MLSA are a disgrace

The Irish medical laboratory scientists association are on their second day of strike in the last week or so, over pay issues.

however when I hear that some cancer services are being affected by this strike, then this should be called out as a thundering disgrace and tbh the MLSA, will win zilch sympathy with the general public.

I know that the HSE and the dept of health don’t come out of this well, but this provocative decision by the MLSA is taken industrial relations disputes to an all new low.

What are other posters thoughts on this?

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058247174/mlsa-are-a-disgrace

If the state paid them the same as their peers there would have been no disruption to cancer services

ancapailldorcha

No, they're not. They standing up for themselves and have shown great forbearance in waiting this long. Fair play to them.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058247174/mlsa-are-a-disgrace

Utterly selfish.

No worker should be allowed to strike if they impact on essential services, such as healthcare.

Icemancometh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119107657#Comment_119107657

Doesn't that mean employers could treat healthcare workers any way they like, knowing they have no recourse?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119107673#Comment_119107673

Employees voluntarily enter into a contract with their employer.

To enter that contract, then withdraw labour, should be considered a breach of that contract - and looked down upon accordingly.

Because that's what strikes are: organized breach of contract.

The employee has a choice to remain or to leave. But to hold the proverbial gun to the head of an employer, and then for that to have knock-on consequences for healthcare, is a double insult.

AbusesToilets

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119108056#Comment_119108056

Are you new to the concept of unions then?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119108124#Comment_119108124

It doesn't make them right.

Podge_irl

The HSE took advantage of junior doctor's queasiness over strike action for, frankly, decades to treat them like absolute ****. Eventually everyone reaches a breaking point.

Martina1991

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058247174/mlsa-are-a-disgrace

These disputes have been going on for over 20 years. No medical scientist wants to be on strike. This was completely and utterly the last resort due to the HSE and DOH ignoring an entire profession until it reached breaking point.

This could and should have been avoided a long time ago but the HSE have failed to follow through on a commitment they made in 2001.

bucketybuck

During covid Chicken little policies left cancer services affected for nearly 2 years with barely a word said. Now we have to be concerned about a one day strike?

Martina1991

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119108666#Comment_119108666

The first strike day was last Wednesday. Today was the second but tomorrow's is postponed due to talks with the Labour court. There's 3 days pencilled in next week.

This is much bigger deal than asking for pay parity. The profession has had chronic staff retention issues for years and the HSE have ignored it.

If medical laboratory science falls apart, so will the healthcare of the entire country.

More cancelled appointments, surgeries, curtailed GP testing, missed cancer diagnosis.

Laboratory testing is critical to healthcare. It's in the nations interest that these issues are resolved properly.

Corben Dallas

They are a total disgrace. This dispute is about HSE (public sector) wanting the same rate of pay as private sector MLS workers ie the old chestnut ...Benchmarking.

Heard one of the strikers on the news say something along the lines of " I did my four years of training and then took pay cut...!!!" WRONG!!!!!!. You did 4 years of training and then joined the HSE knowing full well the pay deal u signed up for, if you wanted to get the 8% gap you should have joined the private sector. The entitlement of these people... if you want private sector rates then join the private sector Medical Labs!!!! 😡

Anita Blow

As far as I know essential cancer services weren't affected?

I work in a hospital and they ran an on-call service with all urgent/ED/ICU/HDU samples processed with all other samples processed by process of derogation.

Martina1991

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119108757#Comment_119108757

A report from the HSE is 2001 found that there was no difference to the work that a biochemist and medical scientists do. Benchmarking was ridiculous. They agreed both professionals should be paid the same. And they didn't honour it.

Biochemists only work in one department of a laboratory. You can't have a functioning hospital without all the other departments.

Private hospital labs also have medical scientists who are not paid the same as biochemists.

This is probably the first time a lot of people who have even heard the name medical scientists and people think this happened suddenly or on a whim.

You don't realise how long so many issues have gone on completely ignored. Industrial action is a last resort.

Martina1991

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119108783#Comment_119108783

Yes every hospital negotiated a list of derogations prior to the strike days.

Any emergency sample that wasn't included in derrogations can be processed through a chain of communication from consultant to strike committee to laboratory.

As a person with a chronic illness that has to regularly avail of our health service. The staff deserve to be paid their worth. I feel pretty overpaid when I hear of the absolutely horrifying low salaries of a lot people in our health service.

newhouse87

waited 20years to strike, entitle to strike for a month straight if they want.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119108749#Comment_119108749

It's brutally hard to get into. They tightened the entry criteria to the profession as I was doing my MSc to get into it. I wasn't happy but sometimes things don't work out. It looks like this is the end result but that's not the staff's fault.

