Investment And Decent Work In Care: 29 October - Global Day Of Action For Care

Care workers have experienced extraordinary pressure during the COVID-19 pandemic. There is an urgent need to demand adequate investment in good quality health and care systems.

ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow said: “The pandemic has exacerbated some of the worst features of life as a care worker. For example, long hours of work, lack of protective equipment, poor working conditions and low pay. Care workers in the informal economy have lost incomes and had no safety net to support them and their families in the absence of universal social protection.

“The pandemic has made it clear that care workers are indispensable. It is time to reverse the decades of underinvestment in health and care. Investment and decent work in care will not only save lives but will also start to tackle structural inequalities across gender, class and, in many cases, racial and ethnic lines.”

You can find materials to use for 29 October here, and please share your plans and materials with equality@ituc-csi.org.

For the Global Day of Action for Care, call on your government to invest in care, ensure decent work and create jobs for millions of care workers by:

• investing in universal, quality, public and gender-transformative health and care, including mental health, childcare, early childhood education, elderly care and other social care services;
• ensuring decent pay and working conditions, including equal pay for work of equal value, training opportunities and occupational health and safety for all care workers;
• ensuring equity and non-discrimination in recruitment, retention, and access to training and promotion opportunities for workers across the health and care sectors;
• ensuring that the rights to freedom of association and to collective bargaining are respected for all workers in the health and care sectors, whether in the formal or informal economy, as well as their representation in the decision-making process;
• funding universal social protection accessible by everyone; and
• ensuring accessibility for all to quality public health and care services, including for refugees and migrants.

The annual Global Action Day for Care is a joint initiative of the ITUC, Public Services International (PSI), UNI Global Union, Education International (EI), the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF) and Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO).

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