It’s enough, we need change!
We call for a protest in solidarity with the strikers at the University Hospital Bonn on November 16 at 5:30 PM!
For a better staffing ratio in nursing, for better pay for nurses, for a health care system that focuses on the health of patients instead of profits and against further privatization!
Overtime, 12 days of work, 2 days off, and a staffing ratio that allows only minimal care even in normal operation: that was the state of the healthcare system before the pandemic. 2 years and a half later, many employees are burned out. Employees at the University Hospital in Bonn and many other locations have taken industrial action, supported by Verdi.
The reaction of the bosses was quick: “The strike endangers the patients” as the university hospital Essen said on November 08, 2021. But there is an emergency operation in spite of the strike – companies with thousands of employees are spreading disinformation to influence the social mood.
What actually endangers our health are poor staffing ratios and the resulting overworked nurses. The responsibility for the overload of the workforce is shifted onto them. However, the alleged staff shortage is due to the system and not to the nurses: A profession in which trainees are already being burned out does not exactly attract staff and does not invite them to continue practicing it.
The moral pressure on nurses has been working for several years: One of the reasons that the strike is only coming now is that nurses have been more or less directly blackmailed in the ways mentioned above for years. It is our responsibility to support the nursing staff against this blackmail!
Another tactic used by the bosses to take away workers’ ability to assert themselves in the workplace is to divide them into supposedly different interest groups. It is important not to be played off against each other, we have to think the struggle together! There are currently about 500 Philippin@s working at the University Hospital Bonn, whose situation is particularly precarious: Their residence permit depends on the profession, and they also have to complete language courses in addition to a full position. The Filipino nurses are already fully trained, but their professional training is not recognized for at least one year, even though they do the same work as registered nurses from Germany. The fact that the Filipino colleagues are paid only slightly above minimum wage is hardly surprising given this system of exploitation.
With our protest, we also want to express solidarity with those who cannot go on strike and denounce the inhuman pressure to which these care workers are subjected.
Respect for people’s work is expressed above all with good working conditions and not with warm words or applause. Let’s support the strikers, out on the streets!
