BOTH sides in the paramedics strike will be on standby today in case they are summoned back to the Labour Court in its effort to resolve the dispute. The court is expected to issue its recommendation by tomorrow at the earliest.
During yesterday's hearing, the chairman, Ms Evelyn Owens, asked the union to suspend its action. IMPACT, the paramedics' union, refused to do so but said its executive would be on stand by to consider a settlement as soon as it emerged.
Management representatives are understood to have told the court that concession of the claim by more than 3,000 paramedics could unravel public service pay strategy.
Not only would conceding the paramedics' claim for pay parity with the nurses lead to other groups of public service workers in the negotiating queue seeking similar increases, but there was a serious risk of unions which had already settled for much lower amounts submitting new pay claims.
Such a development would also undermine the budgetary parameters for 1997, according to management.
They are denying there is any absolute pay parity with nursing grades and maintain that the whole point of pay restructuring negotiations was to move away from traditional linkages. The nurses settlement was accepted on all sides as unique, and other groups, including paramedics, must have regard to the average pay rise parameter of 5.5 per cent.
IMPACT is understood to have told the court that the current strike was due to management unilaterally setting aside all previous agreements. Union representatives said paramedic grades had no existence, for pay purposes, outside the context of nursing pay scales.