Care workers must be paid for travel time

UNISON has welcomed a recent Employment Appeal Tribunal decision – which confirmed that under the National Minimum Wage (NMW), hourly-paid care workers must be paid the NMW, both for travel time between assignments and also for time spent sleeping on overnight stays - as setting a “very clear benchmark” for what is expected of employers in the care sector. This is a massive boost for UNISON’s campaign in support of an ethical care charter which is attracting growing support from councils across the UK:
http://www.lrdpublications.org.uk/publications.php?pub=LR&iss=1705&id=idm7223928
http://www.unison.org.uk/upload/sharepoint/Research%20Material/Final%20Ethical%20Care%20Charter%20PDF.pdf

UNISON survey reveals Scotland’s care crisis

Workers tell the human stories behind the cuts as a UNISON survey exposes the shocking reality of Scotland's care services.
   “It’s getting worse. I don't know where its going to end, no one cares about the patient or client anymore”, one worker told the 'Scotland: It’s Time to Care' survey which was published today.
  Another warned: "“Clients are losing out, care is not given properly, clients are missed out or forgotten about, no one cares or listens to staff or clients.”
  Poignantly one worker said “I feel worthless.” If that is how they feel, what about the people they are desperately trying to care for?

Home carers stretched beyond the limit

The BBC's File on 4 last week broadcast an important analysis of the state of home care. A survey of all local authorities in England discovered severe cuts in spending on care services leading some home care providers to withdraw their operations because of inadequate funding. However the real impact of the cuts is being born by elderly and disabled service users whose quality of care is being badly reduced and the low paid workforce struggling to deliver a decent service with inadequate resources and time. In the programme Labour's shadow health minister Andy Burnham acknowledges that previous governments across the board have failed to integrate with heath care and properly resource social care. Every UNISON branch which organises in councils which commission home care services must press for the adoption the union's ethical care charter:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03szh9m
http://www.unison.org.uk/upload/sharepoint/Research%20Material/Final%20Ethical%20Care%20Charter%20PDF.pdf

The human cost of cuts in social care

The Guardian reports on new research which finds that 'half a million fewer old and disabled people are receiving care and support from the public purse than would have been the case before the financial crash' in 2008. Care organisations have identified a £2.8bn shortfall in funding necessary to meet people's needs assessed as moderate:
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/dec/16/cuts-care-funding-austerity

The contract culture in social care is a national scandal

‘The government have made such swingeing cuts to council grants that forces social care providers into cutting pay and conditions. Many employees are now being paid below the minimum wage. That's because they are not being paid for travel time, use their own cars without being paid reasonable mileage rates and have to pay for mobile phones and uniforms,’ says Heather Wakefield, UNISON head of local government, in a Guardian report which examines the downward spiral of budget cuts, underfunded contracts and attacks on care staff wages – exemplified by the Future Directions dispute in Rochdale:
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/oct/22/council-funding-cuts-care-homes-minimum-wage

Zero hour contracts - a state of quasi-unemployment

Not before time zero hours contracts have come under public scrutiny. A blatant device for employers limiting their own contractual liabilities as well as denying rights to their employees, these 'contracts' have not only proliferated in marketised areas of public services such as home care but also in core areas like NHS staff banks which do not guarantee work to registered staff. An editorial in The Occupied Times locates ‘permanently precarious’ employment in the context of 30 years of neo liberalism which has led to a 'fundamental shift in the nature of work':
http://theoccupiedtimes.org/?p=11613

Putting the dignity (and radicalism) back into social care

A UNISON seminar of members working in social care and home care has called for dignity for service users and dignity for the staff who serve them.
  The call came 24 hours before UNISON warned that the home care system is in crisis following a Care Quality Commission Report into homecare services in England which found that as many as a quarter are failing to meet quality and safety standards.

Lilian Macer: "Low mean dishonest trick of health and care cuts"

"An Injury To One - Is An Injury To All is a timeless principle of the trade union movement. It's the principle that lies behind our Health and Social Care Services. It's the principle that underlines our determination to defend those services, those that rely on them, and those that provide them", UNISON Scottish Convener Lilan Macer told the STUC today.

Reality of home care exploitation exposed by UNISON film‏

At today's UNISON local government conference - as part of the debatethis morning on personalisation and care work - a moving and powerful film about the privatisation of home care in Norfolk was well received by delegates.