Julie, Plymouth care worker
I have worked in the care sector on and off for a large part of my working life, starting on a Youth Training Scheme at 16, on £29.50 a week, and have worked in a variety of settings.
Since, privatisation and a move away from local authority-run care facilities has led to the dire situation we have now, with councils paying in some cases thousands per week for private companies to provide care for individuals. This is despite the fact that the facilities in many care homes are poor and wages low.
Most care jobs involve extremely long hours, often 11- to 16-hour shifts in my current service and at many others. These include nights. If there is no relief as the shift is not covered, the employee is mandated to stay on for up to a further 6 hours until another carer can be found.
We can easily be doing between 3 and 6 night shifts in a row. My record is 11 nights during Covid. Despite the fact that ordinary care workers aren’t generally ‘on call’, there is an expectation in many care jobs to have your phone on and to be available for work on your days off. I have been woken up at midnight, when I’ve just done a night shift, and been asked to come and do a ‘sleep in’.
We all get paid the minimum wage, whether on days or nights, and get no breaks. We just eat when we can. We asked once could we have a break and got told we could have one but would lose an hour’s pay.
Some care residents have very challenging needs, may not understand personal boundaries or acceptable language and conduct. Some can even be violent. It takes a lot of skill, tact and experience to work in these environments. The job can also expose people to very distressing scenes. It’s not for the faint-hearted. Much like in the emergency services or hospitals, we can’t just walk away and have a short break if we witness a death.
Many people see care work as a manual job, which it is. However, like in all workplaces, paperwork takes over everything and the level of paperwork now is on a par with nursing and social work, despite the low pay. The sheer number of reports that have to be filled in is breathtaking. In some cases everything from number of hours slept, to quality of stools, to general behaviour has to be recorded repeatedly during a shift.
Increasingly care workers need to be IT literate. In many cases we are required to have a full clean driving licence and our own cars, despite being on the minimum wage. We can be sent miles away and required to stay over – and it’s not like they are business trips with expenses to match!
Not only care
Much of the work involves not only care – which of course can involve dealing with bodily fluids and personal care – but cleaning, cooking and in some residential care facilities even making sure the home is in order, which in some smaller homes may even include gardening, dealing with home IT issues and even basic DIY. Think of all those little tasks you might do round your own house – now imagine having to do them around your own workplace as well as the proper tasks on your long anti-social shift.
Occasionally I have worked in places where workers have collectively refused to complete these sorts of tasks. Often though, people will grudgingly just accept it.
The long hours, stressful conditions, burnout, poor treatment and awful pay leads to plenty quitting. Hence the vacancies. Why not work in Aldi instead for a higher wage with no legal liability for human life, long night shifts, and actual benefits such as discounts on food? It is no surprise that when a supermarket opens up, care vacancies shoot up!
Employers exploit the fact that many care workers are migrants, young people and women, which they see as being less likely to get organised. Many migrant workers live in fear of deportation if they lose their jobs and are often bullied by bosses and agencies, for example.
Care homes are staffed in some cases by only a few workers who don’t often get to meet their colleagues from other sites. This compartmentalisation of the workforce makes it hard to organise.
But the trade unions could be doing much more to help us organise from the grassroots level up. The only contact I’ve had from my own union recently was to ask for more subs. Most of the trade unions in the care sector, including Unison, GMB and Community, are affiliated to the Labour Party – now in government.
The union leaders need to be demanding that Labour carries out its pre-election policy of creating a National Care Service immediately – kicking out the profiteering bosses and bringing social care back in-house. Delaying a decision until 2028 after yet another ‘review’ is not good enough.
Although I am very critical of what goes on behind the scenes, I love my job. My hope is that we are seen as professional and treated accordingly, with the same training and standards everywhere, so it’s seen as a job that people what to work and stay in. So the fabulous people I support get the best care possible.
Labour stalls care reform plans and just keeps cutting
In 2019, with Jeremy Corbyn as leader, Labour published its plans for a National Care Service to “ensure that social care is a universally available service, with personal care provided free at the point of use, and that all who need it can access it.”
The policy included plans to shift back away from profit-driven private care towards local authority-run care services, although the immediate nationalisation of big private care services needed was not promised.
At least the words ‘National Care Service’ survived Starmer’s bonfire of popular Corbyn policies to make it into Labour’s 2024 general election manifesto. Now it emerges that will have to wait for the outcome of yet another commission not making its recommendations until the end of 2028. But the crisis is acute now.
Meanwhile local councils, responsible for providing social care services, continue to face grinding austerity under Labour, as under the Tories. And Labour councillors just keep making cuts, refusing to mount a struggle to demand the funding our communities need.
The Socialist Party fights for
- A minimum wage of £15 an hour now, with no exemptions. Full pay for overnight stays and travel time, including expenses
- A maximum 32-hour week, without loss of pay. Free childcare for all. Free comprehensive training for all those who need it
- For democratic fighting trade unions in social care, with recognition across all employers
- Reverse privatisation. Nationalise care service providers, with compensation to small shareholders only on the basis of proven need
- For publicly owned care services to be run democratically by elected bodies of service users and their families, care workers and the community
- End council cuts, re-open closed services – for councils to set budgets based on need
- Free social care for all those who need it
