UNI Care World Conference to unite unions to improve conditions for workers

Trade union leaders from 40 countries will gather in Budapest, Hungary, from 17 to 19 September for the UNI Global Union Care World Conference. More than 150 representatives from UNI Care affiliates from Poland to Peru, will unite at the meeting to explore actions and solutions for the key challenges facing care workers today.

As demographic shifts and other societal changes are causing dramatic growth in the demand for care, the conference will prioritize strategies for organizing in the sector to ensure decent work.

The continued growth of multinational care companies, backed by global investors and private equity, means care workers’ wages and conditions are under downward pressure to maximise corporate profit. In response, the conference will look at how UNI affiliates can coordinate to increase unionization and collective bargaining in order to negotiate higher wages and better working conditions.

The conference will include speeches from General Secretary, Christy Hoffman, as well as the mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karácsony, and UNI Care President, Miguel Zubieta.  Michelle McIsaac, economist and health workforce specialist at World Health Organization and Nicolas Pons-Vignon, Professor of labour transformation and social innovation at the University of Applied Science and Arts of Southern Switzerland will also address the conference.

Sessions at the conference include:

• Supporting the organizing and formalization of home and community-based care workers.
• Fighting for safe staffing, and the prevention of violence harassment and stigma in the care sector.
• Organizing in multinationals, and the private healthcare sector.
• Organizing to address the migrant care worker crisis in sending and receiving countries.
• Care workers organizing, fighting and winning around the world.

Alan Sable, Head of Care at UNI Global Union, said:

“There has never been a more critical time for us to unite and build union power. The future of care work depends on our ability to organize globally and fight for the dignity and respect that care workers deserve. I look forward to welcoming our incredible and dynamic affiliates to Budapest, where their energy and passion will undoubtedly drive the success of our conference.”