Strike wave: European health and care workers have had enough

[Celerity]

Workers from across Europe descend on Brussels today to demand adequate investment in health and social care.

https://socialeurope.eu/health-and-care-workers-have-had-enough



As governments and employers bring back talk of tight budgets and spending cuts, health and care workers are taking to the streets. Across Europe, they have had enough—enough of being undervalued, enough of being underpaid and enough of not being able to provide quality care. To highlight the crisis, the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) has organised a protest today in Brussels, coinciding with a meeting of Europe’s health ministers. Europe’s health and social-care workers are calling on ministers to recognise the essential roles they play. They are demanding adequate and sustainable public financing and needs-based staffing, and denouncing the commercialisation of health and care systems.

Strike wave

This year has seen a huge wave of strikes in health and social services across Europe, with grievances shared across the continent. Two years ago, millions of Europeans were applauding the ‘heroes’ working in hospitals, care homes and clinics. Today, these workers seem to have been forgotten. Despite promises of pay rises in the early stages of Covid-19, health and care workers have experienced real pay cuts through rampant inflation. With many workers leaving the sector due to exhaustion and burnout after over two years on the pandemic frontline, those remaining are even more overburdened. One of the most challenging aspects of the job is now being unable to provide the level of care recipients deserve. This places an even greater emotional burden on the workers, which increases the psychosocial risks they face.



In October, health workers in Italy demonstrated with many of the same concerns. Antonino Trino, a nurse in Messina and member of the public-services section of the CGIL confederation, said: ‘I am here today to ask ministers for more attention to the nursing profession, a vital profession for the national health service. Nurses are forgotten, underpaid and vilified heroes.’

snip


https://www.epsu.org/sites/default/files/article/files/EN_update%2030.11.22.pdf