to protect their 
class interests. One striker explained this general feeling in the phrase “there 
are now a hundred Karen Reissmanns in Manchester”. As such it seems things could 
flare up again at any time. If it does then we need to be ready to show 
solidarity once again.

As anarcho-syndicalists, this is exactly the sort of direct action we want to 
see in defence of jobs and the social wage. SolFed locals did their bit in the 
wider solidarity effort with financial donations, attendance at demonstrations 
and awareness raising in our own union branches and among local NHS workers. We 
need to be ready to mobilise like this again so workers who put our belief in 
direct action into practice are not left isolated.

Perhaps the most important lesson of this struggle is the capacity for workers 
to be left high and dry by the unholy alliance of government anti-union laws and 
the trade union officials who revere them. The key to victory was spreading this 
strike, but since secondary picketing and strikes are illegal this appears to 
never have even been seriously considered, an attitude which will always leave 
workers fighting with one hand tied behind our backs. In future, the likes of 
these brave Manchester health workers must not be left to fight alone.

We wish Karen Reissmann all the best in the continuing campaign to get her job 
back. The ‘good example’ she and her fellow workers gave us is an inspiration we 
won’t forget, even if it appears to have been temporarily snuffed out by the 
ruling class.
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