(April 2017) Services union vida is continuing its campaign to secure federally agreed minimum staffing levels in the health and care sectors. The union took part in a parliamentary hearing on the future of care and said that increasing patient numbers and widespread staffing shortages were creating major problems. Increase workloads were putting pressure on staff who are often stressed and overworked, posing a threat to the quality of care.
Union calls for minimum staffing levels
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Union calls for national, legal staffing levels
(October 2016) Services union vida is calling for urgent action to tackle serious understaffing in health and social care. The union says that lack of finance often means that while demand has increased significantly while employment has remained the same or even fallen. Employees are overworked and around 30% of workers in the sector are at risk of burnout.Vida wants to see statutory minimum staffing levels for health and social care taking out also of qualifications.
Unions calls for statutory staffing levels in eldercare
The FNV trade union has submitted proposals to the government to set staffing levels in eldercare. The union wants to see two workers for every eight residents and emphasises that there should be a balance of different skill levels. FNV argues that this is a crucial measure that will help improve recruitment and retention in the sector by ensuring that workers are not overworked and have enough time to spend with clients.
Report supports case for minimum staffing levels in healthcare
A new report from Duisberg-Essen university provides support for the arguments of ver.di that urgent action is required to deal with an estimated shortage of 162000 full-time workers in healthcare and a legal minimum staffing requirement would be a practical and reasonable way of dealing with this. The report also argues that there is a need to make healthcare jobs more attractive. This is a central concern for ver.di that was calling for an increase in the sector minimum wage for care workers to take it to €12.50 an hour. Unfortunately, the labour ministry only to the following new rates: in