There will be much holding of breath this weekend as the executive committee of the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) considers the recommendation of the Labour Court designed to avert the imminent strike in hospitals all over the country. That the situation has come to this pass is a reflection on the general ineptitude with which the nursing profession's case has been handled. This is a situation that was never susceptible to resolution within the framework of a national wage agreement which, because such agreements deal in percentages and long standing pay relativities, cannot deal with a case where those relativities need to be changed. Just how the Labour Court recommendation can get around that problem remains to be seen.
What is clear is that some means has to be found which can avert industrial action which will not only have dire effects on the immediate needs of patients, but is likely also to have long term detrimental aftereffects on the necessary cohesiveness of inter professional relationships throughout the hospital services. The Labour Court has had a remarkably good record in recent times with its emergency interventions in seemingly intractable industrial disputes and it is much to be hoped that its conciliatory ingenuity can prove effective this weekend.
The Labour Court appears to have addressed some of the nurses' major concerns. It remains to be seen what impact the recommendation can have, not only on the executive committee of the INO, but on the general membership of that organisation which has already proved to be more militant than its officers and negotiators. Clearly, there is not time to avert strike action if the general membership is to be consulted by way of a national delegate meeting. But the INO leadership - mercifully inexperienced up to now in handling imminent industrial action - must find some means of putting action on hold if they believe there is the slightest merit in the Court's recommendation.
One thing is clear: the nurses claims cannot all be met this weekend. There is still merit in Billy Attley's proposal that a special commission be established to examine exactly how the profession of nursing has changed in recent decades and how staff structures and personal entitlements within the profession can be established in a manner that will reflect the changes in work skills and responsibilities. If other unions in the public service can be persuaded to accept whatever changes in relativities the Labour Court may recommend for nurses as opposed to other professionals, then the nurses should take on trust (at least for the time being) whatever proposals may be made for a later restructuring of their profession.
If strike action is not averted, it is already clear from the extensive advertisements that have been appearing in recent days, that the impact of the withdrawal of all but emergency care by the nursing profession will have a devastating and very widespread effect on all hospital services. The nurses themselves, their hospital colleagues in other disciplines, the patients currently in need of non emergency care or treatment, and many of the citizens of this State must hold their breath this weekend.