IRELAND
The new Irish Government is likely to face a series of industrial relations challenges in the weeks ahead, including in the key health and education sectors.
About 3,500 consultants and non-consultant hospital doctors who are represented by the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) voted overwhelmingly for strike action in December over pay and recruitment issues.
The IMO wants an end to the two-tier pay system under which medical specialists appointed after October 2012 are paid up to €50,000 ($A80,700) less a year than their longer-serving colleagues.
It also wants an immediate increase in the number of consultants working in public hospitals.
The Government subsequently offered consultants a new contract worth up to €252,000 ($A406,400) per year on condition they worked only in public hospitals.
The IMO has deferred its proposed strike action pending negotiations with the Government on the new contract. It remains to be seen whether the incoming Government will want to table its own proposals.
In the meantime, industrial action by thousands of doctors remains a possibility in the months ahead.
Second-level teachers who are members of the Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland (ASTI) are to ballot for strike action over the lower pay arrangements in place for those recruited after 2011. This ballot is due to be completed by 20 March.
About 19,000 other teachers who were members of the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) staged a one-day stoppage on the same issue earlier this month, leading to the closure of hundreds of schools.
The TUI will now decide on whether there are to be further strikes.
Although there are no prospects of industrial action in the Defence Forces, the new Government will have to decide on whether to allow the representative bodies for enlisted military personnel to affiliate with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.
Dublin, 11 February 2020
