The Government is facing moves by gardaí and about 30,000 healthcare staff for a reduced working week on foot of the deal offered to nurses on Tuesday to end their seven-week dispute. Martin Walland Conor Lallyreport.
About 40,000 members of the Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) and the Psychiatric Nurses' Association (PNA) are to ballot next week on proposals which would see their working week reduced to 37.5 hours by June 2008.
A commission is also to be established to examine how the health service could introduce a 35-hour week for the nurses. However, other unions and representative bodies have maintained that as the deal was offered outside of the benchmarking process and national agreements, they too will seek a shorter week on the same basis.
Siptu, which represents healthcare assistants, paramedics as well as catering staff and porters, said it would be seeking similar arrangements as offered to nurses.
The general secretary of the Garda Representative Association, PJ Stone, said he now intended to pursue a claim to reduce the Garda working week from 40 hours to 39 hours. He said the association had been promised such a concession by the Department of Justice at the time of the "blue flu" dispute a decade ago but that it had never been honoured.
He said that in the interim he had been repeatedly told that the Garda Conciliation and Arbitration Scheme could not step outside national wage agreements. But now that the nurses had succeeded in using a "new dimension" there was no reason why gardaí could not do the same. "There has clearly been an accommodation reached with the nurses," he said.
Mr Stone added that when changes to the Garda working week were mooted 10 years ago, it was envisaged members would continue to work 40 hours but would be paid for an extra hour. This payment was to take the form of a lump sum at Christmas for 52 hours worked over the previous year.
Siptu national industrial secretary Matt Merrigan said the union would be meeting management next week to discuss its claims for a reduced week. He said the Government had gone outside benchmarking in relation to the nurses and Siptu would seek equal treatment. It will seek direct talks with employers. If there is no progress, Siptu could take the issue to the Labour Relations Commission.
Government sources said the reduced week for nurses was conditional on work practice changes and greater flexibility. It has said that the move had to be implemented on a cost neutral basis. The sources said other groups seeking a shorter week would also have to offer such reforms.
The results of INO and PNA ballots on the compromise proposals put forward by the National Implementation Body as well as on the terms of the Towards 2016 national agreement and a Labour Court recommendation on claims for improved pay and conditions are expected to be known towards the end of next week. The INO is not making a recommendation to members on how to vote.