Angry nurses ‘to give Labour Court last chance’

NURSES said yesterday they would give the Labour Court a last chance to deal with their pay claim before they considered the “nuclear option” of industrial action.

Both the Irish Nurses’ Organisation (INO) and the Psychiatric Nurses’ Association (PNA) said their members were furious that benchmarking had failed to grant any pay increase to the majority of nurses.

Nurses were the only group it found to be outside the terms of reference of the Public Service Benchmarking Body.

At a press conference in Dublin, the unions, which represent more than 45,000 nurses, said the benchmarking body rubbished everything they had been told over the past five years about their pay claim.

INO deputy general secretary Dave Hughes said every industrial relations agency had insisted their claim must be dealt with through benchmarking, but that body declared last week that it was outside its remit.

Both unions have decided to go back to the Labour Court with their claims on behalf of staff nurses and clinical nurse managers, and ask it to deal with them finally in a fair, open and transparent method.

Mr Hughes said it would be one last chance for the industrial relations procedure to show it could provide justice in relation to a genuine grievance and that nurses and midwives, who had never taken all-out industrial action without providing significant cover, would never have to consider such drastic action.

Both unions would be focusing on the two principal claims — parity with the therapeutic grades and the elimination of the pay anomaly between childcare workers and registered nurses working in the disability sector. The unions will also ask the European Commission to declare the view expressed by the benchmarking body in relation to jobs of equal value was contrary to the European directive on equal pay.

INO president Madeline Spiers said the benchmarking report was an absolute disgrace and a much discredited document.

The Psychiatric Nurses’ Association’s general secretary Des Kavanagh said in the event of the court failing to deal with the nurses’ claims, no option, including the “nuclear option”, could be ruled out.

Mr Kavanagh said the sense of dismay felt by nurses after the report was published rapidly turned to anger. And, he said, they would be looking at the experience of nurses in Finland, who eventually reached agreement with the government before Christmas when they had signed letters of resignation.

The nurses’ campaign of action was averted just days before the general election on the basis that the benchmarking body would deal with their pay claims.