Filipino nurses seek extended contracts

FILIPINO nurses have threatened to return home unless their work contracts are extended.

The nurses, whose situation was highlighted yesterday in a report to the Eastern Health Board, said three-, or six-month, contracts gave them no job security and they may not be re-employed at the end of six months.

“This is something that concerns us a lot each day and I know of some nurses who are considering leaving Ireland,” one nurse said.

The departure of foreign nurses would lead to further problems in the health service, which already has a serious shortage of nurses.

Some Dublin hospitals have become very dependent on overseas nurses to ensure they can continue to provide necessary services to their patients.

A shorter working week for nurses was also called for at the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) conference, in Tralee, Co Kerry. Delegates unanimously passed an INO motion seeking a reduction in the standard working week from 39 hours to 35 hours.

The INO’s Dave Hughes, moving the motion, said there were ever-increasing pressures to increase productivity, but the working week had not been reduced for a number of years.

He said that the INO went before the Labour Court, as far back as 1980, looking for a reduction to 35 hours. Mr Hughes told delegates that the Labour Court then said that high priority should be given to a phased reduction, but, in 1987, the Labour Court said the claim could not be conceded.

Further claims were made last year and earlier this year.

Mr Hughes also claimed that national social partnership agreements were actually preventing the reduction of the working week.

“We’re now left in a situation where we have two choices: pursue the claim through national agreements, or through industrial action. We would obviously prefer to work through national agreements,” he said.

The motion urged the ICTU executive to make a shorter working week a key objective of negotiations on future national agreements. Conference also passed a motion calling for the implementation of an EU directive on fixed-term working, with delegates expressing concern about a growing tendency towards fixed-term contracts and lack of stable employment.