NURSES have voted by three to one to defer their strike over pay and conditions. Their unions will now enter a non binding adjudication process to see if the offer they rejected by more than eight to one can be significantly improved.
The vote significantly improves the chances of successful negotiations on a national agreement to succeed the Programme for Competitiveness and Work.
However, the fact that 25 per cent of nurses voted to press ahead with industrial action means there is still tremendous anger in their ranks and dissatisfaction with the last offer, worth almost £40 million a year. Any new package devised by the adjudication board will have to offer significant improvements to be accepted.
Announcing the result of the ballot yesterday on behalf of the Nursing Alliance, Mr Liam Doran said the alliance would be "pressing for the earliest possible date for adjudication hearings". He said "a significantly improved package of proposals on pay and conditions" was needed on the six issues of importance to nurses.
These are the proposals to reduce the starting pay for new nurses by £1,000 a year, the terms for early retirement the lack of recognition for previous service in fixing pay scales for nursing sisters and psychiatric nursing officers, anomalies in pay proposals for management grades, the increase offered to nursing tutors and the proposal to phase out allowances for some specialist qualifications.
The ballot result was welcomed yesterday by Mr Gerard Barry, of the Local Government Staff Negotiations Board (LGSNB). He hoped the adjudication board would be able to resolve the outstanding differences.
Some of the issues will prove extremely difficult to resolve. Early retirement, something nurses feel especially strongly about, would be particularly costly to implement and could have knock on effects across the public service.
However, if the adjudication board does propose significant increases it will then be hard for nurses to reject the findings of an independent body and retain the public sympathy they have so far enjoyed.
The board comprises Mr Gerard Durkan SC, Mr Kevin Duffy, assistant general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), and Mr Derek Hunter, the former head of the LGSNB.
Given the complex nature of the package under review, it is hard to see how the adjudication board can conclude its business before the end of August. After that the proposals will have to go to ballot, which will take the best part of September to conclude.
Even if difficulties do not arise, the Nursing Alliance will be pressed to conclude the ballot before the ICTU special delegate conference on September 26th, to discuss whether the trade union movement should enter talks on an agreement to succeed the PCW. This makes nurses a potent factor in shaping the environment for talks on a new national agreement.