Nurses abandon Linden Hospital over
5% pay hike
Nurses and ancillary staff of the Linden Hospital Complex yesterday continued their industrial action, to protest the five percent increase in their wages and salaries. They have vowed to continue until the issue is satisfactorily dealt with by Government.
Up to last evening the institution was manned by a skeleton staff consisting mainly of doctors and supervisors.
The accident and emergency unit which is usually a hive of activity was deserted.
GPSU Region Ten representative, Maurice Butters, on Tuesday said that the nurses are adamant that they will continue and intensify the industrial action until their voices are heard and their demands are met.
An empty nurses station in the A&E department.
What the nurses were particularly perturbed about, Butters said, was the fact that sugar workers who had proceeded on industrial action, for incentive were granted their relief within a couple of days.
We just had a meeting with staff, and nurses have vowed to continue the industrial action. These nurses expect the same to be done for them, because they are just as important as the sugar workers.
Further to that it is not only the five percent increase or imposition, that was discussed but there are other long standing issues that have to be dealt with, like the gratuity payments that are still outstanding, out of town allowance since 1996 when the hospital was taken over. Employees have been given $2,400 per month, and prices would have increased, so how can such a sum be adequate at this time?
Butters drew attention to the uniform allowance, which was described as grossly inadequate, and the issue of nonpayment of overtime, and marking workers absent, when they would have applied for sick leave, whereas the public service rules cater for persons that would have reported ill.
In an earlier interview, Butters had called the five percent increase an imposition, as no prior consultations or negotiations were made with the GPSU.
He said that letters were written to the Public Service Minister requesting meetings to address the issue of the workers’ wages and salaries, since April last, but to date there has been no response.
Letters were also written to the Minister of Labour seeking his intervention, according to Butters.
The GPSU representative said that enough is enough.
“We believe the time has come for this to stop, and for them to get back to the negotiating table, “Butters had declared.
