Ballot on industrial action gets go-ahead

Delegates vote on a motion to hold a ballot on industrial action. However, it was decided a forthcoming Labour Court recommendation must first be rejected by the union's members before the ballot on industrial action takes place.
Photograph: Lorraine Teevan

INO ANNUAL CONFERENCE: DELEGATES AT the Irish Nurses’ Organisation (INO) annual conference yesterday voted to ballot the union’s 40,000 members on a fresh campaign of industrial action.

The campaign could include what the union’s deputy general secretary, David Hughes, labelled “the most dramatic action ever contemplated”. However, following a lengthy debate, it was decided that a forthcoming Labour Court recommendation must first be rejected by the union’s members before the ballot on industrial action takes place.

Similarly, the 380 delegates stopped short of backing a full national walkout, for the time being at least, after an original motion calling for members to be immediately balloted on a full withdrawal of labour once the Labour Court recommendation was known did not achieve the support of those present.

Instead, an amended motion resolved that, in the event that the Labour Court recommendation did not grant the union’s demand for parity of pay with “our therapeutic grade colleagues”, this decision should be put to a national ballot of members for acceptance or rejection.

If it was rejected, the amendment stated that the union would “immediately ballot for industrial action”. The amendment did not, however, specify what nature such a ballot should take, although senior union sources said yesterday this was likely to include the option of a full national walkout.

In a wide-ranging debate on the merits of specifying a full withdrawal of labour in any ballot on industrial action, a number of delegates suggested there was little appetite among nurses and midwives for such a move at this time.

Others said the amendment, which was subsequently accepted, did not “rule out” full industrial action, but that it would allow the union to “keep our options open”. Supporting this point of view, one said it would be “easier to get Bertie Ahern back as taoiseach than it would be to get our members out on strike in the morning”.

However, other delegates argued the only industrial action to be contemplated by nurses should be a “full national walkout”. In an earlier presentation to the conference, Mr Hughes said that at regional meetings, members had indicated they “are prepared to consider the most dramatic action ever contemplated”.

“Nurses in regional meetings have told us, ‘Don’t take us for granted’,” he said. “Society generally must reward caring work.”

What the INO calls its “unfinished” pay claim involving parity of pay between degree-level frontline nurses and midwives and their degree-level “therapeutic” counterparts, equivalent to a pay rise of approximately 15 per cent, is due to go before the Labour Court on May 22nd next.

Nurses and midwives can also expect the introduction of the 37.5-hour working week to take place from the start of June, while the commission on the introduction of a 35-hour week is due to report later this year.

However, in a letter to INO general secretary Liam Doran, circulated at yesterday’s conference, the secretary general of the Department of Health, Michael Scanlan, confirmed that a roundtable discussion involving employer and union representatives is to be held at UCD this Thursday. This would seek to “inject a sense of urgency” into discussions on reducing the working week by the start of June.

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times