Text of Solidarity leaflet on today’s strike by ambulance workers
Solidarity and our TD Ruth Coppinger stand fully behind today’s industrial action by ambulance workers in both SIPTU and UNITE—it is a disgrace that the HSE have waited six years for a 5% pay increase recommended by the Benchmarking II process.
The Government are unwilling to recognise the upskilling that has taken place amongst paramedics and EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians). They have increased their responsibility for administering various medications by 89% and 83%, respectively, since 2011.
The unwillingness to grant this pay rise occurs amid a major cost-of-living crisis, a time when the government has a €9 billion budget surplus and big business is making record profits. The resources are there to fund this pay increase, but the political will clearly is not; that is why strike action is crucial.
HSE foot-dragging
The HSE has still not implemented the recommendations but has instead, in typical fashion, stated that it will agree to “discuss” the substantive elements of the review but has refused to fully commit to the recommendations, arguing that any changes be “subject to the financial envelope approved by the Department of Health” and sanctioned by “The Department of Public Expenditure”.
NSA workers face the same stonewalling and arguments we hear time and time again from the Government and media, that the ‘money isn’t there’—this is a transparent falsehood.
Systemic inequalities
The NSA paramedics strike, and their demands reveal systematic inequalities at the heart of our public health system. It has been a conscious policy of this Government, and previous ones, to under-resource our public health system and inadequately compensate essential workers for the life-saving work they do. Instead, the policy has been to create a dysfunctional public health system, thereby forcing people into private health care.
Strike action is essential to reverse and challenge these policies. We need a campaign of industrial action across the health sector and public services to win inflation-busting pay rises. The fuel protests revealed the potential power we have when we organise and use our power to shut things down. The trade union movement has the power to put massive pressure on this weak government.
If the trade unions, with over 600,000 members, adopted a similar approach, they could transform the situation and set the tone for addressing the multiple problems and crises in our health system.
Who are Solidarity
Solidarity stands for a one-tier public health service funded by taxing the super-rich and big business, that is free at the point of use, and in which the skills and talents of its workforce are truly valued with decent wages and conditions.
We want to see a fighting trade union movement in the tradition of James Connolly and Jim Larkin come into existence. We stand for a socialist alternative to the chaos of the capitalist market that prioritises greed and profiteering over our needs.
