Compromise Ends Strike by Irish Nurses

Union leaders representing Ireland’s 27,500 nurses ordered an end to their eight-day strike--the largest in the country’s history--after winning key concessions from the government Wednesday.

Most of the Irish Republic’s nurses walked off their jobs last week in hopes of winning higher pay and status.

The state and union leaders agreed on a plan Wednesday to give new ranks and extra wages to at least 6,500 of the nurses.

The striking nurses agreed to resume work while the union voted on the proposal in the next several days.

Prime Minister Bertie Ahern’s government had resisted the nurses’ original demands for fear of encouraging strikes by other state-paid workers.

But the government and union leaders accepted a compromise plan by Labor Court Justice Finbarr Flood that proposed creating a new, highly paid grade of senior nurse.

Flood’s suggestions addressed one of the nurses’ biggest complaints--that their current pay scale stops at $30,000, regardless of their years in service or special training.

The new rank, which would apply to at least 2,000 nurses with at least 10 years’ experience, would come with a salary increase.

Other new positions--clinical nurse managers and clinical nurse specialists--would be given to about 1,000 nurses along with pay increases. And about 3,500 other nurses would receive new expense benefits in recognition of their existing special roles.

But nurses with no special roles or new titles would get no benefit from the strike, which could incite opposition during the week’s balloting.

“This is the best deal we’re going to get,” said Lenore Mrkwicka, deputy general secretary of the Irish Nurses’ Organization, which represents 23,000 of the strikers.

Groups representing patients warned the nurses that they should vote in favor of Flood’s recommendations or risk losing public support.

The strike “has caused tremendous pain and suffering, and may well have contributed to the premature death of some patients,” said Tony O’Sullivan, spokesman for the Patients’ Assn.

The strike forced authorities to cancel many scheduled operations and other services, but the nurses provided unpaid support in the country’s 11 biggest emergency rooms.

The medical system was expected to be overwhelmed in the next few days by a flood of patients.