Nurses’ union demands over €130 million in allowances, tax and pension

Nurses locked in negotiations with the ministry of health over a sectoral agreement were demanding in excess of €130 million over the next five years, together with lower tax on overtime, and even the removal of capping on pensions.

Sources privy to the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses and its demands spoke on condition of anonymity about the package of demands that deals mainly with allowances to be paid to nurses.

Malta’s current wage bill for nurses, according to financial estimates, is at around €165 million. This would go up by €25 million each year based on the union’s 30 proposals, apart from further costs from demands for higher overtime rates, a lower 10% tax on overtime, the effect of COLA increments, and other pay increases from the collective agreement.

While the union threatened widespread industrial action as from Monday over lacklustre counter-offers from the health ministry, MaltaToday is informed that the union has also demanded that nursing pensions are no longer capped.

Health ministry insiders balked at the demand, saying the knock-on effect could be cataclysmic for both the health budget as well as the national pension system.

The union’s demands will undoubtedly affect other sectoral agreements for the unions in the medical sector, a factor that has raised the eyebrows of health and finance ministry officials.

For example, the MUMN said it wants tax on overtime to be reduced to 10%, however it also wants 6.6 hours from its legally-mandated 46-hour week, to be treated as overtime – an average of €15 an hour. MaltaToday understands that, without the tax impact, this would cost over €14 million over the course of five years.

The nurses also demanded pay on Saturday at a higher rate, believed to cost over €6 million over the agreement’s period; a one-time COVID allowance of €3 million each year; special duty allowances that could cost upwards of €25 million over five years; €10 million in new allowances for various nursing grades; and some €35 million alone in “lack of staff complement” allowances – that is, an allowance for nurses suffering the brunt of the NHS not being at full complement in nursing.

The latter is expected to be a sticking point in negotiations, given MUMN boss Paul Pace’s previous employment as a consultant to then health minister Konrad Mizzi on ‘systems and mechanisms to engage nurses’, where he spent three years on a €58,000 salary.

According to European Commission data, Malta has 4,131 nurses and 254 midwives, apart from 4,213 caring personnel – putting Malta at a mid-range ranking in the EU in terms of nurses per 100,000 population.

Total emoluments to health ministry and healthcare staff, according to the latest Budget estimates, were €382 million in total for doctors, nurses, allied healthcare, clerical and engineering staff.

Industrial action suspended

Malta’s nursing union was planning to take wide-ranging industrial action starting Monday 13 March, in its battle with government to extract sectoral concessions, until a counter-offer towards the end of the week calmed the waters for both sides.

Paul Pace said the MUMN’s 32-page list of demands was met with a short counter-proposal which he first branded as “worthless tissue paper”, saying he would not sit down for talks on a proposal that cherry-picks on demands.

MUMN secretary-general Paul Pace said his union has 30 financial proposals, but the health ministry has replied to the union’s demands with two pages and “zero proposals”.

“Not even one new incentive or new proposal in favour of the nurses and the midwives was put forward by the government,” the union council told members in a communication on industrial action. “No consideration was given on the hardship, the stress and the challenges, the risks and the added responsibilities which all nurses and midwives pass through on a daily basis,” the union said.

Pace accused the government of showing “no empathy” for the work of nurses and midwives during the COVID pandemic. “Countless nurses and midwives (with their families)... contracted COVID and could have died during their line of work.”

MUMN reacts

Reacting to the report, the MUMN accused the government of “breaking its confidentiality” by leaking details to the press.

“When MUMN registered an industrial dispute due to the lack of respect shown and MUMN was to initiate directives across the health sector in Malta and Gozo, at a very late hour, the Government came up with another counter proposal which the Government claimed to be ‘a little bit less than €40 million’. As a sign of good will MUMN had suspended its industrial action,” the MUMN said.

It said that in a 10 March meeting, government presented the new allowances which the it “claimed to be €40 million for the 4,400 nurses and midwives... It clearly resulted to MUMN, that this would still place all nurses and midwives to be less paid not from the nurses in the UK and Ireland, but less than the other Health Professionals in Malta.”

“In fact MUMN demanded at least another €30 million to evaluate the allowances which hopefully make young people to join the nursing profession and retain the existing nursing work force including the foreign nurses. For this €30 million, the fovernment has to come up with a reply in the next scheduled meeting which is to take place on the 20th March 2023.”