GSD criticises Government's delayed response to GHA workers’ pay dispute amid ongoing strike

The GSD Opposition criticised the government's delayed response to GHA industrial grades employees' long-standing pay and conditions concerns, emphasising that proactive engagement could have avoided the ongoing strike and urging timely resolution of future industrial claims.

The GSD were commenting on the GHA industrial grade strike over pay and conditions that started on Friday morning.

“The Government’s “regret” over a planned week-long strike by GHA industrial grades over pay and conditions regarding the union’s industrial grades members smacks of being fake sentiment,” said a statement from the GSD.

The claim was submitted in December 2023, and it has taken 10 months for the GHA to enter into any significant discussions, and even then, prompted only by the threat of imminent industrial action, the statement noted.

The shadow Minister for Health, Joelle Ladislaus said that the GHA’s Director General Kevin McGee admitted in a statement that the concerns raised “have been long-standing for years”.
“It beggars belief that it should take this long to address this,” she said.

“Employees of the GHA are frontline workers whose health, safety and wellbeing should be a priority, as should ensuring that there is no disruption to service users. In this instance, a failure to engage with employees in a timely manner, and to treat them with due consideration and respect, has resulted in potentially avoidable industrial action.”

“Whereas the indication that numerous issues have been resolved is welcome, the fact that it has been possible within a short time span of a few weeks demonstrates that full resolution could have come about if this claim had been addressed sooner.”

In a statement the GSD stated it hopes that lessons can be learnt from this situation to ensure that future industrial claims are tackled within a reasonable timeframe and that the issues raised within the claim are dealt with swiftly to the satisfaction of all parties, and for the benefit of service users.