With a solid collective bargaining strategy in place, workers would be prepared to do what it takes to de-privatise the Scottish care sector, writes Robyn Martin.
For-profit care provision is degrading the sector’s ability to deliver high quality care. In 2019, the Scottish Government introduced Fair Work legislation which promised that ‘Scottish people’s human rights to high quality care, fair work and a voice in decisions that affect them’ would be a priority. Since this pledge was made to deliver better terms and conditions across the entire care sector, with improving pay as its central focus, Scotland’s 148,000 care workers have seen stagnation in our wages and a dramatic deterioration of our working conditions.
A Fair Work budget was eventually established in 2023. The majority of this funding has been supplied to the private sector, which spend most of it on costs other than providing care, such as profits, rent and interest payments. Thus workers in the sector feel suffocated by cuts and squeezes in pay and resources. The health and safety of our frontline care staff and service users alike is therefore compromised and forces workers to carry out personal care with a lack of adequate PPE. The poor quality of PPE supplied to care staff is tangible
The STUC’s 2022 report entitled ‘Why Scotland Can’t Afford Privatised Social Care’ outlines the infrastructure of the for-profit care industry. The industry is built upon strategies to maximise profit extraction whilst simultaneously minimising tax liabilities. This was evident during the COVID-19 pandemic between 2020 and 2021, when five of the ten largest for-profit care providers in Scotland received £57 million between them in extra grants. While one of these providers made a loss, the other four generated over three times as much profit as the Covid grants they received, grossing roughly an additional £108 million in profits. The report notes a significant uptick in complaints regarding care quality and higher levels of rent extraction than in the public and third care sectors, placing the workforce under extreme duress.
The report further highlights the concerning level of market power held by for-profit care providers. Without restraint by unions, market power enables the private sector to dictate pay and conditions for workers, which, through competitive procurement processes, also acts to drive down standards in the market as a whole. Large providers tend to avoid recognising unions, have a lot of market power, and use creative accounting and complex strategies of financial engineering that are much more difficult for commissioners and regulators to detect than those of smaller providers. This calls into question the legitimacy of the Scottish Government’s claim that Scottish people, including service users, have a voice in decisions that affect them. Additionally, workers in larger providers have very little control over their day-to-day work and a smaller collective voice in their working conditions. It is not appropriate that so much power is held by providers whose motives are entirely contrary to the aims of providing high quality care and achieving Fair Work goals.
While the industry continues to line its pockets with mass profiteering efforts, private care home workers were handed a pay cut . Private care workers make an average of £1.60 less than public sector workers. This corresponds to around £3000 per year for a worker on a full time contract of 37 hours per week. Moreover, 80% of the care industry’s workforce are women. Women comprise 72% of the sector’s lowest paid workers, who are likely to face in-work poverty. One in five care workers are on sessional contracts, sacrificing sick and holiday pay to pursue careers in the sector whilst fulfilling their duties as mothers. This speaks to the severe lack of flexible working opportunities in the care sector. The Scottish Government relies upon women entering precarious workforces such as care and prioritising our jobs above our own living standards. The tremendous physical and mental costs of working in this sector are mostly carried by women.
Ultimately, the private care sector is primed to implode. Its for-profit strategy is not sustainable for its female-dominated workforce or the service users they support. Understaffing, poor wages, and the consequent strain on the workforce are sector-wide issues caused by privatisation. The process of redesign depends on collective sectoral bargaining.
With a concerted effort to drive up trade union density, collective sectoral bargaining can be the driving force to improve to pay, terms and conditions. Shifting decision-making power from private corporations to the predominantly working class users and workers would trigger a transformation in care provision. The process begins with women taking up the mantle workplace by workplace.
A recent pay dispute at Enable Scotland provides an example of what workers are prepared to do. 89.1% of members rejected their recent pay offer and 84.9% indicated that they are prepared to take action up to and including strike action. Replicating this result across the entire sector and supporting others to learn from the leadership of the women who made it possible will enable the care industry to move towards a National Care Service which is based on a not-for-profit service model, shaped by the workers in the sector.
We are fighting to keep carers in care and to kick profit out of our sector. Women built this sector from the grassroots. There is still hope for care. That shining light, that hope, is carried by our trade unions.
Robyn Martin is a personal assistant at Enable Scotland, UNISON Social Care Steward, and UNISON Young Members’ Women’s Representative.
