Social Services

Youth care workers, members of the FNV trade union, took only the second day of strike action ever on 15 March. This is part of their long-running campaign to get a better collective agreement for the 32000 workers in the sector and to address workloads, recruitment and retention. The union argues that overwork and poor pay and conditions are driving workers from the sector and this only increases workloads for those who remain. Alongside better pay and conditions the union is calling for higher funding for the sector and this message was endorsed by the many organisations that joined the

Negotiations between the ver.di service union and the VKA local government employers’ association took place on 25 February but were suspended with no proposals from the employers on how to improve pay and conditions for workers involved in early years education and social services. The union is concerned that urgent action is needed to deal with the shortage of 173,000 skilled workers in day-care centres alone but the VKA has rejected union proposals to reduce workloads. Ver.di believes that there was a constructive atmosphere in the negotiations but there were no concessions from the

A survey of workers in elder care by the Kommunal municipal services union reveals the worrying extent of staffing problems across the sector. The union underlines that staffing, working conditions, working environment and quality of operations are closely linked and that in order for elderly care to have a sustainable working environment, with the right staffing, profound changes are needed, at all levels of the organization. The report found that 37% of elderly care members believe that staffing is rarely or never sufficient and half of respondents find it difficult to take shorter breaks at

Federations in the CCOO confederation will organise a protest on 7 March over the refusal of employer associations in the nursing homes and home care sector to update the salary tables for 2022. The collective agreement for the sector links pay to inflation and the increase for 2022 should be 6.5% based on the inflation index to December 2021. The federations are highly critical of the employers’ refusal to properly apply the salary revision clause that has not raised any problems in recent years and of their block on negotiations. They underline the urgent need for a pay rise in the sector