A DISPUTE at Mayo General Hospital in Castlebar over outsourcing of vacant posts could spread to the district hospital in Ballina, a union has warned.
Siptu national health divisional organiser Paul Bell yesterday said that hospital management had refused to negotiate a settlement to the row over the outsourcing of vacant posts in its cleaning department. He said the dispute, which involves some 90 Siptu members, would escalate to industrial action at the end of February.
Mr Bell said with no meetings with the Health Service Executive scheduled on the issue, Siptu members in the district hospital in Ballina were planning to engage in the dispute in support of colleagues in Castlebar.
Mr Bell said the union had put forward proposals on cost-neutral replacement of staff who had retired over the past year or who were due to retire prior to the February 29th deadline for pension changes – which is likely to see large numbers of staff leaving the public service overall.
The proposals would have involved part-time workers in the community such as home-helps taking up roles in the hospital which were vacant as a result of staff leaving. He said this would be within the terms of the Croke Park agreement. He was “aghast” this proposal had been rejected by HSE management in Mayo.
“The local management’s response beggars belief as they formally advised this union that they could not assign hospital work to home-helps due to an issue with the payroll system, which I must say is bizarre, as HSE hospitals in the northwest and southwest already engage home-helps in hospital hygiene operations.”
He said the HSE was advising it would stand over the part-time workers’ agreement which permits in this case low-paid workers to work up to 39 hours.