MOVES BY about 28,000 healthcare workers to seek a shorter working week similar to that secured by nurses have been rejected by the Labour Court.
The trade union Siptu had sought the introduction of a 35-hour week for paramedics, childcare workers, emergency medical controllers, support grades, supervisory personnel and telephonists.
It said that the hours for these staff, who currently work a 39-hour week, had not been reduced for more than 20 years and that reform was overdue, especially as traditionally nurses and support staff worked the same number of hours.
Siptu argued that the delivery of an effective health service was a team activity and that there had to be equality among all members of the team in regard to their conditions of work and particularly in relation to their hours of work.
However, health service management contended that the introduction of a shorter working week for these staff would cost the Exchequer an additional €144 million per annum.
It said that the current social partnership agreement, Towards 2016, did not provide a mandate to consider such a cost-increasing claim.
Health service management also maintained that the agreement in relation to the reduced working week for nurses, which was brokered by the National Implementation Body (NIB), was specific to this group of workers only.
It said that there was also a requirement that this reduced working week for nurses should be implemented only on a cost-neutral basis.
In its finding, the Labour Court backed the HSE argument that the claim was cost-increasing and therefore was not allowed under the terms of the national agreement.
"The HSE rejected the claim on the basis that it is a cost-increasing claim, debarred by the terms of clause 27.7 of Towards 2016 which states in effect that no cost-increasing claims by trade unions or employees will be made or processed during the currency of the agreement other than those provided for by the agreement itself or those arising from benchmarking management quantified the claim at approximately €144 million.
"In these circumstances, the court is satisfied that the union's claim is cost-increasing and is, therefore, debarred by the terms of Towards 2016.
"Accordingly, the court cannot recommend concession of the claim," the Labour Court found.
Under the deal brokered by the NIB last year which ended a seven-week dispute, the working week for 38,000 nurses was to be reduced from 39 to 37.5 hours by June this year, on condition that this could be ach- ieved on a cost-neutral basis and without affecting patient care.
A commission was also established to examine the feasibility of reducing the working week further to 35 hours.
However, up to now, local agreements have only been reached to allow the working week to be reduced to 37.5 hours for fewer than half of all nurses within the conditions set out by the NIB.