The trade union Impact has said that from tomorrow its 28,000 members in the health sector will begin a work-to-rule and will refuse to cover posts left vacant by the recruitment freeze put in place by the Health Service Executive (HSE).
The union said its members will also cease co-operation with HSE advisors, block non emergency overtime and out-of-hours work and halt co-operation with the health authority’s transformation programme.
Impact said that the action, which involves administrative and managerial personnel, as well as staff in professional and therapy grades, is in protest at recruitment restrictions which have so far left 2,700 jobs unfilled.
Impact national secretary Kevin Callinan said that at this stage the union will not be utilising a mandate it received for work stoppages.
He said the union is to organise a nationwide lunchtime protest involving all its 28,000 members in the health sector across the country for Wednesday, June 11th.
The union said that the employment restrictions were hurting existing services and preventing the implementation of promised improvements in areas such as primary care, disability services, mental health services and care for older people.
Mr Callinan said that as a result of the jobs freeze queues for access to services in some areas were increasing “fairly exponentially”.
The union served notice of its industrial action over three weeks ago after 85 per cent members voted for it in a national ballot.
"It's patent nonsense to pretend that you can cut 2,700 vital health jobs — with more cuts to come — without hurting front line services," Mr Callinan added.
"The HSE cuts are damaging services from social work to occupational therapy, from suicide prevention to
cancer care. From tomorrow we will not be co-operating with the cuts programme and all Impact members will be
concentrating their full efforts on the services they are paid to provide, instead of trying to cover posts left vacant by the HSE's cuts."
The union said it is also demanding that the HSE implement around 40 outstanding agreements and third part recommendations governing a range of working conditions. It said that these were being ignored by HSE management.