The nurses' and midwives' dispute that centred on pay and staff shortages in the health service and resulted in industrial action (see our February newsletter) is still not over. Last month the labour court issued a recommendation aimed at settling the nurses and midwives dispute and the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation said there was enough in the recommendation to warrant suspending three days of back-to- back strike action which were due to start the following day. The labour court proposed a new higher paid Enhanced Nurse Practice grade which nurses could access within four years, as well as a significant extension in the entitlement to some valuable allowances. But the costs that lead to 50 million euro for 2019 and 2020 were to be part-funded by cost-offsetting productivity measures in a new contract. Unions argue that these measures would make nursing insecure, rejected the deal and threaten with further industrial action.
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For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers or Sanne van der Gaag, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the Head of communications at the ETUI, Willy De Backer wdebacker@etui.org © ETUI