Support staff at several Dublin hospitals vote for strike

Support staff in major Dublin hospitals have voted to go on strike. Porters, catering staff and lab assistants are angry about pay cuts and changes to working conditions.

SIPTU said the industrial action would affect St Vincent's University Hospital, Beaumont, the Mater, Tallaght and St Luke's hospitals and the National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street.

More than 1,500 members voted for the action, which SIPTU said was to "to resist any further attempt by management to cut our members' pay by removing them from rosters during unsocial hours and weekends and replacing them with interns".

Union spokesman Paul Bell said: "The interns were being deployed in a way that has not been agreed. We have agreed for interns to be deployed on the basis of covering for agency, removing that seriously high cost.

"We've also agreed that where overtime was being worked because of the moratorium - in other words that you could not recruit staff - we have actually (agreed that) interns could be used to try and supplement that."