STAFF AT the Mater Private hospital in Dublin have served strike notice which they say will involve a full withdrawal of their labour from the start of next month.
Members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Association (INMO) and Siptu voted to take strike action in response to pay cuts of between 5 per cent and 7.5 per cent in basic pay and a 5 per cent reduction in allowances, introduced from January 1st.
The hospital has a staff of about 900, although not all are members of Siptu and the INMO, formerly the INO.
“As the Mater Private is a profit- making organisation, these imposed, unagreed pay cuts are in fact illegal and unnecessary,” the unions said in a joint statement.
INMO industrial relations officer Albert Murphy said: “These pay cuts are totally unnecessary and we will continue to seek their removal as we believe that this is an example of cheap opportunism, where an employer seeks to exploit the long-standing goodwill of employees.”
Siptu health sector organiser Paul Bell said the hospital had “refused to enter any meaningful dialogue” with the two unions on the pay cuts.
“The focus of our dispute is the failure of management to negotiate with the unions as required by existing agreements regarding wage rates and security of employment.”
The strike is to begin at 7.30am on Monday, February 1st.
Mater Private chief executive Fergus Clancy confirmed pay cuts came in from January 1st. He said the decision by the unions was “disappointing”.
Mr Clancy said the hospital had predicted prior to the budget that it would need to introduce pay cuts. “But given that our competitors, some of whom had already gone before the budget with deeper pay cuts, we were determined to wait until we saw what happened with the national pay scales.
“Although competitors have gone deeper, we have made a decision not to break the agreement we have with unions to honour the public pay [scales].”
Mr Clancy said hospital staff had also been paid dividends by virtue of their participation in its share-ownership scheme, under which they own 15 per cent of the equity in the business.
Mr Clancy said the effect on the treatment of patients if strike action went ahead on February 1st would depend on what was agreed with unions.
“However, obviously our focus in advance of that would be to make every effort to ensure that doesn’t happen.
“If we do find ourselves having to deal with a strike, our focus then will be very much on trying to minimise the impact on patients,” he said.
In a letter to all staff on January 12th, Mr Clancy said the VHI had imposed a “massive cut” in prices, significantly reducing the hospital’s profitability.
It said customers were also trading down to lower plans which did not offer full cover at the hospital.
In addition, Government spending on healthcare, as well as the National Treatment Purchase Fund budget for 2010, had been cut by 10 per cent.