Are the nurse's right to strike?

[Aphfaneire]

Im only a student nurse myself and im currently on an id placement this week so i have no idea how chaotic it is. But it really is insane that the govt doesnt give in to the unions demands. Its putting peoples clerical filing at risk and soon it will be their lives aswell. Its busy enough as it is on the wards, and as a student im limited in what i can do to help. People are pushed to the limit and consultant teams are spread out and sometimes useless. The nurses know the patients, and whats going on. Its insanity that they have to work so much at such a hard job for less than a lot of 9 to 5'ers who do no physical work at all.

From my perspective its mad that im doing the 35 hours they're asking for and im wrecked. The state is also paying for my education to work for those 35 hours and only get enough travel allounance for two weeks (my case anyway). A lot of my fellow students even as first years are allready talking of going to australia and leaving to see the world, and arent even thinking of staying here. Its mad, for the shorter hours to work they need my felow students and i to fill the gaps, aswell as future students on placement. How can they do this if everyone wants to leave?

[Thomas J Stamp]

Well, I'm 100% behind the nurses.

Issues are simple, and it was interesting how many of the callers on liveline sounded like they were ringing form Hawkins House.

You're trained as a nurse. Managment let go filing staff as a cost cutting exercise. Nurses have to do that as well.

Nurses are informed when they sought a raise that no, you really need a degree. They get one, no raise.

They still have longer working hours than they were promised 27 years ago.

They're doing routine work that a JHO would have done three years ago: no increase in salary.

And, despite all the rubbish from those lads in Hawkins house busy ringing up Joe Duffy and Brenda Power today ( what a great drive to Waterford I had today, eh?) they are totally correct and right in calling this now if for no other reason than theres an election coming up, that way they'll have governments back to the wall for a few months and get a deal, cos, lads, after May 17th if you dont have a deal you can forget about it for another five years.

[ACustomer]

I don't like writing this, but here goes:
1. The cost of the claim will not be paid by "the government" or "Bertie" but by you and me, the taxpayers. And it's not a trivial amount. Be honest, are people willing to pay significantly higher taxes?
2. There is a mechanism - benchmarking - which has been designed to process claims such as those of the nurses. Some nurses (SIPTU) use it. Why not the others? Benchmarking by the way has been criticised as being overgenerous!.
3. Medcial ethics: I am not a medical person, but I reckon that if one is a medical prefessional then one never ever does anything which might be to the detriment of patients. In my book there is something deeply immoral about nurses or doctors taking "industrial action" (the unthinking use of that term speaks volumes).
4. There is one exception which I might make in respect of moral reservations: if there was evidence that one's employer was exploiting one's ethical stance or was himself doing something to damage patients, then a defensive form of action might be justified.
5. There is often outrage on this site when railway people take industrial action, even when the ethical problem is no where nearly as serious. So a little outrage in this case is, in my personal opinion, thoroughly warranted.

[Thomas J Stamp]

to reply:

1. I dont mind at all, you get what you pay for. The vast majority of wage rises in both our health service and the NHS relates to un-neccessary middle managment. Example: Replace unwieldy and over managed health boards with equally unwieldy and overstaffed HSE's. Railway example: untill 1988 there was one board and sub-managers of CIE. Now there are four.

2. Siptu are waiting for another review, due in about nine months. Chances are they'll do the same then. Also, real politik here, Siptu are aware of a cascade of claims form other grades they represent and worry about that. The INO dont have to.

3. The point is that by being fored to work a 39 hour week that itself is detrimental and therefore it should be cut. Management know that, due to the adverse working conditions, it is very hard to recruit sufficent numbers to make up the shortfall, and they dont want to shell out the moolah needed to entice those numbers. If this claim would affect only say 500 people it would have been met months ago. The sheer numbers alone is what is making the HSE hesitiate. The fact is that this could have been planned for three years ago, by the Department of Health. Instead the policy of Hawkins house can be summerise in two mottos: 1, if they strike they'll look like heartless bastards 2, we can play hardball knowing 1.

4. The Department and the HSE are exploiting the vocational nature of the job.

5. Quite right too. Except the ethical reasoning here is quite severe whilst the usual justification for railway actions, usually unofficial, is down to individual workers and managers acting the bollocks and their mates goading them on.

The day that a rail action is really down to safety reasons, or, god forbid, passenger concerns they'll get my support, as opposed to whinging that somehow an 8 carraige DART is a totally different beast than a 6 carraige one and the like and the swift application of some cash will qwell all their anxieties.

[Oisin88]

Who can support a campaign which includes these?