HEALTH SERVICE staff who have been engaged in industrial action over pay cuts for the last two months face being removed from the payroll under proposals drawn up by management.
The board of the Health Service Executive (HSE) will meet in special session today to consider the impact of the action, which has particularly hit the provision of key financial and activity data.
It is understood that among the proposals put forward by management for consideration by the board if action continues are the removal of staff from the payroll, the ending of the deduction of union subscriptions at source, and the abolition of the practice whereby some HSE-funded staff work full-time on union activity.
It is understood that prior to any such action being taken staff would have to get a warning from management and the option to resume work, even under protest.
The disciplining of staff involved in industrial action could have significant implications for the Croke Park deal.
Last night the HSE said a board meeting would take place today to outline the significant risks facing the organisation “as a result of not having sight of financial data”.
“If this situation is not addressed, it has the potential to impact on patient services later this year. We will discuss a number of possible courses of action that could be considered”, the HSE stated. However, a spokesman declined to comment on the nature of the proposals.
A fortnight ago The Irish Times revealed that in a confidential memo senior management said that at corporate level they only had access to high-level financial information about the organisation. They said that this was not sufficient for decision-making purposes and “could be masking underlying underperformance in some core service areas”.
The HSE has sought the trade union Impact to provide derogations for the financial and other data from the industrial action.
However, Impact in turn has sought assurances from the HSE that the contractual position of its members in relation to tenure which were set out in an agreement in 2004 would not be affected by the terms of the recent Croke Park deal. In a memo to members on Wednesday, Impact national secretary Kevin Callinan said the union’s health and welfare divisional executive committee was “satisfied that the interests of members would not be served” by dealing with the HSE request for derogations without it providing the assurances it had sought.
He said the HSE had indicated “the strong likelihood that it will escalate the situation”.
“We have to assume that this may include further threats to our members and the possibility that members will be removed from the payroll.” he said.