In November last year, doctors at Freiburg's Josefs Hospital organized a warning strike. A short time later, a young doctor who was involved in organizing the action was terminate without notice. The case of this termination is now being heard before the labor court in Freiburg.
The hearing room at the Freiburg Labor Court is full with people on this Thursday. The case of the cancelled doctor is being heard there. Dozens of people came to attend the public hearing. All the chairs are proven and numerous people are still crowded along the entrance to watch the start of the trial. The most of them are employees from the Josefs Hospital, who came to support their colleague who is on trial. This support is very justified, because the example of the terminated doctor shows clearly how the Josefsklinikum is trying to take action against the labour struggle of the employees in a very obvious way.
Termination because of organizing a strike or a warning strike is not legal. In order to avoiding the juristical right to strike on this issue, the bosses at Josefsklinikum came up with a rather absurd justification for the termination. The reason for termination is (at least officially) not the warning strike but an email about it. Before it began, the terminated doctor informed the emergency services about the warning strike at Josefs Hospital by sending an email to the deputy head of the Malteser relief service. The doctor justified and defended this as a collegial reminder to her colleagues in the emergency services to ensure good emergency care during the warning strike.
According to the Artemed Group, which is the sponsoring association who owns the Josefs Hospital, this was an overstepping of the doctor's authority. She should have just contacted her senior doctor. The lawyer for the Artemed Group speaks about a potential economic and health damage that could be a result of the email. It makes sense that if fewer patients are admitted to the Josefsklinikum, there will be economic damage to the company. Shouldn’t this actually be the point of a strike? However, the fact that the email could have caused health damage to patients is nothing more than rhetoric. If patients are admitted to another hospital with a normal care situation instead of the Josefs Hospital, where emergency care is active and there are hardly any doctors present, it does not sound particularly credible that the patients' health care would be worsened as a result. Rather, the opposite is the case.
The development of labor disputes in the health sector is important and very justified. Even though hospitals try to present themselves differently, they are capitalist companies that make a profit on the healthcare market at the expense of the health of the people. It is not about providing good care for sick and injured people. Rather, the hospitals are capitalist companies that are focused on working as capitalist companies as lucratively and economically as possible. While the clinics continue to make economic reductions, the people who suffer most are the patients who gets bad care as well as the doctors and nursing staff, who have to do more and more work alone.
As capitalist companies, hospitals do not treat their workers and employees any better than other capitalists. And as in other areas, the capitalists in the healthcare sector are also trying to get rid of employees who struggle for better working conditions. It is important not to simply accept such open attacks by hospitals on the labor struggle and to develop the fight against this. Just like the colleagues at the Josefs Hospital do.
