Strikes and the National Health Service: some legal and ethical issues

Abstract

The author first sets out the legal issues surrounding strikes and then advances the ethical arguments, closely relating them to the legal framework. The most interesting part of the paper, however, may well be that devoted to the moral obligation of example, in particular the example to be set by members of the medical profession and by all those caring for the sick. As public attitudes to industrial disputes 'become dulled and quiescent' it is absolutely necessary that there should be a reapparaisal of the moral standards of the past which coincide with a respect for the law. In the last century the term 'anomie' was used to describe a 'society which has shaken off its former restraints such as religion, respect for law and order and a definite moral code as to what is right and wrong'. We are living in that sort of society today, and one need not be a professional 'ethicist' to recognize the signs, and hopefully, to work for the return of 'ethical' values.