Government calls on GWU to halt nursing aides' dispute

The government has urged the General Workers' Union to immediately stop industrial action that caused suffering to sick and elderly people.

The appeal was made in reply to a court application by the union.

Earlier on this week a group of 447 nursing aides and the GWU applied for the issue of a warrant of prohibitory injunction in the First Hall of the Civil Court.

They called on the court not to allow the Prime Minister and the Director General of Health to finalise any agreement governing the conditions of employment of the aides with anybody other than the GWU.

In its reply, the government said that, in the public sector, the general practice was that addenda to agreements would be negotiated with all the unions with which the original agreement would have been negotiated and signed. This was logical as the addenda was based on an existing agreement.

It was the management's prerogative to decide whether to give a union sole recognition to represent the employees of a particular sector. This fact had been recognised by the GWU in a letter sent by Louis Marsh to the Health Division on September 28. Therefore, the union knew that its expectations were not justified and was thus being irresponsible in proceeding with the industrial action that was a cause of suffering to vulnerable people, the government said.

At the beginning of August, the GWU issued a number of directives to nursing aides, health assistants and care workers over three issues: the nursing aides' right for wage scale 13, the roster and a premium allowance for the three categories.

The directives were called off after 12 days, but talks with the authorities were suspended at the beginning of last month after the government reached an agreement with the Union Haddiema Maghqudin.

The GWU had said the talks would remain suspended until it was given sole recognition for nursing aides, which it had requested just under two months ago. On September 17, the directives were reactivated after the union accused the government of dragging its feet on the issue of sole recognition on the premise that it needed to compile more information.