The issue the General Workers Union has with the government over the pay packet, roster and allowances for nursing aides, care workers and health assistants is likely to be long-drawn, not only because union officials are on holiday abroad until August 27, but also because Government cannot budge on what the union is asking for, industrial relations sources said yesterday.

Because of the directives, nursing aides, care workers and health assistants at hospitals and homes for the elderly are only carrying out food-related jobs. Their job normally also included helping nurses in the washing and cleaning of patients, as well as getting them out of bed. The government has said the workers were only doing some 15 per cent of what their job entails.

Nursing aides have been pushing the union to make representations on their behalf for several years and when Josephine Attard Sultana was the section secretary representing them, she was bluntly told several times that Government could not give in to their demands as these went against what the union had agreed with the government in the civil service collective agreement, and Government would open itself to demands by a host of other sectors.

Nonetheless, nursing aides continued to insist and, as the union's national congress of November 2005 drew near, they started collecting signatures for a petition to change their section secretary and to push Ms Attard Sultana out of the union.

In February 2006, nursing aides had written to GWU secretary general Tony Zarb to remind him that before the congress he had pledged to help them solve these issues. Ms Attard Sultana was eventually ousted from the union in June 2006. Nursing aides are now pressing the union to deliver.

Several nursing aides represented by the Union Haddiema Maghqudin had reached an agreement with the government and receive an allowance of about Lm195 annually. The GWU has refused this allowance and is asking for more than the union had agreed to in the collective agreement, which expires in 2010.

The director, Institutional Health, John Cachia, said when contacted yesterday that the directives the union issued to nursing aides were causing hardship to patients, who were not suffering more only because nurses were carrying most of the burden.

A call for volunteers to help wash and clean the patients has been made and Dr Cachia expressed disappointment that response from relatives of the patients involved was poor, particularly at St Vincent de Paul Residence. He appealed for volunteers, even if these were not related to patients.

"Our position with the union has always been very clear. We cannot give in to their demands about the financial package because this would mean that other grades within the civil service would rightly ask for the same treatment.

"In 2001 we had agreed on allowance of Lm195 for nursing aides and health assistants, and later extended this allowance to care workers. But the GWU kept refusing it. The union's attitude is that we give in to their demands or they will escalate actions.

"The only thing we can look at is to have more flexibility in the working hours. We have been officially told that some union officials cannot attend meetings between August 13 and 27. But the union has other officials whom we can meet and, if they withdraw the directives, we'll talk, as has always been the practice.

"One would have expected that the directives would have been lifted until these officials could meet again, but this did not happen. In the name of all suffering patients, I again ask the union to call off the directives and meet. We can agree on the allowance some nursing aides have accepted and we'll continue to discuss working hours."

Industrial relations sources said if nursing aides were doing only a fraction of what they should be doing, the health department ought to cut their salaries accordingly.

"Everyone has a right to strike, but the employer has a right to deduct pay accordingly," the sources said.

In a statement yesterday, the GWU said it was willing to meet and discuss "as long as discussions are carried out in a serious manner". It blamed the government's "arrogant attitude" for not finding a solution. It also criticised Government for trying to put in a wedge and divide workers.

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