Latvia
(July 2017) The LVSADA health union is taking a month-long action throughout July with members working only to normal hours (168 per month). The union wants to highlight the severe shortage of staff in the sector and the need to increase pay to recruit more workers. Meanwhile, he Association of General Practitoners is taking strike action as part of a campaign to secure a pay rise.
On 11 June the CGT, FO and SUD federations in the health and social services sector organised a day of action with a series of urgent demands for the government. The key demands included a stop to all job cuts and cuts to services, beds and institutions. The unions also want extra funding, additional staffing, provision for training for emergency services, higher pay and assurances of a one-to-one staffing ratio in care homes.
The POEDIN health workers' union organised a national strike and demonstration on 16 May in protest at the austerity still being suffered by the public health service. The union argues that massive underfunding and staff shortages are making it impossible to deliver services and many people are forced to use the expensive private sector as waiting lists rise. There is a recruitment crisis in the sector with no new workers taken on over the last three years while 3000 have retired. Overall staffing is 6000 below its 2014 level while workers face poverty wages. A university trained nurse has a
Over 1500 employees of the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) took part in a one-hour warning strike on 13 June organised by trade unions in the CITUB and Podkrepa confederations. The unions are calling for an increase on the basic salaries of all NHIF employees and the creation of at least 200 new full-time positions to ensure that the service can copes with new demand on the NHIF. The unions estimate that an extra BGN 10 million (€5.1m) is needed to cover these costs and wants to ensure that this is include in the NHIF budget for 2022. NHIF workers are highly qualified specialists
