Social Services

The Fp-Cgil public service federation has welcomed a recent court ruling that has blocked an employer from applying an inferior collective agreement. The action was taken against La Nostra Famiglia, a non-profit health and social care provider, that wanted to avoid the private health sector agreement and sign up to an agreement with lower pay rates and longer working hours. The court ruling means that the employer now has to compensate workers for any lost pay and to apply the full terms of the private health agreement that was negotiated by Fp-Cgil along with the Cisl-Fp and Uil-Pa

Over the first six months of the years many of EPSU’s affiliates in health and social care have been active in negotiating, mobilising and taking action to secure improvements in pay and conditions for their members. With understaffing a major challenge across Europe, trade unions are fighting for the better, hours and other conditions that will help to retain staff and recruit more workers to these essential services. So far affiliates in 15 countries have been involved in protests, strikes and negotiations, with at least 16 new sector agreements delivering new pay and benefits for workers.

Trade unions have agreed a new two-year collective agreement in private health care that runs from 1 May 2022 to 30 April 2024. There will be a general 2% increase on 1 October 2022 and a 1.9% pay rise on 1 June 2023. However, if pay developments in industry are higher than 1.9% then the additional amount will be added. The agreement also includes improvements to family leave, sick leave and requires employers to justify the use of fixed-term contracts even for short periods. Two working groups are being set up – one to develop the culture of negotiation and collective bargaining and the other

Workers in the care, community and voluntary sector will escalate their campaign of industrial action to secure a first pay rise in 14 years. This follows the failure of the government to engage with unions after the selected strike action earlier in July. The government is key to the dispute as the trade unions want a guarantee that it will increase funding to the organisations to ensure that pay increases can be paid. The trade unions, SIPTU, Fórsa and INMO, are supported by the ICTU confederation in their “Valuing Care, Valuing Community” campaign and they jointly agreed to ballot members

The FOA and DSR trade unions have both published official data revealing the reality of overwork, understaffing and low pay in the health and social care sectors. FOA quotes from the latest survey by the Danish Working Environment Authority covering 30,000 workers. This shows that 23% of social and health care assistants say that they have often or constantly felt stressed within the past two weeks. Of all the industry groups, 'Residential Institutions and Home Care' is the sector where the largest proportion of employees feel stressed. The union says that understaffing, a high rate of sick

A first wave of strike action across the care and community sector has involved hundreds of workers joining picket lines and protests calling for pay rises that they have been denied for 14 years. The SIPTU union, along with public services union Fórsa and the INMO nursing union, are calling on the government to agree increased funding for the sector to cover pay increases. The unions argue that the pay rises are needed to keep workers in line with the public sector, aid recruitment to tackle staff shortages and so address the threat to the quantity and quality of services provided. The three

Trade unions, including the FNV and NU’91, and employers in the care sector have made a joint approach to government to boost funding for the sector by €2.5 billion to address problems of low pay and understaffing. Problems of staff shortages are being felt right across the sector from care for the disabled, care for the elderly to mental health care and to University Medical Centres and hospitals. It is estimated that the current shortfall of 49,000 workers will rise to 117,000 in 2030. There are also major problems with staff turnover and high absenteeism. The ageing of the population will

The UNISON trade union is planning strike action at the St.Monica Trust care company in Bristol in south west England over threats to sack staff unless they accept a pay cut. The union says that more than 100 staff were told in March that they must accept inferior new contracts – costing them thousands of pounds a year and watering down their sick pay – or be fired. The first strike will take place on 29 June, with further action planned for 2, 5, 10 and 11 July. The company is threatening to cut weekend pay rates for senior care workers by 21%, while other staff are being asked to take a 10%

Fórsa and other public service unions have invoked a review clause in the current public service agreement in response to the surge in inflation. However, pay talks convened by the Workplace Relations Commission ended without agreement as the government proposals fell far short of 2021 inflation and projected 2022 cost-of-living increases. There are no immediate plans to reconvene the talks. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform had offered supplementary pay rises of just 2.5% for the period 2021-2022, despite expected annual inflation of at least 9% over the two-year period. Another

The public service federations in CCOO and UGT have renewed their call for the government to enter into negotiations over pay and conditions for all public service workers. They argue that the unilateral pay increase of 2% for 2022 needs to be reviewed and a multi-annual agreement negotiated covering pay and other conditions, including the various rights and benefits cut during the period of austerity. Meanwhile, FSS-CCOO and FeSP-UGT have welcomed the court ruling that will require companies in residential care to pay the 6.5% pay increase as established in the sector collective agreement.