Social care on the brink, GMB warns STUC Congress

Social care in Scotland is on the brink as skilled workers are driven out by low wages and poor conditions, GMB Scotland warns.

The union today told the STUC Congress that promises of change after Covid have been broken leaving care in crisis.

It called on ministers to introduce new pay structures and collective bargaining in private care to stem an exodus of staff driven out by low wages and poor conditions.

Tamara Beattie, a care worker and GMB rep, told delegates in Dundee: “It has now been five years since Covid turned the world upside down.

“Five years since social care workers were hailed as heroes, applauded, celebrated, praised by politicians, and promised real change.

“We were told that things would be different. That the sacrifices made during the pandemic would never be forgotten.

“We were told the value of care work would finally be recognised, respected, and properly rewarded.

“What has actually changed? Care workers are still chronically underpaid and still denied proper sick pay.

“They are still trapped in a system where fair pay and conditions are not a right but a battle.

“And they are still excluded from national bargaining and still treated like an afterthought by the Scottish Government.”

Beattie told delegates, on the second day of the congress, that £38m promised by ministers to bolster social care has never materialised.

Meanwhile, years of discussion about a new National Care Service, intended to transform social care, came to nothing as the proposed legislation collapsed.

Beattie said: “Social care is crumbling. Staff are leaving in droves because they simply cannot survive on poverty wages.

“Services are being stretched beyond breaking point. Staff are off with mental health issues and no support. Workers are at breaking point. 

"The people who rely on care — the elderly, the vulnerable, those with disabilities — are being failed.


“Our politicians talk but do not act. We have no more time for talking. The sector is broken.”

“Congress, enough is enough. Five years is too long to wait for promises to be kept.


“Five years of empty words.
Five years of workers being left behind and let down. Social care workers deserve so much better — and they deserve it now. Not in another five years. Not after another consultation. Now.”

Beattie called for full sectoral bargaining in social care designed to give care workers a real voice and negotiating power.

She added: “We need national minimum standards so no worker is left behind based on who their employer happens to be.


“We need real investment in our sector - investment that recognises care not as a cost to be cut, but as a foundation to be built on.

“Because care is not just a job. It is a lifeline and warm words are not enough. Applause is not enough.

“We owe it to every care worker past, present, and future to turn promises into action.

“Support the workers who never stopped showing up — even when everything else shut down.”

The GMB Scotland motion calling on the Scottish Government to act immediately to improve pay and conditions in social care, introduce sectoral bargaining, finally deliver the promised £15 an hour minimum wage and redirect profits made by private firms into care services was passed by delegates.