Health workers refuse to answer phone calls from public

HEALTH worker members of IMPACT trade union will this morning stop answering phone calls from members of the public as part of the escalation of their campaign against budget pay cuts imposed on the public sector.

The campaign will start in the HSE Dublin/north-east regions this morning, with workers refusing to answer phones for a four-hour period.

The action will then spread to the west of the country tomorrow, to the southern division of the HSE on Thursday and the Dublin/mid-Leinster region on Friday.

In each case the union has agreed essential cover. That means that acute hospital switchboards and phone lines in emergency departments will continue to operate normally.

In certain other sections where the phones are not being answered, the union said its members will screen messages to identify genuine emergencies.

The union has spelt out where it is taking the action this week to give management advance notice so that it can prepare.

It has indicated that from next week it may not give so much warning. Yesterday the union’s members started refusing to take on any work associated with vacant posts.

In the local government sphere, they refused to process requests for information for parliamentary questions or applications under the Freedom of Information Act.

Next Monday the public sector unions which make up the public service committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions are due to meet to decide how they will escalate their campaign of industrial action. IMPACT has already proposed a series of rolling work stoppages.

Yesterday members of the Civil Public and Services Union, which represents lower paid civil servants, voted 83% in favour of strike action. They will decide when to escalate in the coming days.

“CPSU members have voted decisively for escalating the current dispute over the pay cuts,” said the union’s general secretary, Blair Horan.

“Members were shocked and dismayed that the Government would cut their low pay rates by 5%-6% while restoring pay levels of senior managers on €150,000.”