Hospitals Association Offers Higher Pay Raise Ahead of Strike
The Hospitals' Association has made a new collective agreement proposal to health care unions, just one working day before doctors go on strike.
The offer is that the workload will not be increased next year, and pay will rise by 6.6 percent across the board in the health care sector, reported Postimees.
Minister of Social Affairs Hanno Pevkur, who heads the supervisory board of the Health Insurance Fund, said he would be willing to discuss the offer.
Hospitals' Association director Urmas Sule said: “We agreed to put the offer in writing by tomorrow at the latest and we are waiting for a response from the strikers as soon as possible so that the impact of the strike to patients would be minimal.”
The union said the strike will, nevertheless, go on as planned on October 1, and that it won't end until a collective agreement has been signed.
The secretary general of the doctors' union, Katrin Rehemaa, said employers have not taken the problem seriuosly and have refused to negotiate until now.
“We are ready for negotiations and have been for the last year and a half. The minister should have made his proposals earlier. It is strange that the desire to do so wasn't expressed until today, the last working day before the strike begins,” said Rehemaa.