Skinflint bosses in panic

AS the strike by care workers in Tameside goes into its fifth month, other sections of care workers and social service staff have also been resorting to strike action as they attempt to defend pay, jobs and the quality of services against increasingly desperate and ruthless council bosses. Strikers in Leicester: the battles are hotting up PROFIT-hungry bosses in private nursing and residential homes are warning of dire consequences from the implementation of the minimum wage of £3.60 an hour. A recent survey showed that pay for care assistants in nursing homes (ranging from £2.80 an hour to £4.35) was lower than that in residential homes (£3£5.20). Many homes are dependent upon the funding of patients by health authorities or local authorities, with fees subject to a rigorous "benchmark" limit: the long-term squeeze on NHS and local government funding means there is little scope to raise charges for these patients. The wage bill represents about 50% of the cost of running care homes, so the cash squeeze has been translated directly into rock-bottom wages - to the extent that a £3.60 minimum would cost private and voluntary sector homes an estimated £90m extra each year. The impact is heaviest upon the small-scale homes, while the larger chains of residential and nursing homes, owned by multinational corporations, are mopping up massive profits. Spare a thought, then for the care home owners in Hampshire, who have warned that the whole market in care for the elderly is in danger of "sudden collapse", with homes driven to the "very brink of viability". Don't bother getting out the violins for these hard-pressed Dickensian employers struggling to make a buck at the expense of the frail elderly: let's fight instead for these homes to be nationalised as part of a drive to roll back the privatisation of health and social care. It's high time public sector and other unions took up this issue, another unsavoury legacy of Thatcherite policy.