THE Labour Relations Commission has intervened in the Dublin hospital dispute. Both sides are to meet for a conciliation conference next Tuesday.
However, SIPTU said the four hour stoppage planned for Friday, February 23rd, and the 24 hour stoppage planned for Wednesday, February 28th would be going ahead if there was no break through at conciliation in the dispute, which concerns the SIPTU workers' pension provisions.
The move by the LRC came as pickets were mounted on more than 40 hospitals and on health centres throughout Dublin yesterday. Minimal emergency cover was provided at hospitals.
Services at about a quarter of the Eastern Health Board's 110 health centres were affected by the stoppage from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Payment of supplementary welfare was affected at 10 centres.
SIPTU had difficulty persuading members to provide emergency cover at some hospitals. Mr Gavin Doyle, a shop steward at the Mater, said "a lot of people didn't want to provide cover so that the strike would have more impact".
There were three SIPTU porters on standby at the Mater covering the accident and emergency, main cardiac operating theatre and intensive care unit. Over 200 SIPTU personnel withdrew their services during the four hour stoppage. There was similar cover of one to three porters available at most of the main hospitals.
The president of the Dublin health services branch of SIPTU, Mr Jack Kelly, who was on the picket at St James's, said over 3000 of the branch's 4,500 members were involved in the dispute.
Members were exasperated at the delays over improving the pension scheme, he said. "A porter with the maximum 40 years' service has an occupational pension of £27.50 a week. In July when the old age pension goes up £2.20, the occupational pension will go down to £23.10."
This is just one of the anomalies in the scheme which, along with the basic inadequacy of the rates, is fuelling anger on the picket lines.
Trying to change their complex pension scheme without creating knock on claims is almost impossible.
Last night, Mr Gerard Barry of the Local Government and Staff Negotiations Board said one solution would be to refer the case to the new Pensions Commission established by the Minister for Finance, Mr Quinn, last week. Such a referral would almost certainly require the deferral of further industrial action.