Unions must work in nurses’ best interests

PEOPLE who have spent time in our hospitals generally emerge with only positive things to say about the standard of care they received at the hands of the nursing staff. The reality is that we’d all like our nurses to be better rewarded financially for the extraordinary work they do.

However, we have to balance that desire to look after the nurses with an acknowledgment of the fact that, as a country, we simply cannot afford to pay them any more money. We are, after all, spending more on health than ever before, and expenditure in this area is only going up; similarly, the actual demands placed upon the health service are also more severe than ever and, once again, these are only going to increase.

So the reality of the situation is this: the Public Service Pay Commission, an independent body dominated by trade unionists and public servants, so a body that could in no way be characterised as a capitalist cabal, examined this issue and found, broadly, that pay was not an issue, that there was, effectively, nothing to answer here.

It is also relevant, in light of the strike now threatened over pay, to consider that while nurses do not receive financial rewards commensurate with many who work in the private sector, they do, nonetheless, enjoy other advantages that many of their private-sector contemporaries do not – such as job security, decent benefits relating to sick pay and the like.

Equally, within the modern health service there are opportunities at all levels for workers to develop additional skills and so earn themselves more money.

In the context of all of this, and bearing in mind that both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil were in support of the Public Service Pay Commission’s recommendations, you would have to question whether the union leadership is working in the best interests of its members – especially with strike action now being threatened.

We have learned in the past that if nurses are on strike and a medical tragedy occurs, then the public’s supportive attitude can shift very quickly towards hostility.

Our nurses deserve support, but their union leaders need to take a long, hard look at what kind of action is actually in the best interests, in the long term, of the nursing profession.