EPSU representatives participated at the conference "Employment challenges and opportunities in the social care sector: the case of long-term care" organized by Eurodiaconia in cooperation with Social Services Europe.
Trade unions have negotiated improvements for workers in social services and public services. The new collective agreement in social services will see minimum monthly pay increased significantly from €642 to €730 while working hours will be cut by one hour a week. Trade union members covered by the agreement will get an extra day’s leave after 10 years’ service. Meanwhile, across public services there will be a 2.2% increase in the basis salary on which specific salary amounts are calculated. Trade union members covered by the collective agreements will get two additional days’ leave for
Following the large demonstration in October in support of a pay rise for public service workers, unions are angry and disappointed that the government has failed to respond. Marián Magdoška, president of the KOZ trade union confederation said that unions were presented with the budget for 2022 a day before a tripartite meeting and realised that, despite promises from last year, it didn’t include any provisions to cover even a pay rise to compensate for inflation. The health union is also angry that in negotiations at the end of October the government was effectively blackmailing unions by
The GPA and vida trade unions that organise in private health and social care have launched a new campaign, “Words are not enough” with the support of their confederation, the ÖGB. The unions are calling for increased funding for the sectors to improve pay and conditions, increase staffing by at least 20000, reduce workloads and provide a further COVID bonus and additional time off. The unions say that applause and praise for health and social care staff is not enough and action is needed to increase the funding that covers private health and social care.
A survey by the FOA trade union found that 18% of its members in eldercare who work part-time would like to work longer hours. The union says that if they were to do this this it would effectively mean an additional 2100 jobs in the sector. FOA figures show a very high level of part-time work in the sector but with variations across municipalities. It argues that municipalities like Aalborg where weekly working time is 32 hours on average have clearly begun to address the problem but across the country the average is only 27.5 hours and as low as 25 hours in some municipalities. The FOA
This week, the European Parliament published a report on the formal and informal long-term care workforce in the EU. Much of the information in the report confirms findings from an EPSU report published for the Global Day of Action for Care Workers.
Three trade unions – public services union Fórsa, general union SIPTU and nurses’ and midwives union INMO – have joined forces with the support of the ICTU confederation to secure a pay rise and collective bargaining forum for workers in voluntary and community services. The unions argue that many of these workers provide essential services but have not seen a pay rise since the 2008-09 economic and financial crisis. The aim is for a 3% pay rise this year and to establish a forum for future collective bargaining. The unions have also approached the government to get it to recognise its role in
A new report published today by EPSU (European Federation of Public Service Unions) shows that, as the pandemic was at its peak, hundreds of thousands of care workers were abandoning the sector of long-term residential care.
EPSU and The Federation of European Social Employers support sectoral social dialogue as a tool to improve the working conditions and wages of social services workers.
A national strike and local demonstrations by psychologists took place on 28 September following earlier action in June. The workers’ trade unions have a range of demands related to pay, jobs and the statutory/contractual position of psychologists and government proposals on their status, independence and payment for consultations. Psychologists have seen demands for their services increase significantly during the pandemic and the unions argue that this needs to be recognised in terms of more jobs, better employment conditions and similar pay improvements as awarded to other health and social
