Fancy working in the care sector, where the average wage is £8.50 an hour, less than then national minimum wage for people who are over 25? It’s a glamorous job, too, feeding, washing and wiping the arses of people who aren’t capable of doing so themselves. You will work enormously long hours, by and large be treated like shit by your employer and there are no prospects for promotion. No? Then why not do the job for nothing? That’s what’s coming down the line.
There are a number of reasons for this. There are already something like 100,000 vacancies in the sector, caused by a combination of issues including Brexit and now there’s another problem on the horizon: between 40,000 and 68,000 care workers have refused to have a Covid jab. And with the requirement with many employers that staff must be jabbed to do their jobs, in some areas as many as 20% of care workers have refused to be jabbed. To deal with this situation, care bosses are suggesting they will need an “army of volunteers” to help out.
This does not strike me as a particularly helpful way of dealing with the crisis. Keep paying workers the lowest wage you can get away with and fill in the gaps by taking on people working for free. You may call that scab labour, I couldn’t possibly comment.
My experience of working alongside care workers is that many of them are treated with little more than contempt, which is another reason people don’t like to do the work. Imagine leaning on volunteers doing the work, pushing and pushing them, demanding more and more; essentially bullying them. I think you might find your volunteers would soon be ex volunteers.
Also, my experience of working with care workers is that a lot of them have refused to be vaccinated. They give the usual excuses – “we don’t know the long term effects of vaccines” – was a favourite, to which I would reply, “Well, science says we do know the long term effects and we do know the effects, short and long term, of Covid”. “Yeah, but I don’t trust it. I’ll take my chances with David Icke, Piers Corbyn and Right Said Fred,” she didn’t add, but should have.
Anyway, your chance to do unpaid work in the care sector is coming. I left my last job because I couldn’t face wiping other people’s arses, but if you have been dreaming of doing just this, hang on in there. And you can do it for free, too.
