OVER 26,000 nurses in the health services are being asked to suspend the ballot for a national strike by their unions, to allow a new form of adjudication on their restructuring deal.
The Nursing Alliance comprising the Irish Nurses' Organisation, SIPTU, IMPACT and the Psychiatric Nurses' Association is recommending using the new adjudication procedures.
These were agreed during intensive talks with the Government and the ICTU during the past week.
Under the agreed framework, non pay aspects of the restructuring deal will be reviewed in the traditional way, through discussions at the Local Government Staff Negotiations Board (LGSNB).
Pay and pay related issues will be looked at through the adjudication process. It is understood the Government is not prepared to renegotiate basic pay scales for staff nurses, but the adjudication committee would be able to look at other important issues.
These include anomalies which the proposed new basic pay scales have created for ward sisters, nursing officers and related grades. The questions of new, lower entry rates of pay for staff nurses, early retirement and the criteria for the pay bands of nurse managers will 4so be looked at.
The adjudicating body will comprise Mr Gerry Durcan SC Mr Kevin Duffy, assistant general secretary of the ICTU, and Mr Derek Hunter for the LGSNB and other health management SIPTU nursing officer Mr Noel Dowling said after a meeting of the Nursing Alliance yesterday that he believed "this process will produce a new package which members will find addresses the issues on which they have laid most emphasis.
All the chief negotiators will be urging their members to opt for the new process and defer the strike ballot due to begin on Monday. Circulars to union branches are being issued today.
The ballot on whether to enter the adjudication process will conclude on June 28th. If nurses reject the new framework then they will be balloted again on strike action.