In the beginning of December they announced an across the board 10% pay cut and the abolition of incremental pay and the maternity benefit scheme. At the time of writing these cuts are due to be implemented next week even though they have not gone through the legal formality of getting the workers to give their ‘written consent’ to alter the terms of their contract so there is likely to be a legal challenge on top of the ballot for industrial action that was agreed by the workers at a joint mass meeting of SIPTU and INWO members.
One worker told me “The Hermitage management are the most autocratic I have known. In particular they are terrorizing the staff from outside the EU, Philipinos and Indian, threatening that their VISA’s will be revoked if they lose their jobs, a complete lie. The key investors in the Hermitage inlcude meat industrialist Larry Goodman and property developer Sean Mulryan who are interested in profits and not patient care. They do not recognise the union and have refused to negotiate over the cuts forcing us to make this stand.”
A question will be put by Independent TD Maureen O’Sullivan to the Minister of Health Mary Harney on the level of state support this private hosptial has received.
The Socialist Party supports these workers and calls for the Hermitage to be taken into public ownership as part of a properly funded one tier health care system to guaruntee the workers’ jobs and patient care.
The education system is in turmoil. In November 2011 John O Dowd, the Sinn Fein Education Minister, announced that school budgets would be cut by £220 million, an 11% reduction over three years. This will have a catastrophic impact on schools.
The DUP are refusing to take part in Pride. Their homophobia and bigotry was further exposed this week when Jim Wells (MLA) told Gay Pride organisers that, “I find the behaviour of those who take part in this march repugnant. I do not wish to be associated in any way with this event. My position on this will not change in the future and I would politely suggest that any further requests of this nature will be a total waste of your time.”
Pop sensation of the moment, Lady Gaga, has recently topped one billion views of her videos on Youtube. Her new 10-minute music video Telephone is creating quite a stir. The video has been praised as exemplifying “liberated” female sexuality and Lady Gaga herself has been held up in the media, including by feminists, as a “feminist icon and a gender revolutionary” and “a strong symbolic figure… for the openly and secretly flamboyant of all genders and sexualities.”