News

UNICARE, the fastest growing sectors in UNI, held its Global Organising & Steering Committee to build on successes and address challenges across the globe, including Chile, Colombia, Ghana, Japan, Korea, Ireland, Switzerland, Nepal, New Zealand and Canada, among others

UNI Global Union Deputy General Secretary Christy Hoffman underlined UNI’s total commitment to growing UNICARE and the sector.

Hoffman, described by UNICARE President Carlos West Ocampo, as the moving force behind UNICARE, outlined the four ways in which UNI could contribute to the sector:

• We understand corporate power: we must be strong to act as a counterweight to corporate power in care
• We put a worker face on worker policy: we want decent work and our job to is give workers’ a voice  and we’re proud we did this recently for UNICARE at ILO
• We support organising in care: for example see our successes in Colombia, Nepal, New Zealand and elsewhere
• We are facing up to the challenges of the future world of work in care: more independent work, homecare, platform work – and actively looking for solutions.

President Carlos West Ocampo said, “Undoubtedly the global care sector will grow because while technology will take over certain jobs, lots more people will need care as the world population increases and we live longer. Therefore, hundreds of thousands more workers will need to be unionised because growth doesn’t necessarily mean decent work. Our job is to be visible and impactful because UNICARE can bring them decent work.”

Adrian Durtschi, Head of UNICARE thanked all the affiliates and speakers who made the meeting vibrant, interesting and focused.

Those unions which spoke and presented at the meeting included:

• SIPTU from Ireland about Organizing migrant workers
• FIST-CISL about their organizing in elderly care
• FATSA about their training program for care workers
• SINTISSSTE from Mexico about the challenges in their country
• HSWU from Ghana about their successes in private care organising
• FO-FEC from France about the need for strong social security systems
• NCCU from Japan about Robots in elderly care
• UNIFOR from Canada about their success in Fight for 15 in Ontario

And many more!

Note we will have video messages from many of the contributors to the meeting on the UNICARE website soon.