Workers’ pay slashed as cost comes before care
Yesterday marked the final day of strike action in a bitter dispute between Unison and Bron Afon Community Housing, in Torfaen. Here, Unison’s Peter Short gives his view on the row and the future of local services in Wales...
HOUSING support workers in Torfaen are engaged in a bitter struggle for their livelihoods after their employer, Bron Afon Community Housing, stripped £3,000 from their salaries.
The dispute provides a snapshot of what is happening to local public services in Wales.
The Supported Living Team provides assistance to vulnerable people over the age of 50 in their own homes, helping them access benefits and acting as their advocates with housing and financial problems.
They provide practical support too to those with mental health issues, addictions and those who have experienced domestic abuse.
They take pride in their jobs; it is rewarding work making a difference to people’s lives. They know there is no-one else in Torfaen who provides the support they do. Without them, service users would be on their own.
At no stage has anyone questioned the quality of their work or their dedication.
Indeed, Bron Afon was so impressed with their professionalism, it used them as a template to develop a separate team supporting those under 50 years of age and asked them to train the new group, whose salaries are, ironically, thousands of pounds higher.
In December 2016, Bron Afon won a new contract from Torfaen County Borough Council and everything changed.
In April, Bron Afon issued new contracts to the Supported Living Team, cutting salaries in most cases by more than £3,000 to £20,416.
Wages were slashed so that Bron Afon could maintain the contract.
Executives had promised during the bidding process money would be maximised to invest in staff.
The dramatic increase in client numbers under the new contract means staff are having to work even harder for significantly less money.
A faster turnaround on what support workers are asked to do with clients in a shorter time means the quality of support provided is compromised.
Bron Afon’s behaviour has reduced staff to tears and sickness absence through stress has soared.
Some employees face eviction because they can’t pay their bills. Others are left needing to use food banks. They are looking at second jobs or dropping out of the pension scheme to make ends meet.
Support workers, with the support of Unison, are fighting back.
They have taken six days of strike action and were joined on the picket line by the local MP and Assembly Member.
How did we get to this terrible position?
There is a link between the savage UK Conservative government spending cuts, the subsequent dramatically reduced money available to Welsh local authorities and the eventual slashing of these workers’ wages in Torfaen (and elsewhere in local public services across Wales).
We are experiencing a health and social care crisis which extends beyond home and residential care services for the frail elderly to preventative support for vulnerable adults, promoting independence and combating isolation and loneliness.
These services need to be properly funded and supported and not undermined.
Councils used to provide these sorts of care services directly.
Some Welsh authorities responded to the intolerable funding pressure they have been placed under by the UK government by privatising and outsourcing council services.
Starved of money and having outsourced services, councils lack the tools to respond to the crisis effectively. They have no power to intervene to positively shape the lives of their citizens.
Welsh authorities are forced to rely on a market in social care that they created.
Torfaen outsourced services at the same time as it transferred its council housing stock to new housing associations, such as Bron Afon.
Unison was vilified for opposing this. We pointed out these were privatisations and there would be negative consequences for tenants, democracy, accountability and for pay and employment conditions of staff.
New housing associations are run as private companies, burdened by huge debts and required to create significant surpluses to service that debt. Councils have resorted to private-sector commercial contracting practices, promoting competition between providers.
Cost, not quality of care, becomes the most important factor in the adjudication of the tenders submitted and employees’ pay and working conditions are cut back.
Quality local public services are disappearing under these pressures. A free market in social care is failing vulnerable people and their families, the care workforce and the wider community.
There is a moral duty on local councils and providers to deliver decent services through properly supported and remunerated staff.