Ray of light shines on HSE’s ‘light bulb’ dispute

THE Health Service Executive’s so-called light bulb dispute with craft workers in the south of the country appeared over last night after the workers’ union ordered its members back to work.

The dispute had initially been portrayed as revolving around workers’ refusal to let cheaper labour, such as general operatives, change light bulbs rather than pay expensive call-out charges for qualified electricians.

The workers’ union, the Technical Electrical and Engineering Union, said there was much more to the dispute than changing the bulbs and said the company was trying to change a number of workers’ conditions without consent.

A Labour Court ruling in March referred specifically to the light-bulb issue.

It said the union should accede to the HSE management request, but that the parties should meet to agree a protocol on the changing of light bulbs to be carried out without the involvement of electricians.

There followed numerous meetings with the Labour Relations Commission to try to find that protocol but those meetings ended without agreement.

The TEEU said it wanted a third party brought in to adjudicate on the matter. The company said that was a waste of money when it had its own engineers who could do that.

As the dispute escalated workers were suspended a number of weeks ago and since then there seemed to be little attempt at reconciliation.

However, now the National Implementation Body appears to have found a breakthrough — and dispelled claims the matter revolved solely around light bulbs.

It said there are five significant elements to the dispute that remained unresolved and it said all those had to be considered for its composite proposal to be effective.

It made recommendations on differences over on-call and call-out procedures, the use of contractors, staffing levels and alleged non-payments under Towards 2016.

On the light bulb issue, it said an agreed independent person with the necessary knowledge and expertise should be appointed to chair discussions on the protocol under agreed terms of reference.

“The chair will issue a binding adjudication on any outstanding issues relating to the protocol. When a protocol has been finalised payments will be made in accordance with the agreements as set down in the Labour Court recommendation,” it said.

The HSE welcomed the ruling and the fact workers were finally returning to work, though it added a lot of the substantive issues referred to by the NIB were in the process of being addressed.

The craft workers will meet in Dungarvan next Tuesday to vote on the proposals.

Meanwhile, they will resume normal work from starting time this morning.

TEEU general secretary designate Eamon Devoy welcomed the NIB proposals and said they formed a “good basis for resolving issues”.