THE LABOUR Court will today hold a hearing into the dispute between the Health Service Executive and trade union Impact.
Impact members are engaged in industrial action which has seen them refuse to provide key financial and activity data to management. Yesterday, the Government and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions requested the Labour Court to intervene in the dispute.
The HSE had warned that unless Impact lifted a ban on the provision of data at a meeting tomorrow, it would start to remove the staff concerned from the payroll. Such a move would escalate the action and have implications for the Croke Park deal on public service pay and reform, which is under consideration by trade union members.
The Labour Court is expected to issue an early recommendation on the issue. The process is not binding on the parties.
Impact imposed the ban on the provision of financial and activity data to corporate management in the HSE as part of a wider campaign of industrial action against pay cuts for public service staff.
Talks at the Labour Relations Commission over the issue ended last week without agreement.
The HSE has sought a derogation for the provision of the data from the scope of the action.
Impact said it could not do so until it received clarifications on the implications, particularly in relation to job security, of the Croke Park deal on the terms of an agreement signed in 2004 on the abolition of the former health boards. The HSE has said it cannot add to the terms of the Croke Park deal.
HSE management has argued that due to the action, it does not know how its €14 billion budget is being spent and is unable to confirm whether the required €400 million in cost savings for this year are being achieved.
In addition to warning that staff face being taken off the payroll, the HSE also asked senior executives to identify cuts that would allow it to generate a €200 million reserve fund to offset budgetary overruns that may arise from the action.
This is expected to involve the cancellation of elective admissions, cuts in homecare packages and reduced home help hours.
The HSE is also drawing up contingency plans to deal with any escalation of action if staff are removed from the payroll.
In a statement yesterday, the Government and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions said: “Both Government and Congress are requesting the Labour Court to facilitate an engagement with the parties as a matter of urgency in order to reach an early agreed resolution of the issues in dispute.
“Both parties have indicated that they are willing to co-operate fully with the court”.
“This statement is being issued in the context of a shared recognition by Government and Congress of the need to ensure the orderly conduct of industrial relations across all sectors of the economy.”
