Impact Trade Union, which has over 4,000 members in Cork, are to add to the current health service crisis in Cork by holding a ballot for strike action against the continuing Health Service Executive (HSE) recruitment freeze.

The precise form of industrial action is set to be decided by the union's Health and Welfare Divisional Executive after the ballot outcome is announced on Monday, April 28. The union is then obliged to give at least three weeks of notice of industrial action, under an existing procedural agreement.

Impact said that bigger cuts in services and staffing are likely to be imposed in the coming months and years unless it acts. It said that the union will sanction forms of industrial action that minimise the effect on patients and services while maximising the impact on top HSE management. Cork North Central T.D., Kathleen Lynch said that the HSE needs to sit down and take a serious look at how their job's embargo is effecting their employees and patients.

"It is simply not fair for people to try and take on someone else's job as well as their own, she said.

Deputy Lynch agreed with Impact's proposal for strike action by saying it's sometimes the only option left when employees arrive at such a huge amount of frustration. "Strike action is sometimes the only weapon people have left when employers are providing insufficient employment conditions and patient care", she said.

Another reason why Impact have called for industrial action is the continuous lack of communication from the HSE to the union and it's workers. Impact said that there has been no improvement in its relations with the HSE since the Labour Court criticised the HSE earlier this year for failing to consult before implementing its recruitment embargo. In two separate cases, bought by IMPACT and other health unions, the Court said the HSE had breached Towards 2016 and legislation that requires staff consultation. It ruled that the recruitment ban had a significant effect on workers who should, therefore, have been consulted and said the cuts "had the effect of reducing the number of staff available to provide a service to patients."

Impact National Secretary, Kevin Callinan said the ruling vindicated the union's stance,"The jobs embargo is now totally discredited. Apart from the impact on staff, we argued that workers should be consulted because they know the impact of this crazy policy on patients and community services".

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