THE Government faces a new dispute in the health services with provincial ambulance drivers preparing to ballot for strike action over pay. The drivers have been offered an extra £30 a week in basic pay, which will give them parity with their Dublin colleagues.
Yesterday 520 provincial ambulance drivers rejected the latest pay offer by 87 per cent to 13 per cent. Their controllers (supervisors) rejected the offer by 84 per cent to 16 per cent.
The strike ballot will take place over the next three weeks. If, as expected, it is in favour of industrial action then two weeks' strike notice will probably follow.
The Minister for Health, Mr Noonan, and health managers have called on the drivers to adhere to procedures and refer their case to the Labour Court if necessary.
The drivers are the first of about 20,000 non-nursing and paramedical grade workers in the health services to threaten industrial action since the nurses dispute was resolved. All of these groups are likely to cite the improvement of the nurses' offer from £10 million a year ago to the £87 million finally accepted, as justification for their own claims.
SIPTU regional secretary, Mr Brendan Hayes, said yesterday that ambulance drivers were determined to have their claim addressed. Dublin ambulance personnel have their shift and cardiac allowances consolidated in basic pay for overtime purposes and provincial drivers want their pay determined on a similar basis.
Mr Hayes said provincial drivers were being asked to accept an offer under the restructuring clause of the Programme for Competitiveness and Work before negotiations were concluded for their Dublin colleagues.
While this would give them parity in the short term they would lose it again when the Dublin negotiations were concluded under the PCW. It would then be another three years before they could submit a new claim. As Partnership 2000 has different criteria for negotiating local pay claims they might end up with much less.
However, the chief executive of the Health Service Employers' Association, Mr Gerard Barry, said the new offer was worth £50 a week when overtime was taken into account and gave fully parity with Dublin drivers.
The Minister for Health yesterday expressed confidence that the pay claim by provincial ambulance drivers would be resolved through the negotiation process and strike action would be averted.