Social workers to strike over new contracts
BIRMINGHAM social care workers are on collision course with city council bosses over plans to make all their jobs parttime.
The 280 staff work for the ‘enablement service’ which helps vulnerable and elderly people regain their independence at home after a spell in hospital. They work with people for up to six weeks to help them back on their feet.
They have been in dispute with the council over new working patterns since last year and have lined up a series of strikes starting next week.
Unison sources say carers are ‘furious’ over the proposed changes.
But council social care bosses claim the service is vastly ineffi- cient compared to other large councils and they need staff to be able to cover set shifts from 7am to 10pm seven days a week.
Staff will either work 14, 21 or 22.5 hours, meaning full timers will be given a choice of taking reduced hours, taking redundancy or moving to another job within the city council.
Those having their hours cut could get a pro-rata redundancy payment to compensate for the drop.
Council bosses claim the changes will make the service more productive and save up to £2 million a year.
Labour council cabinet member for health and social care Paulette Hamilton said the service is currently very inefficient.
She said staff spend 40 per cent of their time away from patients – this will be cut to five per cent.
Only 20 per cent of clients are independent after receiving the service and they have set a target of 80 per cent after the changes.
She said: “The aim vide a better quality is to proof service and make life better for our service users. At the moment they can see 15 different carers a week, now they will see a key carer and a small team.
“We will continue to listen to our trade union colleagues, but at the moment we have got a service which is not fit for purpose.”
She added that they have the backing of local hospitals and wanted to avoid compulsory redundancies.
The changes will be put to the Labour Cabinet meeting on Tuesday for approval and are outlined in a report to the meeting.
A proposed system of three shifts spread over the day was successfully challenged by the Unison union as unworkable and dropped by the council.