The Infermeres de Catalunya Union announced this afternoon the call for the indefinite strike that it had maintained since December 12, after a long meeting with the leadership of the Ministry of Health, headed by Manel Balcells. The strike has had some significance, especially in primary care nursing, the minister admitted. Various organizational and professional improvements and Salut's commitment to prioritizing the improvement of the professional category of nurses are at the root of the cancellation.
The nursing union had been expressing discontent since the signing of the Third ICS Agreement, considering the improvements it contained to be insufficient for the 16,000 nurses in the Catalan public health system. Remuneration improvements such as the extraordinary fixed 1,700 euros per year to be comparable to Siscat nurses (agreed healthcare) or the recognition of the specialty category with 1,500 euros in the professional career. Salut ensures that no nurse will receive less than 3,500 euros gross per year, except for complementary salaries.
Insufficient, according to the minority nursing union, which has launched various demands in exchange for calling off the strike. “Some were already foreseen in our deployment plan for the nursing profession,” Balcells said. Others, he said, can be included in this plan and will be carried out immediately, such as determining the workloads of nurses (particularly midwives) and developing a model of professional needs according to the population. .
On the other hand, Salut is committed to implementing a “digital disconnection code” so that professionals can “disconnect completely” outside of working hours.
According to Balcells, within the framework of the harmonization table for the working conditions of professionals in the Catalan system, other demands such as overtime, double shifts or the recognition of nurses as valid figures as shift and guard leaders will be resolved.
The agreements do not include any economic item because “all salary issues go through the harmonization table and the agreements,” said Balcells. “We will not do anything that is outside the remuneration tables (...) and we will not do anything that is not foreseen in the Siscat harmonization table,” he signed.
Instead, the minister has committed to prioritizing the reclassification of nurses – also senior technicians and assistants – in his meeting with the Minister of Health, Mónica García, on February 2. “It is a legitimate demand that the professional level be adapted to the academic level, from A2 to A1, accompanied by an economic report,” he reasoned. Salut estimates that raising the professional level of nursing would represent a disbursement of between 400 and 450 million annually for the Generalitat.
“We have won a battle in this first war,” concluded Laia Marsal, vice president of Infermeres de Catalunya, an entity without representation at the ICS negotiating table, which includes 15 union representatives, 13 of whom signed the agreement in December. It affects 55,000 public health professionals.
Marsal explained that the union will use the table at which the Administration and the professional, scientific and union organizations of nursing will meet periodically to monitor the agreements and ensure their compliance. Infermeres de Catalunya has decided this Thursday to call off the indefinite strike of the last month after reaching an agreement in the last meeting with the Minister of Health of the Generalitat, Manel Balcells, and other officials of the department.
