ELECTRICIANS AT the State’s largest hospital are to stage a one-day strike today as part of a row over responsibility for fire alarms.
Management at St James’s Hospital said last night it did not anticipate any disruption to services as a result of the stoppage by members of the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU). The union is providing emergency cover during the strike.
The TEEU said the dispute was over outsourcing and moves by management to reduce the role of electricians on site. It said outside contractors had been brought in without prior agreement and in breach of agreed procedures.
“The union is concerned about health and safety as well as job security issues resulting from the contracting out of services. The first step has been the handing over of fire alarms to outside contractors.”
It said this would remove electricians from involvement in:
- repairing and resetting fire alarms;
- co-ordinating and assisting call-outs of Dublin Fire Brigade;
- Advising Dublin Fire Brigade of detector heads that cause fire alarm activations.
The union said electricians had maintained and carried out activities involving fire alarms and were the appropriately-qualified people to do so. “Unilateral dilution of the role of TEEU members at the hospital will open the door to the transfer of other work and duties.”
There have already been two half-day stoppages at the hospital as part of the current dispute. Talks were held between the parties at the Labour Relations Commission last week. However, no agreement was reached.
St James’s Hospital said last night: “The health and safety of patients, staff and visitors is a fundamental responsibility for the hospital. The change to work practice does not in any way compromise this responsibility. Security personnel have traditionally been part of the hospital fire response team and are now engaged in the resetting of fire alarms for which they have been appropriately trained to the satisfaction of experts on fire services management.”
It said that while it had traditionally utilised electricians to reset fire alarms, not only electricians could do this work.
The hospital said electricians received a minimum of six hours pay, plus travel expenses, to respond to each out-of-hours alarm activation, increasing to eight hours pay for post-midnight and Sunday/public holiday activations. It said that in addition they were entitled to compensatory rest periods which, on occasion, resulted in their non-attendance for normal duty for part/all of the following day.
Fine Gael health spokesman James Reilly last night called for both sides to return to talks.
