Victory To The Caredoc Workers’ Strike

Caredoc workers across the Southeast are on strike today to protest over an 8% payrise they never got. There are 150 INMO members and 120 SIPTU members at Caredoc, these important workers include triage nurses, drivers for doctors and receptionists.

The workers are fighting for a 2023 Workplace Relations Commission pay agreement for Section 39 organisations - they were to get an 8% pay increase. The HSE gave €647,000 to Caredoc for the increase but this hasn’t been given to any workers.

INMO Industrial Relations Officer Gráinne Walsh said that CareDoc seem to be “philosophically opposed to using their profits to pay their staff a fair wage”. Where has the money paid by the HSE gone if the workers haven’t got it?

Caredoc provides GP out-of-hours services for patients with urgent medical problems while community intervention teams also provide care in the home services. These workers provide vital services and should be paid for it.

SIPTU and the INMO need to put pickets on Caredoc until the company folds. There also needs to be an investigation into where the HSE funds for workers’ pay went.

Caredoc is a publically funded private company. In the last 40 years we’ve seen a massive spread of outsourcing and privatisation of vital services as government after government pursues Thatcherite neoliberal policies.

The result is complex funding models and workers who are left out in the cold when it comes to public sector status. All these services should be provided by the state and regarded as public jobs.

There’s an argument about the status of Caredoc as a Section 39 organisation. The HSE says they have a General Medical Services contract, not a Section 39 arrangement. Although the HSE has given money for the wage increases.

Ultimately, as long as we live under a market driven system healthcare will be under threat from outsourcing and privatisation. Caredoc may be a non-profit private organisation but the whole model of giving public funds to private companies opens the door to full marketisation of the service.

This is why we say workers are dead right to strike for decent pay. Without strike action workers get walked over.

But we also need to look to the future and keep fighting for an economy where workers in a fully public health service can democratically decide how the service is funded, where workers are in the driving seat of a planned economy. Nothing less can secure the kind of health service we need.