Only a couple of hundred nurses withdraw resignations

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The number of nurses to drop out of the threatened mass resignation of nearly 13,000 nurses scheduled to take place on November 19th is likely to stay between 100 and 300.
      There is some discrepancy between the information received from the employer side and the Union of Health and Social Care Professionals (Tehy) with regard to the exact number of those cancelling their resignation.
      According to the instructions of the Commission for Local Authority Employers, Monday was the last chance for those nurses who had announced their participation in the mass resignation to cancel their intent.
     
By early Monday evening, Tehy organisation chief Kirsti Viljakainen had received information of fewer than a hundred nurses having cancelled their resignation. Of the large employers who would be afected, the City of Turku and the Turku University Hospital had not delivered their figures by that time.
      In the central city of Kuopio, for one, 30 Tehy members had backed out of the resignation.
      According to an announcement by the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS), the HUS hospitals had received 79 cancellations of resignations by Monday afternoon.
      The Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE), in turn, reported in its newscast that the total number of cancellations in various hospital districts across the country was in the region of 350.
      According to Ulla-Riitta Parikka, negotiation manager of the Commission for Local Authority Employers, the Commission is not planning to chase up the exact figure of those having cancelled their resignation, unless the information is specifically requested by the national conciliator Juhani Salonius or the arbitration committee.
     
According to Tehy calculations, around 12,800 nurses have handed in their resignations such that Monday the 19th of November would be their last day at work. An arbitration committee has been set up to work out the labour dispute between Tehy and the Commission for Local Authority Employers.
      The nurses, who are seeking substantial pay increases over a period of years in order to make up for recent neglect in the branch, elected to use the powerful weapon of resignation in order to add bite to their industrial action, as has been reported extensively in our earlier articles. There have been fears that a mass resignation of this nature would cause havoc in hospitals and would threaten patient safety.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Tehy rejects contract offer approved by other nurses´ union (1.10.2007)
  Ministry: Nurse resignations could cost lives (25.10.2007)
  Labour market experts doubt nurses will get pay hikes they want (22.10.2007)

Links:
  Tehy, the Union of Health and Social Care Professionals

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