The nurses union in Poland (OZZPiP) has sent a letter to the civil rights ombudsman demanding intervention in a dispute where five nurses are on hunger strike and occupying the gallery in the parliament building in Warsaw. “A hunger strike and occupation of Parliament in going on in the middle of Europe and the Ombudsman will not speak on this issue,” OZZPiP president Dorota Gardias told Polish Radio. The nurses are protesting a new draft law on medical services, which introduces labour contracts for staff instead of permanent forms of employment. The union is objecting to the contracts, which they say lead to exploitation of nurses who have fewer rights, longer working hours and less quality time for patients. Union president Gardias argued the government cannot introduce such basic changes to the country’s health care system without prior dialogue with health professionals and patients.
English: http://www.thenews.pl/national/artykul151911_hunger-striking-nurses
… via
http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/show_news.pl?country=Poland
This article was published in the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. It aims to facilitate information exchange between trade unions and to support the work of ETUC's collective bargaining committee. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2011.