TO DENY national collective bargaining to care workers in Scotland is a grave error of judgement.

Thanks to the efforts of Labour MSPs and unions in Scotland, Neil Findlay’s proposal for national collective bargaining for care workers in Scotland was passionately debated in Holyrood last week. Put to the vote, the amendment to the Coronavirus (Scotland) no. 2 Bill was heavily defeated by the SNP voting as one with Scottish Conservatives. 

Based on my years of research about care workers and the regulation of care work, I conclude this was a grave error of judgement. The exclusion of care workers’ from decision-making has cost lives during the coronavirus pandemic, in Scotland and elsewhere. Acting in the interests of public health provides the strongest possible reason to introduce collective bargaining for social care as a matter of urgency. The Scottish government (and indeed the Welsh government) are ideally placed to act now. They can make good on a track record of support, in principle, for collective bargaining in social care and deliver this most important form of assistance to care workers.