- Conference
- 2022 Community Conference and Seminar
- Date
- 25 November 2021
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Conference notes that poverty wages and poor working condition are endemic in the care sector.
It is only after initiatives such as UNISON’s Ethical Care Charter, our national campaigns on sick pay and staff shortages and the hard work and determination of many UNISON activists and senior branch representatives, that have continued to bring attention to the disproportionate treatment of care staff in the sector that have brought these issues to light.
Black Members Conference recognises that Black and migrant workers are disproportionately affected by these issues. This also means that they are prey to the more unscrupulous employers in the field. Some of whom exploit the vulnerability migrant workers and exploit them further, by giving them worse working conditions and pay, that they can get away with these unscrupulous practices.
We know well of the limited access to adequate PPE at the beginning of the pandemic, and we also hear of many nursing homes who are recruiting care workers from Asia and other parts of the work into the UK, giving them false promises. And when they begin work, these workers experience threatening behaviour, colleagues and managers being racist towards them in the language they use when addressing them, and then not paying them correctly for the work they are doing. There are numerous reports of this occurring across the UK, leaving the people who have been on the receiving end emotionally scarred.
We therefore call on the Service Group Executive with social care members to:
1. Commission and conduct research into the experience of our Black members in care homes and other settings to determine their pay and conditions.
2. Encourage recruitment campaigns across the sector to further provide support to a vulnerable workforce
3. Conduct an awareness raising campaign for care workers and migrant workers particularly, of their rights at work, and human rights.
4. Explore and consider the use of appropriate (varied e.g., Guajarati, Farsi, French) language translation in our information to such workers, recognising the diversity of the workforce and our growing membership in this sector.
5. Highlight the free immigration advice line run by JCWI for UNISON members