[WATCH] Nurses hold back from industrial action, invite Health Minister to more talks

Updated at 11:05am with more details from MUMN press conference

Nurses and midwives will not immediately take industrial action after rejecting government’s pay and work proposals, union chief Paul Pace said on Tuesday.

“We will give government another chance to get back with improved proposals,” the president of the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses said.

He was speaking at a press conference held on the morning after almost 98% of nurses and midwives rejected the financial package proposed by the government.

MUMN members voted on the proposals at an extraordinary general conference held at Catholic Institute on Tuesday evening.

The union said 804 members were present, describing it as “the largest crowd ever” to attend a general conference since the union’s foundation in 1996. The public service has around 4,000 nurses and midwives.

Pace said the vote was significant and reflected the anger of nurses towards the package proposed by government, which he added did not reflect the respect the profession deserved.

The MUMN wrote to Health Minister Chris Fearne on Tuesday morning asking that talks on the sectoral agreement resume in the aftermath of the vote. The union did not give the minister any timeframe but expected a meeting to be held as early as next week.

“We are giving the government another chance to sit down around the negotiating table and come back with adequate counter-proposals. It is clear that as MUMN we cannot sign the proposals government gave us on 6 April after the overwhelming vote of our members rejecting the package,” Pace said.

Health Minister Chris Fearne had said government has put millions of euros on the table and the package would have seen nurses’ take home pay increase by €6,000 by the end of the agreement period.

However, Pace said the increase quoted by the minister would only be achieved if nurses worked 56 hours per week for the whole period.

“If a nurse works the normal hours they do today the increases will only amount to around €3,000 over the course of the collective agreement. Nurses immediately saw through this ruse when they looked at the papers that government gave us. The €6,000 figure will only be reached if they worked more overtime,” Pace insisted.

He added yesterday’s decision by nurses was not a vote of no confidence in the Health Minister or the government. “It was not a political vote but a vote against the package proposed by government.”

Pace: Nurses are like a sick child needing particular attention

Pace took umbrage at the Health Minister’s comment on TVM’s Xtra last Monday in which he used the analogy of a father of four children and that he cannot give more attention to one child over the rest because that child is “screaming more”.

“This comment hurt nurses. If you have a child that is sick or disabled, they need more attention. A crisis in nurses does not mean the rest of the sector is in crisis… there are enough doctors and allied workers. There is a shortage of nurses and they are not screaming but demanding respect because without nurses no new services can be offered,” Pace said.

He reiterated the nursing sector was impacted by a shortage of workers and the government proposals were not adequate enough to attract young people to the profession or retain nurses.

Asked how far away the union and government were from each other’s positions, Pace said both sides were “very far away”.

“Unless government did not commit itself to look at the nursing profession in a different light to other healthcare professions because of the serious shortages in human resources then we are very far away,” Pace said.

Grievances

He then listed several grievances over the government package. “Nursing managers will be getting a rise that other professionals with much less responsibility have been enjoying for three years now,” Pace said.

He noted that government agreed to compensate the extra 6.6 hours that nurses work as overtime but this would only come into effect after one year.

Nurses, he added, were also shocked by the proposal that if they work 56 hours a week they would get a yearly bonus of €1,000. 

“Instead of taking up our proposal to charge overtime above 46 hours as an extra duty at 10% tax, like the police, government opted for the bonus system. This shocked nurses because to receive the bonus they would have to work 56 hours every week for the whole year,” Pace said.

Nurses were also miffed that government did not entertain the idea of a COVID allowance as proposed by the union.

“Nurses remained at work and risked their lives during the pandemic. There were other professionals who worked from home. This is why we called for a COVID allowance. Government’s proposal made no reference to a COVID allowance,” Pace said.

Another sticking point Pace mentioned was the electronic palm reader to record attendance.

Pace insisted other medical professionals had it written in their collective agreement that they would not be subjected to the palm reader. “The issue is not the palm reader itself but being treated differently to other healthcare professionals.”

He added that the robotic medicine dispensing machine had been operational for the past two years and the system was hounded with mistakes.

He insisted the union was showing goodwill in a bid to reach an agreement without impacting patients with industrial action.

“We have not given the minister an ultimatum but we expect a meeting to be called as early as next week,” he said.