I hope they have their demands met. It shouldn't have come to this but the HSE has left them no other option. I don't know why anyone would want a health service which haemorrhages staff due to low pay and retention anyway.

brokenangel

I 100% agree, I think we should reduce socail welfare for people that can work and give that money to the scientists!!!

Jellybaby_1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119108913#Comment_119108913

I'm reading this thread because I want to know exactly what the strike is all about. I read their placard that said 'equal pay for equal work' and I would support that in any area but I don't know much about this type of work. I am curious though, what are the low salaries biochemists and medical scientists are on?

brokenangel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119109067#Comment_119109067

Biochemist is from 36k to circa 100k depending on level. No idea what payment is like in private but on top of that they will get HSE pension which is far more than any private one.

The only other one i found was analytical chemist, 45k to 76k ranging on experience etc and then pension on top.

Again no idea if this is comparable to the private sector

I am not saying this is low/high/medium just providing the information based on HSE pay scales

Faugheen

They've waited 20 years and successive governments of sitting on their hands.

They had to do something.

I don't believe for one second some of the usual anti-union types actually give a shite about cancer appointments etc either.

Martina1991

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119109067#Comment_119109067

Biochemists starting salary is 37,307

Medical scientists start on 34,420

Other health and social care professionals for comparison are: speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, dieticians, physios: 37,552

Physiologists (vascular, cardiac, neuro, respiratory) 37,258

Radiographers 36,058

Medical Scientists couldn't get the points for Biochemistry so ended up studying in DIT or whatever rather than the universities. Now, they want to be paid the same as someone with better academic achievements.

Maybe medical scientists should have studied harder so that they to could be biochemists.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119107657#Comment_119107657

Not paying decent wages does vastly more harm to the viability of essential services than a couple of protests days in the long term. MLSA are continuing to provide essential services throughout the dispute, even though they’re not paid to do so.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119110297#Comment_119110297

Or maybe people could refrain from posting absurd nonsense like this. DIT is an excellent institution. It takes years of training to become an MLS. They've every right to strike and the fact that the best argument that you can muster is sneering and drivel helps to prove it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119110341#Comment_119110341

Also when you're resorting to leaving cert points to justify underpaying critical parts of society.. I'm pretty sure they don't do a different quality of work to biochemists...

BrianD3

I support the strike however med lab science is one of the best (of a bad lot) science careers.

a) There are hospitals in most counties

b) Many positions are in the PS i.e. are unionised and secure if permanent

c) There is a semblance of a career path (scientist, senior, chief)

d) They have the power to seriously impact the health service if they withdraw their labour. The general public is completely ignorant about scientific work, it's as though they expect hospital lab tests to be done by robots or "someone just presses a button and out pops a result"

e) Crucially, there are only a limited number of degrees which allow a person to legally work as a medical scientist

Anyway, LOL at some of the posters in this thread supporting the strike but also refuting my thread about science being a poor career choice. Maybe you should talk to some of the people I know with degrees in chemistry, biochemistry etc. who went back to college to study med lab science because they couldn't get a job with their first degree.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058167085/science-is-a-poor-career-choice-covid-effect-on-cao-applications

seamus

As said at the start, this has been going on for a long time, these scientists put industrial action on the backburner for two years in the best interests of public health, stuck with their sh1tty pay and conditions because they were needed in a pandemic.

Now they're looking for improvements, the least the public can do is support them.

Donnelly and the HSE had a long warning that this was coming and they did nothing. They could very easily have cut this off by talking improvements 3 months ago, but they didn't.

The MLSA's willingness to call off strike action on the basis of talks being started goes to show how seriously they take their role and how little effort Donnelly needed to put in to avoid this.

The man is a complete joke.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119110486#Comment_119110486

It's good but it's not as good as you portray it.

Most people I know in the sector had to do MSc's after getting their AMLS-recognised degrees. On top of that they had to go and work in the NHS for years and had to take jobs in Ireland wherever they could be found. One lad I know wants to live in Cork but it stuck in Donegal. Competition is fierce and the entry requirements are arguably higher than necessary. This is all just for Scientist roles. Seniors and Chief roles tend to only become available when one retires or climbs the latter so competition is fiercer there.

I recall your thread about science being a poor career choice. It was absolute scutter with no evidence or cogency in it whatsoever. It's weird that you've brought this dead horse here to flog.