THE MINISTRY of Labour has called a meeting for today between representatives of the Ministries of Finance and Health and the Union of Technical Administrative and Supervisor Personnel (UTASP) to hammer out a resolution to the industrial dispute involving the island's medical technologists, lab assistants and technical assistants.
The over 200 workers, mostly employed to the National Transfusion Services, the National Public Health Lab and the Comprehensive Health Clinic staged a three-hour work stoppage yesterday to protest against the slow pace with which the Government has dealt with their compensation claims.
"Our grouse is that we can't finalise the wage claim and we can't finalise the reclassification that should be applied to these groups," General Secretary for UTASP told The Gleaner yesterday. According to him, the patience of the workers wore thin after the Finance Ministry failed to start wage negotiations for the 1998/99 contract period. The wage negotiations were to have stated in October last year.
The workers are also upset that the recommendations of a reclassification exercise which was conducted last year have not yet been implemented.
Medical technologists are the group of paramedics who assist the medical doctor in arriving at a definitive diagnosis by doing blood analyses and processing other human samples. Lab attendants and technical assistants perform ancillary roles to that of the medical technologists.
Sources at the National Public Health Laboratory and the National Blood Transfusion Services, where most of the more than 100 medical technologists are employed, said the three-hour strikes will continue for the next two days or until a favourable response was received from the Health Ministry.
Mr. Ennis had noted that there were plans to take the protests to the offices of the Ministry of Health on Thursday, if a favourable response was not received from the Ministry. "We are going to be moving to the Ministry of Health building next," he said.
But late yesterday, Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Labour, Anthony Irons told The Gleaner that he had given instructions that a meeting should be called on Thursday between the parties to resolve the issue.
The full impact of the work stoppage on the health service could not be ascertained since the senior administrative staff at the National Public Health Laboratory were not in office.
