It’s great news that Southwark Council wants to pay all care home staff the London living wage – it’s the least they deserve. But why should the council have to step in?
As is well known by now, care home workers have been the unsung heroes on the front line of the pandemic – often putting themselves at risk of catching Covid-19 through their work. This is particularly true One study found that London had a higher rate of care home deaths from Covid-19 than any other region, while another found that infection levels were also higher.
This is work that is all too often poorly paid and insecure – London’s social care workers are more likely to be on zero hours contracts than their counterparts in any other part of the country, and there is a higher vacancy rate among these jobs in the capital too.
Southwark’s head of health and wellbeing Cllr Evelyn Akoto, quoted in this week’s paper, put it best: “While providing care is often a vocation, this does not mean staff should not be properly rewarded for the important work they do on behalf of us all.”
Southwark Council to spend nearly £2m on topping up care home staff wages to London Living Wage
This is also a question of equality. According to the council, 85 per cent of care home staff in the borough are women, and throughout London, people employed in these jobs are more likely to be from an ethnic minority – one study found that more than two-thirds of the capital’s care home staff were BAME in 2018/19.
So the pay rise and the end to unwanted zero-hours contracts for care home staff in the borough are very welcome, both for care home staff and for the people they work with, who should benefit from a more motivated and better-skilled workforce, as Cllr Akoto said.
But why should Southwark Council – and by extension, Southwark taxpayers, have to shoulder the costs of private businesses paying their staff enough to live on?