A recent Labour Court finding of payment discrimination against female HSE nurse managers could open the floodgates for further pay claims among nurse managers, according to the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO).
Last month, the Labour Court declared the system which set the pay of all nurse managers to be discriminatory against the exclusively female directors of public-health nursing.
As a result of this decision, directors of public-health nursing now stand to gain a pay adjustment of around €16,000 retrospectively to 2002 as previously directed by the Equality tribunal. The female directors will be entitled to the same salary scale as the directors of mental health and will be included in the same performance-related pay awards.
INO deputy general secretary Dave Hughes said the Labour Court finding had major consequences for the pay of all nurse managers and the whole payment structure could change following this judgment.
He said the 1997 Blue Book agreement laid out the payment structure for the new grades of clinical nurse managers one, two and three up to director of nursing.
"Between the director of public-health nursing and the director of mental health are bands two and three. Now that the directors of public health have equal pay as the directors of mental health, those in bands two and three, most of whom are also women, should have their pay increased as well, based on the Blue Book agreement," said Mr Hughes.
He explained that if those nurse managers in bands two and three were granted pay rises on the basis of the Labour Court finding, then those in bands four and five could seek to have their payment adjusted accordingly.
"Of much more immediate consequence is the fact that the pay of associate directors of public-health nursing is linked to the pay of the director . . . under the Blue Book, the only thing determining the pay of the assistant director is what the director is paid.
"Therefore the pay of the assistant director of public-health nursing should automatically increase to the same rate as the assistant director of mental health."
Mr Hughes pointed out that as a result, other assistant directors in bands two and three should have equally valid claims to go to the same pay level.
The difference in basic pay between the directors of mental health and the directors of public-health nursing is more than €11,000 and the performance-related awards can amount to €7,000 per annum.
There are 33 directors of public-health nursing across the State who are set to benefit from this award and many more hundreds of assistant directors whose pay is directly related to them.
"A much more profound consequence of the Labour Court court finding of discrimination is that we could challenge whether any of the Blue Book agreement, which applies to nurses from staff nurse up, is discriminatory. All of the current benchmarking consultations are based on the Blue Book, so we would have to ask, how sound is benchmarking," said Mr Hughes.
He said the INO would now legitimately scrutinise the outcome of the current exercise from an equal pay viewpoint given that the first Benchmarking Body had failed to unearth the discrimination which has now been found to underpin the basis for determining pay of all nurse managers.
A Health Service Executive (HSE) spokesman said the executive was still discussing the recent Labour Court finding in relation to the payment of nurse managers. When asked to comment on whether the HSE had made provision for funding the cost of the back payments, he said the matter was under consideration.
