AROUND 2,000 public health care workers stopped working for two hours yesterday morning over what unions said was the government’s failure to implement their collective agreements.
The work stoppage, by employees contracted on an hourly basis, took place between 10am and 12 noon at all state hospitals and health centres.
According to a joint announcement by trade unions SEK and PEO, the government had not honoured its collective agreement for the years 2004 to 2006 that stipulated the implementation of a five day working week for all government hourly rate employees no later than January 1, 2006.
The unions said the government had not kept its side of the bargain and did not appreciate the unions’ efforts to find the most cost efficient solutions.
They also said yesterday’s strike was a warning and that unless the government went ahead with the implementation of a five-day working week, the employees would step up measures.
“We regret the problems that this will cause to state hospitals. The responsibility of what happens lies entirely with the government and especially the Finance Ministry which has not honoured the collective agreement that was validated by the cabinet and concerns the lowest paid personnel in the public sector, who are the only ones who continue to work six-day weeks,” the announcement said.
Later in the morning several protestors took their demonstration outside parliament.
Speaking to reports SEK representative Kyriakos Christodoulou said hourly rate employees had been forced to strike after giving the government sufficient time to fulfil its obligations. He also said a lengthy strike was not out of the question.
Christodoulou reiterated the unions’ earlier statement that the strike had gone ahead because the government had violated its promise to implement a five-day working week for hourly rate hospital employees.
“Although we made some concessions to achieve the implementation of a five-day working week, it seems that for financial reasons the government is insisting that the staff work on a six-day basis and as such we are insisting that this portion of employees be employed on a five-day basis,” he said.
Christodoulou added that at the moment there were two types of hourly rate workers, those who worked five-day weeks and those who worked six-day weeks, which was unfair.
“We gave the government some breathing space because it was opening the new Nicosia general hospital as well as the Paralimni hospital, so that the Finance Ministry could cover its needs with reduced staff, however this was not taken into account and so we are forced to go ahead with forceful measures, starting with today’s work stoppage,” he said.
Christodoulou said the unionists would decide later what furthers steps to take.
DEOK supports action
TRADE union DEOK yesterday issued an announcement in support of the “just struggle of hourly workers at state hospitals to have a five-day working week applied to all employees”.
In its statement the union said it considered the government’s refusal to extend the five-day working week to all hourly rate workers as a violation of the principle of equal treatment, creating two tiers of employees.
It called on the government to respect its commitment by signing the collective agreement, and to implement the five-day working week immediately. It also called on all hourly rate workers to pull together and said it would support them in their struggle until they were vindicated.
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