Your elected INMO National Executive Council held their monthly meeting yesterday. The main topic on their agenda was the current status of staffing in the public health service.
Many Executive Council members raised the non-adherence by your employer, the Health Service Executive, to the proposals that were brokered at the Workplace Relations Commission in good faith on your behalf last March.
As notified to you in our notice to members on Friday 5th October, the INMO and the other health sector trade unions believe that the HSE have deliberately suppressed employment and via the regional health authorities, has imposed significant restrictions on the recruitment process, which means it now takes longer to recruit than it did prior to the establishment of the new health areas.
We have consulted directly with members who work in the community and in many hospitals and you have advised us directly of the negative consequences, the restriction to practise, and the effects of this non adherence by the HSE to the Workplace Relations Commissions brokered and recommended settlement to our staffing issues that were raised earlier this year.
Last week, we notified the HSE that we believe they are in breach of this agreement and we have therefore sought an earlier-than-scheduled review of the agreement and that is happening next Friday 24th of October at the WRC. This review must result in the HSE adhering to the proposals made and demonstrating that recruitment will be prioritised, and that funded posts left unfilled in 2025 do not disappear, as has occurred in previous years.
The INMO Executive Council is determined that the HSE honour the agreement made with you, its employees, in full. If not, and if there is no evidence of an intention to honour the agreement brokered by the WRC, the INMO, along with other trade unions party to the agreement, will utilise all necessary measures to ensure that an employer exposing its workforce to significant health and safety risks by failing to adhere to an agreement made in good faith understands the consequences.
We will be hosting a number of meetings around the country in the coming weeks, your local INMO official will be in touch. Our members in Mayo University Hospital Emergency Department have already notified their employer that they intend to begin industrial action over the non-filling of posts on November 3rd.