THE TRADE union Siptu has claimed that a leading private hospital in Dublin has brought in staff supplied by an employment agency to try to break a strike by about 60 of its members.
The strike action, which today enters its sixth day, follows a decision by Mount Carmel Hospital to transfer the jobs of catering staff to another company, Aramark/ Campbell Catering.
Talks have been convened by the LRC today amid escalating pickets. Siptu health organiser Paul Bell said the decision by hospital management to introduce strike breakers represented a return to the dark ages in industrial relations terms.