Threatened nurses strike

Sunny said:
With regard to the 35 hour week, would nurses be willing to give up overtime and therefore only work the 35 hours that they so desperately want and use the savings to employ more nurses to make up for lost nursing hours. Not sure if the maths add up.
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Good idea. I can't see it fly.
 
I don't think there are nurses to hire unless they start recognising more qualifications from other countries or training more here. In order to get into courses here it is very difficult hense the amount training in the UK from Ireland - then we try coax them back when they qualify with their degree! . Open up the colleges here and train more people
 
nelly said:
nurses are covered under the working time directive the same as everyone else barring the junior doctors, defence forces and i think the gardai. Open to correction. after 4 straight hours they get 15 min and so on.
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Most people are...my point was nurses are not clock on/clock off-ers, they don't just bail for their lunch if there's a crisis.
The Organisation of Time/Work Act is all well and good but in practice common sense prevails.
 
 
 
Over a quarter of a century ago when a 35-hour week was first mooted nurses pay was much lower than it is now. Their job has changed considerably since then so why is that labour court proposal still relevant? Why should they work such a short week? If they forego overtime, etc. then fine but there have to be changes to minimise the cost to the people of Ireland.
 
 

Why is it any less relevant now than it was 27 years ago when it was first recommended, and what has their pay got to do with it? They haven't received pay increases over the intervening time IN LIEU of that recommendation. The HSE still acknowledge the recommendation but will not actually address it. Overtime is a different issue too - you appear to want to ringfence what they have now and divide it up in more imaginative ways so that there is no increase in costs, and while that is commendable, it doesn't work like that.
 
So lets all work a 35 hour week and see how it turns out. Screw the national interest. Someone else will pick up the tab.
 
Purple said:
So lets all work a 35 hour week and see how it turns out. Screw the national interest. Someone else will pick up the tab.
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Great stuff Purple - I'll just get on the blower to the Bossman and tell him Im not going in tomorrow and I'll send him the bill for the couple of hours overtime I did this afternoon! - Im done for the week. Might aswell contact all my American and Far Eastern customers to tell them that they can only get me during winter daylight hours GMT 4 days a week - They can bloody well get up in the middle of the night if they want to buy my products and services because we're Irish and we rule!!!!

For the Love of God - I've had it up to here with the entire medical profession over the last while - newsflash to the nursing community - you are not the only ones who have to work for a living here - you are not only ones who have to work nights - you are not only ones who have to do their own secretarial duties, answer their own phones. Admittedly , my own chosen career is not as sexy - I wont have Primetime specials, Charlie Bird interviews and TV Dramas made around it (maybe a BBC comedy!) , Its isn't an emtional tearjerkrer - but I still work well in excess of the EU 48 hour rule as do most of my colleagues - paid overtime? - What the hell is that? - I run a department of 10 (which would be divided into 3 departments with 5 times the staff if it were in the public sector)which processes in excess of 100 milion euros worth of exports and , going on the commentary here , I earn roughly the same as staff nurse with 3 years less experience in the relevant career- out of which I have to pay my own contribution defined pension, my own health insurance , my own lunch (when I get 20 minutes or so - I would say the vast majority of posters here would consider themselves lucky if they got a whole lunchtime to themselves once every couple of months) etc etc. Best yet - with the state of the industry that I work in - I'm not even sure If I'll be in the same job this time next year - I give it 50/50.

Im not looking for sympathy or anything - I dont particularly enjoy my job - all things considered I'd rather be a novelist - but I get on with it and try and learn as much as I can and do the most professional job possible with the limited resources I have available to me and I'm damn proud of how the little company I work for has grown from 12 of us in a back garage to over 200 worldwide taking on the world in our chosen field in 7 years in the face of ruthless competiton which never stops coming. Yet it would not have happened if we decided to work 35 hours , not co-operate with the managment and demand excessive pay rises without comensurate gains in productivity and output - the risk is if we fail next year i will walk away with nothing more than memories.

My message to the nurses - go back to the drawing board and decide on a plan to engage with managment and get it together to give the rest of us a Health Service that we can be proud of - this is a two way thing and for the rest of us its like watching industrial relations from another century - I've have no problem paying up for a job well done - but rewards are earned - the world owes you nothing - if you dont like it and you are frustrated - well get out - nothing worse than staying and you will be surprised how easily your skills will transfer to other occupations - There is lot of bull talked about degrees these days - it is only relevant in the public sector - problem is - like everything the more there are - the less value is placed on them - Today a degree is what the leaving cert was 10-15years ago - a starting point. Employers are far more interested in your work experience and social skills unless it is extremely specialised - even then so much on the job training is available these days.

I have a degree, actually a couple of degrees and other diplpmas etc etc - I try to keep current and its good exercise for the mind - but once I finish one I dont go to my boss, slam the table and say cough up because I 've another couple of letters added to my educational title - I will use the knowledge that I've learned to good use in my job and try and improve my performance and then turn around and say "show me the money " - funny , I thought that this was the reason for further education - silly me!
 
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Why is this circumventing the union directives? The directive (afaik) is simply that they shouldn't take calls. So she is not taking calls, but she is getting messages from a colleague instead.
 
I thought that they were supposed to avoid most or all "admin" duties which would presumably make her callbacks a circumvention of the union directives since they should be done by some clerical lackey?
 
The sooner the role, duties and responsibilites of professional nurses are properly defined the better it will be for everybody.

