An Analysis of How The Irish Times Portrayed Irish Nursing During the 1999 Strike

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explore the images of nursing that were presented in the media during the recent industrial action by nurses and midwives in the Republic of Ireland. Although both nurses and midwives took industrial strike action, the strike was referred to as 'the nurses' strike' and both nurses and midwives were generally referred to by the generic term 'nurses'. Data were gathered from the printed news media of The Irish Times over a period of one month--4 October to 4 November 1999--which included the nine days of the strike. Although we limited the source of our data to just one newspaper, the findings do provide an image of how nurses and nursing care are viewed by both health professionals and the public. This image appeared to give a higher value to masculine cultural codes and the performance of technical skills, whereas acts associated with feminine cultural codes of caring were considered of lower value.

A Stain on the White Uniform — The Discursive Construction of Nurses' Industrial Action in the Media

“…Thus, caring is devalued as a ‘natural’ quality of the feminine and only technical skills are considered professionally significant and worthy for legitimizing demands for pay increases. Clarke and O'Neill () found a similar hierarchy of nursing tasks in their analysis of media texts during an industrial action by Irish nurses and midwives in 1999. In their empirical material technical skills were highlighted in promoting the nurses' case while comfort and compassionate caring were downplayed.…”

“…Moreover, the media represents a key site for collective sense‐making (see Vaara and Tienari, ), such as negotiating the rights, responsibilities and legitimacy of occupational groups. We focus on an empirical case of nurses' industrial action in the Finnish healthcare sector and analyse a recent labour dispute from a discursive perspective (Grant et al ., ; Vaara and Tienari, ), that is, by examining how cultural meanings related to the nursing procession were constructed in this context (see also Clarke and O'Neill, ). Based on our analysis, we suggest that the debate was essentially a negotiation of the nurses' individual and societal rights and responsibilities, and that this negotiation drew on the competing and contested discourses of professionalization, caring, labour markets and new public management.…”

The 1999 Irish nurses’ strike: nursing versions of the strike and self‐identity in a general hospital

“…The strike lasted 9 days. Grievances voiced by Irish nurses, similar to those cited by nurses worldwide in advance of strike action, brought together a combination of economic and worklife issues (Bessant 1992, Hibberd 1992, Johnstone 1994, Clarke & O'Neill 2001). The strike, described in detail by McGauran (1999), did not involve absolute withdrawal of labour as nurses provided essential services, without payment, during the course of the strike.…”

Public Health Nursing in Ireland: A Critical Overview*

“…The 5‐year period (1996–2001) for the inclusion of the stories reflects a critical time in Irish nursing history, including extensive changes in the requirements placed on nurses, both in education and in the delivery of service [this lead to the setting up of a Commission on Nursing in 1997. The report of the Commission on Nursing was published in 1998 (Government of Ireland, 1998)], a nationwide strike by nurses and midwives (October 19–27, 1999) (Clarke & O'Neill, 2001; O'Neill & Clarke, 2001), and the creation of the National Council for Professional Development in Nursing and Midwifery in 1999 and its inauguration in 2000 (National Council for the Professional Development of Nursing and Midwifery, 2001).…”