David Ellis considers some implications of the Tory health and education plans and makes some suggestions about what to do.

It is increasingly clear why the NHS and Education budgets are, at least for now, under relatively less pressure from the coalition government’s eviscerating public spending cuts than those of most other departments. These huge sums of money, it seems, instead of being slashed are to be funnelled through `free’ schools and `free’ hospitals in to the bank accounts of private sector companies, private collectives and co-ops or simply private individuals.

This plan is at the heart of the Red Tory agenda encapsulated by PM David Cameron’s notion of the `Big Society’ and of us `all being in this together’. It is designed to create the illusion of a still profitable wealth generating capitalism at the level of human experience. This in turn it is hoped by its backers will provide ideological cover for the domination of our lives by fewer and fewer global and national monopolists.

School and hospital managers, parents, patient groups, teachers, consultants, voluntary organisations, religious groups and basically cranks of all description are to be asked if they would like to run their own school or hospital. To enable this they will be allowed to take their school or hospital out of local authority or government control or even set up brand new ones and receive their government funding directly. The savings these `free’ schools and hospitals are expected to make in `efficiency’ and the income it is hoped they will generate perhaps through corporate sponsorship, parent fund raising and even fees will be shared between the private sector and the exchequer over time. A double whammy of money being removed from front line health and education spending that will make the PFI scam look like small beer.

In reality working families are far too busy to run their own schools and, where `free’ schools are requested will no doubt be hiring in private companies to run them on their behalf. Hospital managers and consultants too will be establishing either co-operatives or partnerships or, as with schools, bringing in private management companies to take over from health authorities. Either way, huge quantities of government money set aside for health and education will be diverted into higher wages for executives, private partnerships and top managers, share holder payouts and maybe even employee `profit’ incentive schemes whilst jobs, wages and working conditions for the bulk of staff will be recklessly undermined, union agreements both national and local shredded, the qualifications required for the job overlooked and patient care and child education relegated to an inconvenient afterthought eating into the profits.

How on earth can this assault on the principles of public health care and education and of course on decent working conditions, pay and job security be fought?

The bureaucrats that head the health and education trade unions will make a lot of noise about opposing the bill that will enable these changes but it is certain that they will accept it as an established fact once passed. Their strategy will then switch to seeking continued union recognition in the new free schools and hospitals even as national agreements on pay and conditions are ripped up and strike action across schools and hospitals is re-categorised as secondary and therefore illegal.

Under these circumstances a rank-and-file response is an absolute necessity. Staff committees encompassing unionised, non-unionised and every grade and sector of worker especially those difficult to unionise sections in hospitals and schools must be established. Local union branches should facilitate the setting up of such committees though of course they must be the democratic property of each and every member of staff not just a bureaucratic outgrowth or pseudo front organisation. If the local unions refuse to support such committees because of national opposition or their own conservatism they should be established anyway.

These Staff Committees must immediately propagandise against their hospital or school either being turned over to the private sector lock, stock and barrel or to a private sector management company to run it for profit. This must be done, hopefully with the support of parents or patients but in opposition to them if need be. After having established their anti-privatisation credentials they should canvas every member of staff and organise a ballot to gain a mandate and to make it clear to potential predators that they are not wanted. These committees must make known that they are opposed to the outrageous replacement of decent public sector jobs with scabrous private sector ones and the corrupt filtering of public money and assets into private hands and away from patient care and children’s education.

Staff committees, in addition to opposing privatisations of any kind, should include in their propaganda demands to retain union recognition in their schools or hospitals and national union agreements on pay and conditions. However, having established themselves as the opposition to Tory privatisation plans they must then begin to challenge the unelected, government or company-appointed managements over every and all aspects of the running of their school or hospital. This will prevent the gradual undermining of their stance by those with privileged information and back channels to government lackeys, private lobbyists and professional smearers. The staff committee should insist all managers are subject to election and recall by all the staff and if a management is in favour of bringing in a union-busting, job slashing, funding-pocketing private management company or profit seeking arrangement of any kind can be found then they must seek staff approval through a democratic process. They must not be allowed to simply approach government and private firms without consultation and inform everybody only after a deal has been done through their shrinking pay packets or redundancy notices.

Needless to say, a network of school and hospital staff committees must quickly be established to give these movements a national voice and profile.