Nurses and health-care workers launch fightback

By Jo Tully, INO Executive member

The Irish Nurses Organization (INO) Annual Conference was held earlier this month in Killarney. It was the most militant INO Conference that I have ever attended.

The Conference was held in the wake of the HSE’s announcement of a recruitment freeze on all staffing, including front line nursing staff, which threatens up to 6,000 nursing jobs over the next 20 months.

It entails the termination of all temporary contracts and a moratorium on the filling of available posts due to retirements, maternity leave, etc. It is now being enacted.

This attack on working conditions is accompanied by pay-cuts of, on average, 11% since the December budget (2% pay levy, 2% PRSI, 7% pension levy; on average 400 Euros a month has been taken out of our wages), not to mention child benefit cuts, the parking levy, and the lifting of mortgage tax relief.

This onslaught on working conditions and on pay is paralleled by very serious attacks on services. The attack s on Monaghan Hospital and the North East led the way and are now being followed by attacks on the Mid West, where only last month A&E services in Nenagh and Ennis were stripped, leaving the whole Mid West area dependant on an already hopelessly overcrowded service in Limerick. This leaves conditions so bad that nurses are now balloting for action there. While it has not been announced officially, 12 of the 52 acute hospitals are destined for closure, or near enough to closure, in the next 20 months.

This was the context in which an emergency motion calling, for the first time ever, for ‘All Out Action’ was unanimously passed. Speaker after speaker outlined the deteriorating conditions and stripping away of services in their own area. The extent of the closures is truly shocking, surprising even those of us who thought we were in the know. But so much is being carried out without national news coverage. Up and down the country, hospitals are closing beds, wards, theatres, and out-patients services.

The mood among nurses is such that nurses in Sligo General and in The Mercy Hospital in Cork have already balloted for ‘All Out Action’. This was done in response to attempts by Management in the case of the Mercy in Cork to stop all premium pay (extra pay for night-duty, weekend etc) and in Sligo to the letting go of 19 temporary nurses. Balloting for action is also taking place in Limerick and in Bantry.

The point is that this type of action by nurses is new. Speaker after speaker at conference expressed their frustration and anger and felt that they had no alternative but to take the ultimate step.

While closures over the summer will continue to take place, it is possible that it will be September and the autumn before the extent of the cuts and closures will be clear.

It is crucial that nurses and health-care workers generally come together to build the fight back.

It is a scandal that the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has wasted the energy expressed in the amazing National demonstration on March 30th when 120,000 workers took to the streets of Dublin to fight against the budget and job cuts.

Rather than taking that energy forward, ICTU has sat back and allowed billions of Euros to be taken out of members’ pockets to prop up the very institutions which have brought us to the edge of bankruptcy.

During the summer it is crucial that we build networks of workers on the ground. We cannot afford another sell out.

Contact Jo Tully at jotully@eircom.net