FOR the second time in over a decade, and for the second time in Enable Scotland’s history, third sector carers working at Enable Scotland will undertake industrial action over pay.

Today, carers from North and South Lanarkshire services are called out to strike at Airdrie town hall. This Thursday, carers from Glasgow, Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire services will undertake strike action at Enable’s main offices in Bridgeton.

Fair Work in Social Care in Scotland was initially established in 2019. This highlighted the urgent need for a national care service developed by care workers through collective sectoral bargaining.

Since then, care workers in Scotland have seen a stagnation in wages and a deterioration of our working conditions. In 2023, a fair work budget was established. However, the majority of this funding has been supplied to the private sector, which spends most of it on costs other than providing care, such as rent and interest payments.

Despite annual reports, surveys and an expanding evidence base supporting our cause, the Scottish government have delivered year-on-year disappointments.

Recurring empty promises to deliver sectoral bargaining and fair pay have left care workers at Enable Scotland and across the sector rightfully angry. Women make up 80 per cent of the social care workforce and 72 per cent of the sector’s lowest-paid workers. One-in-five care workers are on sessional contracts, which are disguised as flexible working contracts.

In reality, this means compromising sick and holiday pay to pursue careers in the sector. Women work tirelessly to provide high-quality care provision in a crumbling sector while oftentimes balancing caring or childcare responsibilities at home.

Turnover and in-work poverty rates at Enable have skyrocketed, yet it is we carers who are left to pick up the pieces. Carers facing critical staffing shortages sometimes do the work of two people for half the pay. The Scottish government is reliant upon these workers entering precarious sectors and contracts like social care, who so often prioritise our jobs over our own living standards.

Third-sector workers are fed up of being left in the lurch. Our pay and conditions are constantly being compromised to fund private profiteering. The process of redesigning the sector is dependent on collective sectoral bargaining. Our successful ballot represents the end of this gruelling, toxic cycle.

Between December 2021 and October 2022, care worker pay was on par with NHS band two staff. Had this been maintained, care staff working a 39-hour contract would be an astounding £5,587 better off between April 2022 and July 2025 — excluding overtime, which the majority of staff do.

While care staff effectively faced a pay cut during this period, private care providers saw massive gains in their profit margins. We know that additional funding can be found by finally dealing with the private sector, who skim profits out of public services, not by deepening austerity. Care staff are ready to fight for a sector run for people, not for profit.

Part of our action will involve delivering invoices to our local MSPs, Ivan McKee, minister for public finance, Neil Gray, cabinet secretary of health and social care, and Tom Arthur, minister for social care. These invoices detail exactly how much each individual care worker at Enable is owed, had the Scottish government kept their fair work promises.

Care workers understand that these MSPs hold the purse strings. It is high time they acknowledge the importance of our role as carers and treat us with the dignity that we deserve. This includes establishing a sector-wide bargaining table so that we can negotiate properly our own pay, terms and conditions.

An integral component of strike action in social care is undertaking “life and limb” negotiations. This is where Unison and Enable formally agree to exempt or not exempt specific services, based on the needs of the people we support. This maintains the integrity of our action and ensures that strike action will be of no detriment to our service users.

The stewards committee developed what we refer to as the “traffic light protocol” to be used in these negotiations. This has proven to be extremely effective and further evidences the need to centre front-line staff in these conversations. It also dispels rumours that care staff are simply “abandoning” the people we support. We are striking for them just as much as ourselves.

To the Enable strikers taking action today, my colleagues and friends: we know that the people we support are at the absolute core of all action we take. Every day we see first-hand the impact of austerity on the sector. Many of us feel an ongoing regression in care standards since Covid, which has a devastating impact on our service users and the workforce.

The crisis in social care has pushed us to the brink. In undertaking strike action, we showcase our collective power to the Scottish government. We have a real opportunity to forge change in the sector. We demand that the Scottish government adhere to their own promises and deliver them for us carers and the people we support.