Health and social care is already one of the most underpaid careers in the country. It’s clear that carers in workplaces up and down the country are being underpaid and overworked, which is matched with a high staff turnover.
Speaking with a carer in Knowsley shone a light on exactly where the wage rises of the past 20 years have been.
This carer doesn’t want to be named as is the precarious nature of the profession.
He gets in my taxi and I ask if he was starting or finishing, he explains how he’s starting but he’s had to go back to work because he couldn’t afford to be off with the serious condition he’s been struck with, as statutory sick pay won’t be able to pay the bills, and the multi-million pound company doesn’t pay sick leave.
I ask if he’s in the union, he says yes. I ask if he thinks the Labour government will solve the wide-ranging problem with underpaid care workers in the country, he thinks not.
“Starmer went to some care homes explaining how they are underpaid and he’ll give them a rise to £15 an hour, which is still not enough in a skilled profession. But he’s got in now and he’s done nothing”.
He told me that the company he works for has hundreds of homes up and down the country and that they can make up to £5,000-£10,000 a week, per resident. This equates to millions of pounds a year, a large chunk paid by the government, in an industry where staff are overwhelmingly underpaid for long, hard hours supporting, medicating and caring for people with severe and complex health conditions.
This is the same situation up and down the country. This level of in-work poverty is the breeding ground for many people coming to the conclusion that there isn’t enough to go around and far-right ideas creep into the minds of workers with constant media coverage of migrants in boats.
However, the reality is that there is enough to go around, and the hoarding of subsidies and government funds by big business is exactly where the wage rises for workers in many industries are hidden.
Neill Dunne, Knowsley
