Fear grew last night of further disruptive industrial action at Waterford Regional Hospital at Ardkeen today. The ATGWU, which was not involved in yesterday's action by craft workers, was said to be considering placing pickets this morning in protest at the alleged importation by hospital management of outside contract workers to do cleaning during yesterday's stoppage.
Meanwhile the south-east regional committee of craft workers, at a meeting last night, decided that all craft workers in the Waterford area should return to work today.
Services such as sewerage, water and refuse collection were crippled by the action, and the 450-bed Waterford Regional Hospital had to take unprecedented measures to keep basic services functioning.
The pickets were placed by members of three craft unions who claimed that they had not been officially informed of the terms of the deal reached at the Labour Relations Commission in Dublin at the weekend. This led to the cancellation of a planned national strike by local authority general and craft workers, pending a ballot.
Members of the larger unions, SIPTU and the ATGWU, turned up for work yesterday morning but refused to pass the pickets which had been placed by local members of the TEEU, UCATT and BATU.
It appeared that local craft unions were reacting to media reports of the deal reached at the LRC, which they considered to represent no advance on previous offers made in the long-running dispute and rejected in earlier ballots.
Sources said that the smaller regional craft unions had met locally on Sunday and decided jointly to proceed with the industrial action already planned. Picketers asserted that their union officials had not carried out the mandate which had been given to them.
The TEEU branch secretary, Mr Paddy Fitzgerald, an unpaid official, said that there had been a communications breakdown with union head offices and the action represented the frustration of the grassroots members throughout the region.
However, after receiving full details of the deal in a fax from the ICTU yesterday morning, he said he would be informing the picketers that their action was unofficial and should be called off.
The unexpected action caused major problems for basic services in a number of hospitals. In Waterford city the Regional Hospital, St Otteran's Psychiatric Hospital and St Patrick's Geriatric Hospital were affected. Dungarvan District Hospital, St Joseph's Geriatric Hospital and other institutions in the county were hit.
Refuse collections due in several areas yesterday were cancelled, and stores and maintenance depots, motor tax offices and waterworks remained closed. Officials of unions not involved in the picketing called upon their members to attend for work, but workers refused to pass the pickets.
Regional members of the craft unions involved met in Waterford last night to hear full details of the deal reached at the Labour Relations Commission. They were urged strongly by union officials to abandon their unofficial action and adhere to the agreement reached by the group of unions to participate in a national ballot.