Cork Siptu Section 39 workers vote overwhelmingly for strike action

Siptu members employed in a number of Section 39 organisations providing services to those with disabilities, the elderly, and other vulnerable groups have voted by 96% to 4% for strike action in the hopes of forcing a resolution to a long-running pay dispute, in a ballot counted yesterday.

Staff in organisations including Co-Action Cork, Cobh Community Hospital, Disability Federation of Ireland, Praxis Care — Cork, Rehab Group, St Joseph’s Foundation, St Luke’s Home Cork, and Southdoc are set to strike over issues whereby their staff do not receive the same wages or benefits of HSE staff, despite working in similar jobs.

Labour Party councillor Peter Horgan asked at the HSE regional health forum yesterday what the process would be to transfer the employment of Section 39 staff to become employees of the HSE.

Delivered

Julie O’Neill, chief officer of Cork Kerry Community Healthcare, explained: “A wide range of health and social care services are delivered for the HSE by providers in the Section 38, Section 39, and for-profit sectors.

“As set out in the Health Act, staff employed in Section 38 providers access the same terms and conditions of employment as those in the HSE. Staff employed in the Section 39 sector do not access public sector terms and conditions of employment.

“This matter is a subject of ongoing engagement between staff representative bodies and Government representatives. The HSE is not aware of any proposal to transfer therapy posts from the Section 38 or Section 39 sector to the direct employment of the HSE.

“The complexity arising from separate governance arrangements and structures of the respective Sections 38/39 vis-a-vis the HSE would need to be acknowledged, as would the terms of the employee contract, salary scales; pension scheme of the respective agencies providers not currently within the HSE.”

Criticised

Mr Horgan criticised the fact that people in Section 39 organisations are currently getting paid less than those doing the same job as people working for the HSE, saying that this is causing recruitment issues.

“It stands to reason that if someone in a CDNT [children’s disability network team] is getting less pay than someone in primary care that they would say: ‘I would like to get X pay instead’. If we can regularise the pay, it would help with the recruitment issue.”

He added that 686 children in Cork and Kerry are currently on CDNT waiting lists, and that recruitment difficulties are also responsible for the slow rollout of the school therapist pilot programme, expressing concern that the services were having to “stretch themselves” too far.

A HSE spokesperson said at the meeting that pay disparities between organisations “hasn’t been deemed a recruitment barrier”, but agreed that “recruitment is very difficult” in the sector.