IMO accepts Croke Park Deal-without a ballott of its members!

Jane5

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0522/1224270895314.html

Can a union even legally DO something like that? Can they actually accept a deal changing working terms and conditions, and rights on our behalf without even asking us if that's ok? For real?

I would really appreciate if anyone has any information as to the legality of this.

Also:

If the IMO can negotiate worse terms and conditions and secure limitations of my rights with my employer and seal the deal WITHOUT asking me, then I have to pose the question-is it actually BETTER to not be a member?

thanks,
Jane.

dissed doc

It's a sad day that now we can see there is effectvely no NCHD representation in Ireland. I made plenty of bitchy comments about the IMO and their actual purpose and outcomes of their "policies" and committees on the other thread.

The IMO has done exactly as the HSE and government wanted - less staff, less salaries, less training, etc., etc., etc.,. Like the doctors in Germany, there needs to be a walk out - without any consultation with the IMO as they effectively are more representative of the HSE than their fee-paying members.

But why would they ballot? It might risk the deal being scuppered - and we can't have that now can we? The HSE and Harney have done as much as possible to replicate the anti-union mentality ("it's commies/socialists") in the medical profession in the US (competition laws and antitrust prevent medics from unionising effectively there). The next target will be to try and paint the consultants union IHCA in some bad light, etc., . Cohesion in a profession is an enemy of the state.

Traumadoc

Agree the IMO have let down NCHD members.
But then again what did they have to loose? Perhaps it would give them extra kudos - they already have signed up to the extended working day - whats the point in objecting to its introduction now? All they are trying to do is avoid further paycuts.

Agree with dissed doc , next battle will be to force consultants to work first on call. Some consultants have been asked to do this already.

Jane5

My question is: is this actually legal?

Most doctors I know are incandescent with rage at this action. No union should accept a deal without ballotting its members. They CAN'T. The IMO has overstepped the line bigtime on this, and many people are considering the legality of this and whether or not a challenge should be mounted. We will not accept a union we are members of accepting, rejecting or making any decisions on our behalf without ballotting us first.

dissed doc

I the Croke Park deal is not the end of it, and the financial issue regarding salary, etc., should not be a primary concern.

with a 25% ct in the number of NCHD posts (around 900 was the quoted figure AFAIR) from July, the IMO could have used the deal to negotiate absolute changes in work practice such as no more routine phlebotomy, feeding tubes, first doses nonsense. And said fine - cut the salary and training grant - but total stoppage on all non-medical jobs that the docs have to waste time doing. Might have actually improved patient care when doctors get to doctor and not nurse/care assist/porter.

ergo

can someone clarify for me what the Croke park deal will mean for NCHD's..?

does it mean accepting a 5 over 7 working week? ie. any 5 of 7 days could be your working week - ie. you could have Tuesday Wednesday as your weekend..?

I recall reading an opinion piece by some teacher stating more or less that it would - he was against the Croke Park deal and one of his points was that a separate deal should be hammered out by health care workers because of issues such as the above whcih teachers etc would be voting for or against

on the other hand, much easier for govt and HSE to push though such a radical change via Croke Pk deal...or have they sneaked that into the new contract already?

re the cut in NCHD posts, well as I said before, 1st July gonna be very interestig but in a scary way

JuliusCaesar

Jane5 wrote: »

My question is: is this actually legal?........ No union should accept a deal without ballotting its members. They CAN'T. The IMO has overstepped the line bigtime on this,...

This has a long section on TUs & says that a TU must ballot before taking strike action, but nothing about whether the TU must ballot before accepting an agreement; maybe the links on that site would help, or maybe the Legal Forum here on boards (under Soc I think) would be best.

ergo

from IMO website:

IMO Accept Public Service Agreement 2010 - 2014

20th May 2010

The Irish Medical Organisation have announced acceptance of the Croke Park deal following meetings of their four craft committees today.

Committee meetings of the General Practitioners, Consultants, Non Consultant Hospital Doctors and Public Health Doctors took place today [20th May 2010] and discussions took place on the details of the proposals within the Agreement.

All committees returned a result in favour of acceptance.

The Irish Medical Organistion will be supporting acceptance of the Public Service Agreement at the Public Service Committee of Congress.

The Irish Medical Organisation represents over 6,700 Consultants, Public Health Doctors, Non Consultant Hospital Doctors and General Practitioners.

opinion guy

Can I ask - does this mean they will be cutting numbers of NCHD's ?

RobFowl

opinion guy wrote: »

Can I ask - does this mean they will be cutting numbers of NCHD's ?

Yes it does.
Makes a lot of sense when you consider they increased the number of undergrad places dramatically over recent years.

They'll have to have an OSCE on flipping burgers in the finals now

dissed doc

opinion guy wrote: »

Can I ask - does this mean they will be cutting numbers of NCHD's ?

