Irish nurses’ industrial action
Nurses in Ireland are taking industrial action over pay and working hours. 40,000 members of the Irish Nurses’ Organisation and the Psychiatric Nurses’ Association, seeking a 10.6% pay rise alongside a 4-hour cut in their 39-hour working week, are in the third week of working-to-rule, refusing to do clerical or IT work. One-hour stoppages have taken place across the country, including in the largest hospital in Ireland, St. James’s in Dublin. Nurses are the only qualified group in Irish hospitals to work a 39-hour week – other grades work 35, with some clerical staff working 33. Hospital...