UĦM orders medical support staff to strike

Nursing aides, health assistants, care workers and assistant care workers have been ordered to take industrial action tomorrow as a dispute between the Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin and the authorities over a collective agreement escalates.

The union signed a collective agreement in March last year, retroactive to October 2007, which stipulated that category A workers would receive an allowance of €1,150.

The agreement also gave medical support staff in categories B and C the opportunity to upgrade to category A and eventually receive the allowance. It stated that the applications would be issued 15 days after the agreement was signed. However, the applications were never issued even though the union threatened industrial action several times, UĦM president Gejtu Tanti said.

The government then asked the union to take the matter to the conciliatory board that confirmed that the UĦM was right, he added.

In November 2008, the union and the director general of health signed an agreement saying the conciliatory board had taken a decision in the union's favour and the government had to honour the agreement. So far, nothing has been done, Mr Tanti said.

He expressed the union's concern that the government's inaction, even following the board's decision, would ruin a mechanism created to avoid industrial disputes.

The conciliatory board, made up of three government appointees, was set up to promote social dialogue.

"It has worked very well with the private sector but it did not seem to be working with the government," Mr Tanti said.

Union secretary general Gejtu Vella would not specify what sort of action would be ordered. While admitting that any action in the health sector would only cause more problems, he pointed out that the union was left with no choice. After almost a year of discussions but no decisions, the union felt it had to order industrial action, he said.

The union went an extra mile to discuss the issue at the conciliatory meeting, at the government's request, but the authorities remained hard-headed, Mr Vella added.

Since 2006, the union had registered several industrial disputes with the health sector in relation to dentistry, ECG technicians, paramedic aids, ambulance drivers and the lack of parking at Mater Dei Hospital for medical support staff, the secretary of the union's health section, Joe Bonello said.

The union also registered a dispute with the hospital authorities because nurses and paramedic aids who worked the required 10 hours a day were still not given food allowance.

The Social Policy Ministry was contacted for its reaction but no response was forthcoming by the time of writing.