Description: In the Spring of 1982, ¾ of a million people started fighting for better pay through NHS strikes with a demand for a 12% pay rise. The documentary examines how news broadcasts reported on the movement. The documentary consists of footage of broadcast interviews with healthcare workers, a narrator describing the issues with the interview questions and the final footage shown on TV. On the counter-side, we also see two other health workers, Tony Ventham and Noel Egan responding to clips of an interview with Danny Johnson, an ambulance worker.

The first section focuses on interviews with ambulance workers, interviewed by Maggie Nelson. Her questions are confrontational and subtly accuse the workers’ of endangering public lives before focusing on the issue of pay, which is pointed out by Tony and Noel in the next section.

The second section focuses on the ancillary workers’ strike as part of the CSSD Strike at St Thomas’s Hospital, a unit composed primarily of women, who make only £60 a week in a windowless basement. We see an interview with a group of 3 Black women who are CSSD workers, with Anna Thompson highlighting the racialised verbal assault they faced at the picket lines, aggravateds by the reporting from the newspapers, particularly the Daily Express.

Next, we see the response from the Trade Union representatives from Alyson Bunn (CHOSE Branch Secretary) and Pete Fraser (NUPE Branch Secretary), who met Mike Power, the Convener of the Daily Mail to try publish a reply to the Daily Express, including payslips.

The narrator reads: “While trade unionists strive for unity, the media looks for division. Arguments and differences are what make for a good story.”

Next, we see footage recorded regarding the Oldham General Hospital strike. This includes staged footage of two doctors Brian Shepheard and Kevin Moore who critique the strikes, saying they are not for pay reasons but political ones.

The documentary concludes with an interview between Vincent Hannah, Clive Bass and Jeanette Mitchell on the best tactics to show the public the demands of the NUPE workers – from staged performances by actors, to interviews with workers, and certain disagreements arise between the people.