Remunicipalisation, Privatisation, Portugal, Europe, Belgium
Union organises regular actions over workloads and working conditions
The CNE trade union is organising a series of weekly actions in the health and care sector to raise awareness of the serious problems relating to workloads and poor working conditions in hospitals and other care institutions. The union is coming up with a range of inventive actions on each "white-shirt" Tuesday to highlight the demands of workers to make the sector more attractive. The third Tuesday (18 June) focused on care homes and the poor pay and working conditions of care workers, particularly in home run by multinational companies.
Study of eldercare takes up issues around staffing, education and pay
The Eurofound research agency has published its first major overview of trends in the eldercare sector noting the spread of private provision in some parts of Europe and the challenge to maintain adequate levels of public funding. A section of the report addresses employment issues, notably staffing levels, the education and training of staff and wages. There are examples of staffing ratios from eight countries and some indicators of pay (public and private) from seven countries and the study notes overall that personal carers' pay falls into to the bottom 40% of pay (two lowest quintiles).
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".