The nursing profession has undergone a major change in the last couple of years. They deserve the support of those who care for an improvement in the health service.

I support them in their action.


Marion
 

Everyone cares about the health service and wants improvements but I think people are sick of money being thrown into the sector with no noticeable improvements and industrial action like this only worsens the situation. I think any increases in public sector pay should be self financing. For example, nurses get the 10% pay rise and 35 hour week but do not get overtime and shift allowances for working weekends etc.

Don't even get me started on consultants claiming that €205,000 was a "mickey mouse" offer and that they could earn more in America. What planet are those guys on.....
 
Superb post EDO, I couldn’t have said it better myself. I have said before that I am pretty sure I know the company that you work for. I am in the same sort of industry. If I am correct then you have a lot to be proud of.
I would like those in the public sector to spend a year in an SME that competes in a totally open market with companies all over the world. I have worked 55 hours so far this week. I will get on a plane this afternoon for an 8-hour flight and arrive back in Dublin airport at 7.30 on Tuesday morning. I will be in work by 8.45 and hope to finish at 6.30 that evening. It’s a business trip so I might have to stay on for a few more days. There is nothing unusual about this week for me. My wife works full time and we have three small children. A change to tax laws in the USA or a war or a currency collapse or some other upheaval might wipe my company out. I don’t just have to worry about being able to pay my mortgage; I also have a responsibility to make sure the guys who work for me can pay theirs.
I have no certainty for the future. At the moment I am very well paid, more than any nurse at any level. Next year I could be on the dole. I would love to give everyone a 25% hourly rate pay rise but you know what, we can’t afford it so it ‘aint going to happen. That’s the way things work in the real world. The nurses don’t have to live their but the people who pay their wages do and the nurses should remember that.
 
Marion said:
The sooner the role, duties and responsibilites of professional nurses are properly defined the better it will be for everybody.
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Why, so that they can have a more effective work to rule next time? In the real world everyone does things that are not in their job description.

Marion said:
The nursing profession has undergone a major change in the last couple of years. They deserve the support of those who care for an improvement in the health service.
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Most jobs change all the time, so what? They are doing all they can to scupper the changes that the HSE and minister for health are trying to implement. Their first question is “what’s in it for me?” whenever a change is mooted.
 
Now that you've all got that big rant off your chests, where do we go with this debate? Its travelled far since the OP, but now appears to have got itself into a very, very polarised pair of camps, anti-public service and pro-nurses.

I am not in the public service and never have been. I am also self-employed and "carry the burden" of private sector stresses and worries. I also am responsible for my own salary, pension, health insurance and career future, so you guys do not have the monopoly on this moan. However I don't resent those in the public service either, because "most" of their jobs are necessary and have to be done. Sure, there will be many I'm sure who are there (in teh public service) because it is an easy option, but equally there are many there (and I am trying to retain the focus HERE on the nurses, because this is the original debate) who are not all that way focused. So when it comes to putting my well being in the hands of medical professionals, I would prefer that they were well educated, well trained, and happy and motivated in their jobs. I do consider them to be a special case and I don't apologise for it. I have absolutely no sympathy for the consultants whose motivation IS purely self-interest and more money.

Purple's past experiences of nurses may well have coloured his view of this debate, and while some think that this is reasonable, he is also trying very hard to use it to colour everyone else's view, which is not reasonable. While I don't suggest that his experiences are not real, and indeed unfortunate, I would argue most strongly that they are not representative of the profession as a whole, and certainly not consistent with my own experience of nurses (and I do know quite a few).

For years and years and years, nurses have been fobbed off on the 35 hour week, and its not just down to lunch breaks. It was recommended that they should be the first to get it, and if the HSE is not going to grant it, then just bloody say so, and stop the obfuscation. If not, just say so and let's see where we go from there. Focus your anger at the HSE for dragging this on for so long and pressurise them to come out one way or the other on it, and not on the nurses for trying to get them to make a declaration.

Then go to the holy grail of benchmarking for the pay claim.

And one last comment here on Nelly's (I think) point on Neary and how he clearly was not consulting his other staff re his decision making, as far as I can recollect it was ultimately a nurse/midwife who blew the whistle on him, only after being threatened with dismissal for even contemplating doing so. Draw your own conclusions.

I've said all I think I want to say now on this thread, so I'm gonna bow out for now, but will continue to read with interest.

Cheers
 
Sunny said:
Don't even get me started on consultants claiming that €205,000 was a "mickey mouse" offer and that they could earn more in America. What planet are those guys on.....
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I absolutely loved the comment by PJ Breen with the IHCA:

"What kind of house could you buy for €205,000?"
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He's perfectly suited for his role as IHCA negotiator anyway - what kind of come back can you give to that?
 
Sunny said:
Don't even get me started on consultants claiming that €205,000 was a "mickey mouse" offer and that they could earn more in America. What planet are those guys on.....
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It does nobody any favours using this quote as a soundbite. We often dismiss things as "not being brain surgery". Well this is brain surgery!
The dissemination of this quote by tabloid media is designed to annoy Joe Public and turn them against the consultants. The HSE and Mary Harney are being Goebbels like citing this, and with claims that nurses are endangering lives...they are not.
€205,000 is not mickey mouse money. However, for a consultant it obviously is. I don't have a problem with that. People should stop using it as some sign of the consultant's detachment from reality...it's just market forces.
 
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