MEMBERS OF the largest union representing nurses around the State have overwhelmingly rejected the Croke Park deal on public service pay and reform.
Separately yesterday members of the trade union Unite and the craft union TEEU also voted against the agreement.
However, members of the Medical Laboratory Scientists Association have voted decisively in favour of the Croke Park proposals.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation said its members had voted by 84 per cent to 16 per cent to reject the deal. The nurses’ organisation is one of the largest public service trade unions with more than 40,000 members.
The nurses’ union also called off the work-to-rule which has been under way for many weeks in protest at pay cuts and said that it wanted talks on an alternative approach to reforming the health service while recognising the financial parameters.
It said that throughout the balloting process, in meetings in every workplace across the country, its members had repeatedly, and consistently, highlighted health service cutbacks and, in particular, the recruitment moratorium.
It said it was the union’s view that, under the Croke Park proposals “the public health service would be subject to even greater levels of service closures, staffing reductions and resulting overcrowding”.
The union’s general secretary Liam Doran said: “We have consistently argued that the Croke Park proposals, with the requirement to cut 6,000 further health service posts and close another 3,500 beds, is totally unacceptable, harmful and, notwithstanding our current economic situation, totally unjustifiable”.
The nurses’ union will agree to abide by the result of the majority vote when the Croke Park deal is considered next month by the Public Services Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Union.
Unite said its 6,000 members in health, education, local authorities, government agencies and the Civil Service had voted to reject the deal by a margin of 65 per cent to 35 per cent.
Unite said clarifications on the Croke Park deal which had been drawn up by the Labour Relations Commission were not “considered to have made any improvement to the content of what was being offered by Government”.
The Technical Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU), which represents about 1,100 craft workers in the public service, voted to reject the deal by a margin of two to one.
The Medical Laboratory Scientists Association, which has nearly 2,000 members, voted by a margin of 81 per cent to 19 per cent in favour of the Croke Park deal. So far, members of all unions which have completed balloting have voted in accordance with the recommendations of their executives.
If members of larger unions such as Siptu and Impact vote in line with the recommendations of their executives, the Croke Park deal is likely to be accepted by a two-to-one majority when it is considered by the Public Services Committee in a fortnight.
CROKE PARK COUNTDOWN BIG-UNION BALLOTS TO DECIDE:
Trade unions that have voted to accept the deal:
PSEU:representing mid-grade civil servants;
AHCPS:senior civil servants;
VOA:veterinary officers;
UCATT:craft union;
IMO:doctors (accepted deal without a ballot);
INTO:primary school teachers;
MLSA:laboratory scientists
Trade unions that have voted to reject the deal:
CPSU:lower-paid civil servants;
TUI:teaching union;
ASTI:secondary teachers;
TEEU:craft union;
INMO:nurses and midwives;
Ifut:university teachers;
Unite:staff in local authorities, health and education
Ballots under way:
Siptu:staff in health, education and local authorities;
Impact:staff in health, education, civil service and local authorities;
OPATSI:plasterers union;
Batu:building workers;
POA:prison officers.