Almost 1,000 health workers staged a one-day strike in Belfast yesterday after a member of staff received a death threat believed to have come from loyalist paramilitaries.
The strike caused severe disruption to services at day-care centres in north and west Belfast. Trade union officials defended the stoppage which was criticised by senior officials at the North and West Belfast Health and Social Services Trust and by a north Belfast MLA.
The employee received a bullet in a package and was said to be "very distressed". The Progressive Unionist Party's Mr Billy Hutchinson, however, said he was "fed up" with trade union action.
"They are taking decisions which are on a whim and which are from one side of the community and not the other," he added.
The trust's director of operations, Mr Noel Rooney, expressed disappointment at the staff's decision to go ahead with the stoppage.
While he had the greatest sympathy for the member of staff concerned, the protest should have taken a different form, he added.
It is thought that the trust received assurances from the Loyalist Commission, an umbrella group comprising loyalist paramilitaries, politicians and clergy, that the threat had not originated from the Ulster Defence Association or the Ulster Volunteer Force.
While apologising for any disruption to services, an officer for the health workers' union NIPSA, Mr Kevin Lawrenson, said staff had been left with no other option but to call the stoppage.
"Our members have been exposed to a lot of civil unrest in the area but this was simply the straw that broke the camel's back. The individual threatened is extremely distraught and has found the whole experience extremely frightening."
Meanwhile, politicians, trade union officials, employers and church leaders have called on people to support today's anti-sectarianism rally in Belfast city centre. The lunchtime event will, however, be boycotted by the DUP.
In a joint statement, senior figures from the North's four main churches welcomed the initiative and urged everybody in Northern Ireland to express their abhorrence of sectarian violence.
The Alliance Party's deputy leader, Ms Eileen Bell, said it was vital to send a signal to paramilitaries on both sides that they lacked the support of ordinary people. "They are not acting on anyone else's behalf and their actions are bereft of any moral justification or political mandate."
Her sentiments were echoed by a Women's Coalition MLA, Ms Jane Morrice, who called on people to turn out in their thousands.