Roughly speaking, there will be a reduction from around 4500 to 3600 in junior doctors for the whole country from July (cut of around 900). We were around half the required numbers of doctors per population compared to OECD averages before this cut.

opinion guy

dissed doc wrote: »

Roughly speaking, there will be a reduction from around 4500 to 3600 in junior doctors for the whole country from July (cut of around 900). We were around half the required numbers of doctors per population compared to OECD averages before this cut.

And the union AGREED with this ??!?!?!?!:eek:

Sitric

Is it really a 20% cut in the number of NCHD's? Jesus. Surely that cannot happen by the end of next month?

People are going to have to forget about negotiating not to perform non medical tasks and simply stop doing them. Who would have the time?

Does anyone know where the 900 cuts are from? By hospital? Ie is it 500 less doctors in the hospitals in Dublin for example from next month? Where is getting hit?

ergo

Sitric wrote: »

Is it really a 20% cut in the number of NCHD's? Jesus. Surely that cannot happen by the end of next month?

People are going to have to forget about negotiating not to perform non medical tasks and simply stop doing them. Who would have the time?

Does anyone know where the 900 cuts are from? By hospital? Ie is it 500 less doctors in the hospitals in Dublin for example from next month? Where is getting hit?

as far as I know the cuts are coming in the smaller country hospitals - basically any "non-training" jobs - not sure how they will survive these cuts

dissed doc

Sitric wrote: »

Is it really a 20% cut in the number of NCHD's? Jesus. Surely that cannot happen by the end of next month?

People are going to have to forget about negotiating not to perform non medical tasks and simply stop doing them. Who would have the time?

Does anyone know where the 900 cuts are from? By hospital? Ie is it 500 less doctors in the hospitals in Dublin for example from next month? Where is getting hit?

Yup unfortunately it is:

http://www.herald.ie/national-news/operations-now-in-jeopardy-over-doctor-shortage-2192132.html

The HSE has designated 3,600 NCHD posts as recognised training posts from July 1. This will mean a reduction of 900 in such posts from that date.

The drop in 900 posts is planned. You will see here the OECD stats:
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/27/22/35987490.pdf

We were already ranked below average for health expenditure; you will also see the considerable differences in working hours per week of female vs male doctors (which will come down the tracks here like an unstoppable train as the vast majority of current medical students are female).Foreign doctors tripled in Ireland from 2000 to 2007.

Here is the 2009 summary:

Despite increasing numbers of doctors in recent years, Ireland continues to have a lower number of
physicians per capita than in many other OECD countries. In 2007, Ireland had 3 physicians per 1,000
population, compared with an OECD average of 3.1. While the number of doctors per capita in Ireland is
higher than in Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, it is lower than in many
European countries.
On the other hand, Ireland has a very high number of practising nurses, with 15.5 nurses per 1,000
population in 2007, significantly above the OECD average of 9.6.1
The number of acute care hospital beds in Ireland in 2007 was 2.7 per 1,000 population, below the OECD
average of 3.8 beds per 1,000 population. In most OECD countries including Ireland, the number of
hospital beds per capita has fallen over time, due to a reduction of the average length of stay in hospitals.

However - the per population statistic is misleading. If we had 3 per 1000 people, we would have 12600 doctors in the country. Which is clearly not true (Consultants - ~ 1400, NCHDs until July ~4500, GPs ~ ??? 6000????).

Assuming it's accurate, the NCHD cull alone will see that drop to 2.78 per 1000. Why on earth would the IMO do this and accept such policy decisions if they were not part of system to ensure the cull was put into effect? They have demonstrated no opposition to such a disastrous future for Irish healthcare, which makes me assume they were compliant.

What is clear is - way too many nurses, way too few doctors. And that is before the number of doctors drops again in July. We see the result of these health board policies in the forthcoming years, I would think (although everyone can see, we already see the result of these policies every day at work).

opinion guy

And in other news Brendan Drumm to be replaced by former Eircom CEO:

http://news.eircom.net/breakingnews/17972164/?view=Standard

Christ almighty.

RobFowl

The Muppet replaces the Puppet :rolleyes:

Echani

opinion guy wrote: »

And in other news Brendan Drumm to be replaced by former Eircom CEO:

Great.

Traumadoc

Interesting that they were not able to get an outside person.

Mind you 230k for that job is peanuts -and you will not win friends, thats for sure.


edit: I see he is getting a larger salary than initially proposed. ( I would expect there will be a larger compensation announced soon)

Delancey

RobFowl wrote: »

The Muppet replaces the Puppet :rolleyes:

Yeah , I worked in Eircom while he was there . He was very effective at closing various premises , reducing staff numbers ( by hook and by crook ) and forcing through huge changes in working practices.Me wonders is that what attracted the Dept. of Health to him ?

