Major disputes in healthcare sector

In the context of the forthcoming general election, the Irish government is facing a number of major problems in the healthcare sector, which are also a test of the social partnership system and the current national agreement ‘Towards 2016’. In light of the general elections in May or June this year, the government seeks to establish a special high-level forum to settle the disputes with the organisations representing consultants and nurses in the sector.

Talks ongoing

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) has been engaged in talks with the Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach), Bertie Ahern, and Minister Harney about the prospect of establishing a special high-level forum to deal with the industrial relations crises facing the entire healthcare sector. The social partners have been informally discussing the proposed initiative for some time now. However, in light of the intractable nature of the nurses’ and hospital consultants’ disputes, it is evident that greater urgency is needed. If this forum gets underway, the process is expected to be overseen by the state’s dispute resolution agencies, with a major role envisaged for the Labour Relations Commission (LRC).

Bids to secure rises outside benchmarking process

Two nursing unions, the larger Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) and the smaller Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA), announced a phased campaign of industrial action late last year. This was on foot of lodging a joint eight-pronged pay claim that was subsequently rejected by the Labour Court. Meanwhile, nurses belonging to the two trade unions have had the first 3% pay rise, due to public servants under the current [Towards 2016 (2.9Mb PDF)](http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/attached_files/Pdf files/Towards2016PartnershipAgreement.pdf) social partnership agreement, withheld by their employers. This is because they have not signed up to Towards 2016, nor to the latest round of what is known as ‘benchmarking’.

Benchmarking involves a special four-yearly tracking of private sector pay trends by the Public Service Benchmarking Body (PSBB), with a view to ensuring that the public sector pay scales are maintained relative to related rates in the private sector. No public service trade union has managed to upset the benchmarking process, which commenced in 2002 as an agreed solution among the social partners to the irrational nature of the so-called public pay ‘specials’ system that previously prevailed.

Benchmarking was seen as an attempt to end the old ‘leap-frogging’ system, whereby pay rises granted to one group automatically triggered rises in related groups. While the benchmarking system has been criticised by some economists and commentators as lacking sufficient rigour, a majority of public sector unions regard it as a major achievement. Whatever settlement will be achieved in the nurses’ dispute, neither the government nor the other public sector unions could countenance anything that might unhinge the benchmarking system.

A previous effort by a major teachers’ union, the Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland (ASTI), to secure increases outside benchmarking, also ended in failure. As a result, ASTI left the ICTU in protest. However, they reaffiliated a few years later and eventually ‘signed up’ to the benchmarking system.

Two other trade unions representing nurses, the Irish Municipal, Public and Civil Trade Union (IMPACT) and the Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU), are not involved in the current dispute, and remain within the social partnership and benchmarking processes.

Dispute involving hospital consultants

The second major dispute, between the Health Service Executive (Feidhmeannacht na Seirbhíse Sláinte, HSE) and the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) on board with the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO), has entered a definitive six-week dispute resolution process. Several earlier efforts failed to achieve a breakthrough. The two consultant bodies have been strongly resisting current government proposals to establish a new ‘public only’ consultant contract. This contract looks to increase the number of consultants operating in Ireland’s public healthcare system, which at present can only be described as being remarkably inefficient.

Commentary

The government is anxious to resolve both disputes prior to the general election, which is expected to take place in May or June 2007. It is, of course, aware that the nurses can garner a degree of public sympathy, although believe it unlikely to be near the level of support that the last major nurses strike in 1999 received. The consultants, on the other hand, may not get much sympathy from the electorate, but nevertheless they represent a powerful group within the healthcare sector.

Brian Sheehan, IRN Publishing