Madam, – Florence Horsman Hogan questioned the morality of public servants taking industrial action in defence of their pay and conditions of employment and, in particular, those in frontline services supporting such action (March 10th).
The current industrial action in the public service is in defence of pay, pensions, employment and the preservation of a decent public service. It is an easy option to condemn those who support this campaign and join the chorus of commentators who believe public servants, regardless of whether their pay, conditions of service, pensions or the services they provide being cut back, should simply shut up and put up.
However, silence and passivity on the part of frontline workers will not serve the public or society in the face of the current savage cutbacks. Those cutbacks extend well beyond the pay and conditions of frontline public servants, but have also depleted the service provided to the public.
In the current campaign, the public service unions have attempted, in relatively moderate forms of industrial action, to persuade Government to engage in a socially inclusive dialogue which will seek to address the current difficulties facing the State by calling on all sectors of society to contribute in accordance with their means.
Instead, the Government has thrown multiples of the amounts extracted from public services at a banking sector in a vain hope that they will rescue our ailing economy. That money has simply flowed into the hands of international bankers whose spokespersons unsurprisingly applaud the Government when perhaps it would be more appropriate that they simply said a big thank you.
Frontline workers are angry and have a democratic right to express that anger through protest, demonstration and ultimately, if they are not listened to, by taking industrial action. In every one of the frontline public services the moratorium on staffing is displaying a crippling effect. In nursing, in particular, it has led to bed closures, massive increases in workload which have impacted severely on the quality of care and increased delays for those in need of treatment. Moratoriums on staffing on this occasion and all previous occasions has a disproportionate effect on basic grades in the public service, many of whom provide direct frontline essential and emergency services.
The morality of such a policy is what should be questioned and it is surprising that your correspondent has not alluded to its damaging impact.
The statement by the Frontline Services Alliance that it would support actions promoted by the ICTU Public Services Committee is a reasonable and responsible reaction given that the Government, which walked away from the possibility of a social partnership agreement prior to Christmas, is still failing to recognise the need for a better fairer way to service the needs of our society.
In any future actions taken across the public service, nurses and midwives will participate to an appropriate level and, in doing so, will, as they always do, provide the essential care which patients require during any such limited action. – Yours, etc,