Siptu health workers in 30 hospitals to take industrial action later this month

HEALTH WORKERS IN the Siptu trade union will join those in Fórsa and take part in industrial action later this month. 

It comes after both unions voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action, up to and including strike action, in separate ballots over delays in agreeing a new public sector pay agreement. 

The previous public sector pay deal expired at the end of June. It provided for general pay increases of 9.25% for public sector workers, along with a 1% local bargaining fund.

Formal talks on a successor agreement have yet to begin.

Siptu represents over 42,000 healthcare workers in hospitals, emergency services, clinics and community health settings. 

The union said its members in 30 hospitals will take in a work-to-rule on 30 September and withdraw from voluntary additional labour, such as non-rostered overtime.

Members will continue to attend their normal rostered shifts, perform their normal duties and comply with their professional and statutory obligations.

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“Our members have made their position clear. They want a new public service pay agreement, and they want Government to engage in a proper negotiating process with the ICTU Public Services Committee,” Siptu health divisional organiser Kevin Figgis said.

He said health workers have continued to deliver essential public services and been asked “to do more with less, to work additional hours and to provide the goodwill necessary to keep services operating”. 

“Our members have suffered from the effects of the cost-of-living crisis the same as other workers. They deserve to have pay negotiated on their behalf by union representatives.”

Figgis added that the industrial action is not directed at patients or service users, but the health service “cannot indefinitely depend on workers providing unlimited additional goodwill to compensate for staffing and resource pressures”. 

“Thirty hospitals will be involved in the first phase of our action. Further actions in our campaign will ultimately depend on the Government’s response. Public service unions remain ready to negotiate. The Government should now show the same commitment.”

It comes after members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) voted in favour of industrial action over a lack of progress in public sector pay negotiations.

The INMO said its members voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action, up to and including strike action, regarding the “need for government to meaningfully provide for acceptable pay increases in any further public sector pay agreement”.

Speaking on Newstalk Breakfast on Thursday, general secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said nurses are working in difficult situations in community and hospital settings that are understaffed “and they’re doing that against the background of a very high cost of living.”

“If the issue does not get resolved properly, we will have a very significant public service dispute, and that isn’t a threat,” she said, adding that it is “just what happens” when the government does not respond to “the very legitimate and reasonable requests that we have made”.