THE first of five Regional rallies of nurses employed by the health boards and voluntary hospitals was held in Cork last night in preparation for industrial action in all public hospitals.
A ballot of the State's 26,000 nurses will take place in February. The four unions representing them the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO), the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA), SIPTU and IMPACT have formed an alliance to fight for a 10 per cent pay increase.
Ms Mary Power, industrial relations officer with the INO, said nurses represented more than 45 per cent of total staff in the health services and had carried a disproportionate percentage of the burden following cuts in the health services.
Their last salary review was in 1980 and since then, despite a number of requests for a review, they had received only the cost of living increases under the various national agreements.
Discussions with health managers were broken off in November when the managers sought "total flexibility" from nurses in return for a 3 per cent pay increase amounting to an extra £100 per year and the reduction of starting pay for staff nurses by £2,000 a year to £11,809 in exchange for some marginal increases at the scale maximum, applicable after 12 years' service.
"Despite a management claim in 1991 that a comprehensive examination of nursing practice was imminent, this has not commenced. They obviously expect nurses would continue to remain passive, compliant workers despite ever increasing workloads stress levels and a non existent career structure", Ms Power said.
The flexibility the health boards' management wanted would mean a nurse could be rostered to work in a hospital one day, in the community the next and in a different hospital on the third day.
"We have no objection to accommodating change as part of an evolving health service. But management must be prepared to price this change so that nurses are paid the correct salary for their skills, knowledge and expertise, and also ensure the health services are more efficient and effective in terms of supplying and meeting the needs of its patients," she added.
The campaign of action, if supported by vote, will begin with two day work stoppages on a, regional basis in all acute hospitals from March 12th to May 1st.
Rosters will be worked as they would on a public holiday, with, sufficient staff to provide essential care for hospital patients but not to allow elective surgery.
The action will initially be limited to acute hospitals, with nurses in non acute facilities holding extended lunch hour protests on a regional basis.
In a statement the Minister for Health, Mr Noonan, appealed to the unions to return to negotiations and reiterated that any resolution to their concerns must be in the context of the Programme for Competitiveness and Work.