Labour conference today backed GMB’s fight for care workers to be paid at least £15 an hour.
The motion – passed by delegates on the conference floor – comes as GMB revealed the Government’s National Insurance tax hikes will snatch more than £116 million from care workers’ pay packets.
Cath Pinder, GMB Delegate moving the motion, said:
“The UK’s care sector is broken. People cannot access the care they deserve, and care workers are chronically underpaid and undervalued.
“There will be more than 170,000 care vacancies by the end of the year, and we all know the reason.
“There is not a labour shortage, but a wage shortage.
“Understaffing in care means that our parents and grandparents are being left in distress, without medication and without their basic needs being met.
“The UK’s care system relies on gross injustice to generate bloated profits for shadowy private companies.
“Care workers are paid the bare minimum while care home residents shell out their life savings just to have dignity in old age.
“£15 is the UK average hourly wage. Conference, can we all agree that care work is worth at least that? “
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