STRIKE ACTION could be imminent at the Mercy University Hospital in Cork.
The stoppage may be on the cards as the Irish Nurses’ Organisation (INO) are set to ballot nurses tomorrow on a withdrawal of labour. This follows a decision by management to cut premium payments to staff in an attempt to save money.
Among the proposed changes to terms and conditions are: a deferral of increments; a change to flat-rate payment from double time for bank holiday work; suspension of the Saturday allowance, worth about €14; a halving of the acting-up allowance, worth approximately €20 per week; and suspension of the unsocial hours allowance, worth time and a sixth.
Management at the hospital insist the reductions in pay could be reversed if the union can find alternative ways to save cash.
The INO say the move to cut premium payments was taken while they were still in negotiation with hospital management. They are deeply disappointed at the move by management to remove premium payments retrospectively from salaries.
INO industrial relations officer Michael Dineen said the entire episode was an unfortunate affair for staff at the hospital.
“We will be holding a meeting on Tuesday at 7.30pm in the Mercy (hospital) and we will be balloting our members on all-out withdrawal of labour given the manner in which management have behaved. The response would be anything less than appropriate if we weren’t to address it in this fashion. It doesn’t give us any comfort to do that, but we cannot be bullied and we cannot have our people intimidated in this fashion,” he said.
Mr Dineen added that it was very hard to have faith in management given the manner in which this has been done. The INO is liaising with its legal advisers in relation to the latest developments at the hospital.
INO officials have described the actions of management as being in clear breach of employment law.
Early this year the hospital announced it was seeking voluntary unpaid leave, pay freezes and the axing of specific pay allowances in a drive to slash €3.2 million from its budget.
Mercy hospital chief executive Pat Madden said the hospital had no option but to seek significant savings because of the reduction in its HSE allowances.
The hospital has to achieve savings of €7.5 million between their 2008/2009 budgets as part of the HSE drive to slash €1 billion from overall healthcare spending.
Meanwhile, nurses employed in Killarney Community Hospital engaged in a one-hour work stoppage from 3-4 pm last Friday as part of their campaign against the imposition of changes in management structures, which would see the abolition of the director of nursing post.
Michael Dineen said INO members employed within Killarney Community Hospital were left with no alternative but to withdraw their labour for one hour in order to demonstrate their total opposition to the intimidatory and dictatorial imposition of changes in the management structures at the hospital.
“These changes were imposed on our members without due regard to appropriate consultation and negotiation and despite a request from the organisation, as late as Wednesday morning, that the HSE would suspend imposition of these changes to allow for the intervention of the Labour Relations Commission.”