The title is outrageous but descriptive of what is happening right now in our hospitals. Hundreds of nurses in public health are taking home from €2,000 to €5,000 less per year when compared to other health workers in same grades. At the same operating theatre, working the same shifts in the same wards, colleagues sharing the toil of heavy days made heavier with the pandemic have to contend also with the unfairness of unequal pay for equal work.
The situation is the outcome of a differentiated approach by government to different healthcare professionals. The nurses were not part of a collective agreement negotiated with UHM voice of the workers for the other healthcare professionals. That collective agreement meant better take-home pay for physiotherapists, audiologists, podiatrists and a series of other essential health care operators.
The nurses study and train themselves like these other professions. They sit to the same level of university degrees. Many nurses pursue masters level studies too. Virtually all health professionals acknowledge that the nurses are actually more overworked than any other category. By government’s own admission, the national health service is operating with a shortfall of 400 nurses. In many cases, nurses have to handle double the number of patients and cater for a whole series of extra, but fundamental tasks, like chasing that covid-19 swab before chemotherapy.
So, let us say that UHM was super effective and secured a very good collective agreement for the non-nursing professions. Let’s say the nurses were left out due to a bureucratic glitch. Should not the government bear the responsibility to align pay and conditions of its’ own initiative as the promoter of the equal pay for equal work principle? That is after all black on white in Chapter II of our Constitution – the highest law of the land.
No. Quite the contrary. Instead of promoting equality and equal treatment for same grades, the government relishes the divide and rule game. It insists that the nurses have had their chance of a collective agreement. The charade is so radical that it ends up in court, with the government trying to stop the right for industrial action. You have to see it to believe it. A socialist government trying to quash the sacred right to strike.
Scottish Prime Minister Sturgeon announced a 500 sterling bonus to nurses in Scotland. Indeed, countries across the world are pampering their nurses as front-liners in the pandemic, risking their own and their family’s safety to be of service to the community. Instead, in Malta we opt for direct confrontation on what is at best a call for civil negotiation and at worst a straightforward government obligation to align conditions upwards for nurses. Government is made of people, and people, we know, tend to be imperfect. But is this a good time to grind old axes with MUMN? Should not the government be wiser in these pandemic times?
The proposed industrial action was painfully scrutinsed in court to decide on Government’s request for a prohibitory injunction. We heard about a myriad of possible actions to be taken by nurses, from not doing a handing over in change of shifts to restricting the service to only a few of the operating theatres. All of these proposed actions make the nurses themselves cringe. I spoke to a good number of them over the past days. All hate the idea of being part of any of the industrial action above. Most of them dread the very idea of an instruction from the union to proceed that way. And yet, they feel that government is ready to trample on their rights to equal pay and equal conditions.
One nurse I spoke to told me how she would secretly wish to see her son pursue her career path in nursing but would rather guide him elsewhere for better job conditions and better appreciation at the work place. One cannot blame my friend. We are all duty bound to guide our kin in the best direction. At this pace however, it will be harder and harder to attract our youths to the nursing profession. While we may import good nurses from across the world, we should take all measures to see to produce our own too. Better pay and career prospects for nursing students are part of that equation.
Once confrontation sets in, it is hard to come out clean without loss of face. In my experience as negotiator between states at European level, I learned that the good will must find a way for each party to come out with a victory of sorts, something to take home with pride. Government has already lost multiple opportunities to recognise the plight of health frontliners, failing to take up proposals of a bonus and leave allocation by the opposition. This is its chance to be magnanimous.
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