Edinburgh Trade Union Council (ETUC) is hosting a public meeting on Tuesday 6 December 2022 from 6pm to 8:30pm. The meeting will be held with the Council Chamber, City Chambers, High Street.
We encourage everyone with an interest in social care and public services to attend—especially members working in this area and those who receive care in their family.
We are facing a social care crisis in Edinburgh. The crisis means that there are not enough resources for the authorities to fulfil their statutory duty of providing social care for people who need it.
People who have been assessed as needing social care are not getting it. The hours that people get for care at home are going to be cut. People who should be discharged from hospital to either their home or a care home are not being discharged.
The failure to meet need is due to lack of resources, too much reliance on a profit making private sector and too few staff to provide care.
If you can’t join us at the Chambers, you can watch the live stream.
Speakers
The meeting will be chaired by Claire Robertson, the chair of the ETUC. Speakers include
- Mary Alexander, Depute Scottish Secretary of Unite the Union
- Councillor Tim Pogson (Labour), chair of Edinburgh Integration Joint Board
- Councillor Claire Miller (Greens), member of the Edinburgh Integration Joint Board
- Nick Kempe, Commonweal.
Your branch convener and reps will be in attendance and available to discuss specific issues in the Council.
National Care Service
Looming over the current crisis is the spectre of the SNP’s National Care Service (NCS). The NCS will open the care sector to the market and threatens to dismantle local government—in Edinburgh the removal of the services proposed to be part of the NCS would remove 40% of funding and 22% of staff from the Coiuncil. As seen in this year’s Audit Scotland report on care, privatisation undercuts pay and conditions for workers and service quality.
Throughout the summer of 2022, Unite has been across the length and breadth of Scotland visiting care homes and visiting support and care at home services. We have had hundreds of conversations with care and support workers in the voluntary/not-for-profit and private sectors.
We want to stop the undercutters in their tracks and drive up pay, terms and conditions for all workers in the sector. This is not an easy task or one that will be completed quickly.
Unite is committed to long-term organising across care in Scotland and delivering a National Care Service that is
- publicly owned and publicly ran
- free at the point of use
- with workers and service users at its heart.
Read about conditions in social care highlighted by Unite in an article from October 2022.
Sign Unite’s petition to challenge the proposed NCS.