Health and Social Services, Social Services
EPSU Health and Social Services (HSS) is a large and diverse sector, encompassing a broad scope of services across a range of organisational structures, and dedicated to advocating for public health services and social care across Europe.
There are millions of workers across Europe who provide vital care in Social Services, whether at home or in institutions, for the elderly in Long Term Care (LTC), for children in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), for people with disabilities and in community health services and social work. Their work and contribution to society is undervalued and more often than not poorly rewarded.
Gender equality runs through all of EPSU’s work and is central to its activities in social services, recognising the vital role of women in social care, as is action to defend migrant workers’ rights. It supports initiatives to combat workplace violence and harassment, ensuring safe working conditions for all employees. It also works in establishing and providing support for European Works Councils in multi-national companies operating in the private and not-for-profit social services sectors.
As a recognised European sectoral social dialogue partner for workers in the social care services sector throughout the European Union, EPSU Social Services champions the rights and working conditions of care professionals, social workers, and related staff, emphasising the importance of more and better collective bargaining agreements, for proper training and professional development and for increased public investment in social services to guarantee quality care for all citizens.
EPSU Social Services is committed to improving the protection, resilience and working conditions of the social services workforce and to building a fairer, healthier society through robust public services. Supporting quality, affordable and accessible social services is an essential investment that brings both economic and social benefits.
EPSU’s thematic priorities in social services are:
- Social services (in general)
- Childcare
- Elderly care including personal care of household services
- Social dialogue
- Organising
- Social Services Work Programme 2024-2029
Adam Rogalewski is the EPSU Health and Social Services Policy Officer, and Samantha Howe is the Policy Assistant for Social Services. The President of the EPSU Standing Committee for Health and Social Services is Kirsi Sillanpää of TEHY (Finland) and the Vice-Presidents are Yolanda Gil of CC.OO (Spain), Gesine Lenkewitz of Ver.di (Germany), and Razvan Gae of Sanitas (Romania). You can find their contact details here. You can find your national EPSU representative for health and social services HERE.
Korian Workers are organising across borders
Workers and union representatives in the French social service multinational specialised in elderly care, Korian, met in Brussels, in order to better coordinate their struggles and strategies to secure better pay and conditions for the almost 47.000 workers employed in 4 countries.
Report from Working Group Social Services
The meeting primarily dealt with the topics "Challenges and impacts of the provision of social services by private providers", "New forms/models of care and their effects on the provision of services, their quality and the workforce", "EU-level standardisation in health and elderly care services" and "Promotion of social dialogue in the field of social services".
Report from Standing Committee Health and Social Services
The meeting primarily dealt with EPSU's current and future priority issues and with the topics "safe and adequate staffing levels", "prevention and reduction of musculoskeletal disorders and psycho-social risks and stress", "continuing professional development" and "regulated professions".
EPSU-PSI Online Platform Safe & Effective Staffing Levels
This webpage is the "entry door" to the EPSU/PSI Online Platform on Safe and Effective Staffing. From here you can access both the publicly accessible section and the password-protected section reserved for the national affiliates of EPSU and PSI.
