UNISON will call a national demonstration in London in defence of the NHS: but it won't do it in the summer, as many on the left had been demanding - campaigners will have to wait until October, to coincide with the new session of parliament.
That was the outcome of a long and complex process of negotiation after UNISON's Health Service Group Executive swung firmly in favour of calling a national demonstration and agreed it should be in the summer, but could not agree a suitable date, and was obliged in any case to refer the issue to a sub-committee of the wider union.
The plus side is that the union as a whole will be committed to build the protest, and will be able to draw on UNISON's vast resources. The decision of the biggest health union to call a demonstration is also likely to force other health unions to follow suit.
And given recent evidence of patchy support for mobilisations on March 3, and a decline in local activity in many areas as hospital reconfiguration schemes have been put on hold until after the May elections, the new timing seems pretty sensible: it will give a long run-in that will be needed to create sufficient momentum to drag in the less active and militant branches and make a really big protest. www.keepournhspublic.com www.healthemergency.org.uk
The down side of the decision is that it will fuel a new sectarian frenzy among some elements on the left and among campaigners least concerned to work closely with health unions, who seem certain to step up their demands for some unofficial body to take unilateral action and call a "national demonstration" at the end of June.
In the context of increasing dangers of rationalisation and privatisation schemes being driven forward with more urgency over the next few months, this blinkered obsession with the single tactic of a march through London is likely to prove a damaging diversion of energy from the key task of building effective local campaigns.
None of the campaigning organisations have the financial or organisational resources to mount a successful national demonstration without the support of the unions.
Any decision to forge ahead regardless runs the risk of setting back the movement and squandering much of the energy that could be productively used to build local action that has proved so successful in beating back privatisation of clinical services in Preston and defeating job cuts and downgrading of staff in Manchester. N.l..