Eircom continues to struggle though and is a shadow of what it was ( share price in the toilet last time I saw )

DrIndy

Very interesting times ahead. Will there be any genuine movement forward and mistakes from britain learned?

Or will this be a wholesale corporate destruction of an already fragile and demoralised health service?

JuliusCaesar

dissed doc wrote: »

However - the per population statistic is misleading........

What is clear is - way too many nurses, way too few doctors.

Actually, seeing that a high percentage of nurses work part-time, that statistic is also misleading. What you need to see are the WTEs, rather than just the number of nurses.

Policy makers believe that Irish
nurses spend time on tasks that could fall within the remit of other personnel
such as health care assistants. There are therefore efforts to bring the duties of
Irish nurses into line with other OECD health care systems.
The QNHS data supplied at Section 5 indicate that there were 50,200
people working as nurses/midwives in 2004. Interpretation of data on the
number of persons employed in the profession should take account of the
significant proportion of public nurses who are working part time. ...
Almost a quarter of all nurses now job share or work part-time hours.

(From European Migration Network Managed Migration and the Labour Market in the Health Sector in Ireland p14)

As regards the Eircom CEO and the sell-off of VHI, it just looks like Harney is determined to undermine what is left of the health service here before she goes. The cheek of her comparing the numbers of people with health insurance here to the UK!

docbroc

dissed doc wrote: »

Assuming it's accurate, the NCHD cull alone will see that drop to 2.78 per 1000. Why on earth would the IMO do this and accept such policy decisions if they were not part of system to ensure the cull was put into effect? They have demonstrated no opposition to such a disastrous future for Irish healthcare, which makes me assume they were compliant.

What is clear is - way too many nurses, way too few doctors. And that is before the number of doctors drops again in July. We see the result of these health board policies in the forthcoming years, I would think (although everyone can see, we already see the result of these policies every day at work).

No need to confuse grotesque incompetence with compliance. They demonstrate no opposition because as has been extensively pointed out they are incapable of opposition. We (and our glorious union ) are like a frog being boiled alive. All the sensible people hopped out years ago. Whats left are the cowed remains of medical Ireland who know they are done for but keep ribbeting on in the hope the HSE will turn off the gas.

We were not asked to ballot because the only alternative to submission is opposition which the IMO is ironically enough diametrically opposed to.
They will bleat on about patient safety yet happily let the HSE gut hospitals of medical staff. If you dare object to this insufferable capitulation they will look at you astonished - Hey look at our shiny policy, look at the 2 second sound bite our AGM got, look at this back page article someone published on the subject last year....... See we are doing something ! The matter is in hand. Just run along and run the whole hospital by yourself for a few more years until the HSE gives in. All will be well.

Push it further and they are straight on the offensive. You want change - well your going to have to do it yourself. The union is the sum of its members etc etc. NOT HAVING TO DO IT YOURSELF is the whole bloody idea of having a union, it is in fact the definition of the word. Im not talking about sitting back and expecting mr x and y to do everything for me, but a situation where the only way to spur action is a wholesale coup,mass resignation or tenders to SIPTU is insane. Yes Ive tried in the past but abject cowardice and toadying is all I found - dont rock the boat, first head over the parapet, sure your nearly a consultant etc etc. Please dont put any hope for the future in the hands of the IMO. Their vocabulary consists of "YES SIR!" or "We'll see you in court" neither of which bodes well in these dark days of economic and social unrest.

Jane5

Ok people, well, then is it time to commence mass cancellation of IMO subscriptions?

All NCHDs in my dept who were members have cancelled following this unilateral act against our interests and the interests of patient care. Throw that in with the horrendous new "contract", and a long history of complete and utter failure to defend our interests, combined with their knowledge of pregnant NCHDs being forced to work 50 hour shifts, NCHDs collapsing from exhaustion after working 3 days and nights with no sleep, knowledge of patients being treated by doctors who were so tired that they were functioning as though they were intoxicated, doctors treating vulnerable patients while suffering from the winter vomiting bug and other debilitating and contagious diseases because they were bullied by management and seniors to work while ill, and DOING NOTHING about any of it.

They work for US. They don't get to make decisions on our behalf without our say so. If they no longer work for us, then we no longer pay them.

Vorsprung

Is there any talk of a new union being set up at home?

dissed doc

Vorsprung wrote: »

Is there any talk of a new union being set up at home?

THere is, it's called the IMLOL.

Pastafarian

Does anyone know what Clause 2.3 of the agreement made between the Health Service Executive and the Irish Medical Organisation on the 22nd day of January 2010 says ?

RobFowl

Pastafarian wrote: »

Does anyone know what Clause 2.3 of the agreement made between the Health Service Executive and the Irish Medical Organisation on the 22nd day of January 2010 says ?

http://www.onegov.ie/eng/Public_Service_Agreement_2010_-_2014.shortcut.html

Can't find a clause 2.3