Give me a crash course in . . . Ireland’s industrial unrest

After the Luas workers, Dublin Bus staff and secondary teachers, who are next in line to go on strike?

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, which represents nearly 40,000 nurses, is to ballot its members for industrial action up to and including strikes over working conditions and staffing levels.

Siptu, which represents about 60,000 people across the public service, has also warned that it may ballot for strikes over pay, while the potential remains for industrial trouble in Bus Éireann and Iarnród Éireann in the weeks ahead over pay also.

What about the teachers and gardaí?

The union representing second-level teachers, ASTI, suspended its campaign of industrial action earlier this week to go into talks.

The ASTI dispute centred on two issues; lower pay for new recruits, and supervision and substitution duties. The talks, under the auspices of the Teachers’ Conciliation Council, will run until the end of November.

However while some in the ASTI may wish to avail of the talks process to extricate the union from a dispute which was becoming increasingly entrenched and which was attracting little support from elsewhere in the trade union movement, there are significant obstacles to clear if a solution is to be found.

In particular we will have to see whether the ASTI will be prepared to work the so-called Croke Park additional unpaid hours which the Government sees as a key on-going productivity measure.

But the Garda dispute has been settled, hasn't it?

No. The Labour Court issued a recommendation to resolve the row between gardaí and the Government that centred on a new €40 million pay package. However, gardaí still have to vote on the proposals. Planned strikes have been suspended for the moment, not abandoned.

The organisation representing more than 10,000 rank-and-file gardaí, the Garda Representative Association, is not specifically recommending to members that they should back the Labour Court proposals. It is adopting a neutral stance on the issue, leaving it up to individual gardaí to make up their own minds in a ballot to take place over the next couple of weeks.

What happens if gardaí reject the Labour Court proposals?

That would be a nightmare for the Government. In the eyes of many other public service groups, the Government breached the overall Lansdowne Road Agreement on public service pay by accepting a Labour Court recommendation that arguably gave more to gardaí who were outside the scope of the deal than to those inside the tent.

If GRA members reject the Labour Court proposals, the Government will be left fighting a hugely controversial battle with gardaí while at the same time having to deal with restlessness elsewhere in the public service.

What are the nurses looking for?

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation is seeking new financial incentives to help recruit and retain nurses and midwives and to secure adequate staffing levels. It also wants the Government to speed up the process of general pay restoration for nurses and other public service staff.

If the nurses’ ballot is carried, industrial action is likely, initially at least, to involve a work-to-rule aimed at matching the level of services on offer to the number of staff available.

This could mean beds being removed from the hospital system or community services restricted if sufficient nursing personnel were not available, with an inevitable knock-on effect of higher waiting lists and increased pressure on emergency departments . The industrial action by nurses could be escalated to a series of one-day work stoppages.

What will happen next?

Next Wednesday the public service unions will meet in Belfast to consider their position on the Lansdowne Road accord in the wake of the Garda pay offer. This is likely to result in the unions formally seeking new talks with the Government on a successor deal.

If there is no indication before then that the Government will agree to new talks, Siptu’s executive is likely to authorise strike ballots among its members in the public service on Thursday.