Trade Disputes and Industrial Action

Typically, employees decide to take industrial action as a result of a grievance over pay, hours of work, holidays or in support of a co-worker (or former co-worker) who is deemed to have been treated unfairly in some way.

Examples of industrial action may include strike action, a picket, a ‘work-to-rule’ or even an overtime ban. Employers should make every effort to avoid industrial action by maintaining a harmonious working environment because industrial action can be an extremely trying time for all concerned.

A strike is a work stoppage that is caused by the mass refusal of employees to carry out their work activities. Strikes and industrial action in general, are extremely disruptive to a company’s daily operations and can be damaging in both the short and long term. Strikes can last varying amounts of time but even short work stoppages tend to be quite destructive for companies as they can carry negative publicity with them along with the obvious operational drawbacks.

A picket is a form of protest where picketers (those involved in the picket) assemble outside of their workplace, or a relevant area, in an attempt to draw attention to their cause or to discourage others from entering the premises (crossing the picket line). The objective of picketing is to harm the company via a loss of business or through negative publicity. The goal is to persuade the employer to meet picketers’ demands to cease certain activities or introduce a pay increase or reverse a decision regarding redundancies, for instance.

A ‘work-to-rule’ is where employees do the bare minimum during their work hours. They carry out the tasks required by their contract of employment and nothing more in order to slow down productivity. Employees seek to demonstrate that they are valuable to the company and perform tasks that are above and beyond what they are contractually obliged to do on a regular basis.

An overtime ban is similar to a ‘work-to-rule’ in that employees take direction from their contracts of employment. Throughout an overtime ban, employees only work the hours that they are bound by in their contract. As the name suggests, employees refuse to work any overtime.

Recent Industrial Action News in Ireland:

In March 2025, more than 80,000 healthcare workers had threatened to bring widespread Industrial action across HSE-associated services from Monday morning. This action was primarily due to staffing levels across HSE Services. Staff members in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda who were members of associated trade unions (INMO, Fórsa, Unite, Connect, and MLSA) had planned to conduct a 24-hour stoppage as part of this trade dispute.

The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) facilitated talks between HSE Management of these employees and trade union representatives in order to come to an agreement on these disputes: following talks over several days, both parties reached mutual grounds of agreement, thereby resolving this issue and preventing this industrial action from taking place: the intended 24-hour stoppage was called off following confirmation of this agreement. This agreement related to placing greater emphasis on cover for those individuals on maternity leave and setting particular limits on staff numbers and pay for same.

Members of the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) commenced industrial action in the form of ‘Work-to-Rule’ in March 2025, in regard to a trade dispute in which they sought general improvements to their basic pay and conditions of employment: this action was also in response to HSE failures to make mental health services exempt from staff cuts or restrictions on recruitment.

Following engagement by HSE Management with PNA representatives at the WRC, an agreement was reached in April 2025, in which the HSE agreed to carry out an in-depth review process of nursing numbers currently required to efficiently run mental health services in Ireland.