On 9 and 10 January, UNICARE was part of the kick-off meeting for the European project ‘Advancing Personal and Household Services’.
Other project partners included EASPD – THE EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION OF SERVICE PROVIDERS FOR PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES; Social Services Europe, DIESIS – European Research and Development Service for the Social Economy; EFSI – the key representative body for national federations and companies involved in the development of personal and household services in Europe; EFFE, the EU Federation for Family Employment; and our sister union federation EFFAT, the European Federation of Food, Agriculture and Tourism Trade Unions.
The project partners set ambitious goals including: bringing together existing research on Personal Household Services (PHS), organising 21 national conferences on personal and household services, establishing best-practice guidelines, and ultimately developing a platform involving multiple stakeholders such as unions, employers, ministries, and civil society organisations.
UNICARE is committed to organising national conferences alongside other stakeholders in Ireland, Hungary and Poland, and will oversee the writing of tailoring guidelines on developing Social Dialogue, Professional Profiles, and Service Voucher Schemes.
Adrian Durtschi, UNICARE’s Head of Department says: ‘PHS workers represent an ever-greater number of workers in the care economy. Their work is essential to our economies but this goes unrecognized. Together with other European stakeholders we want to make sure that they can work in dignity and have effective collective bargaining structures.
Mark Bergfeld, Director of Property Services and UNICARE Europa says: ‘As most of these workers are women and migrants, it is more necessary than ever that these workers have access to rights both in the workplace and at a sectoral level. This project can help UNICARE to develop an agenda for sectoral collective bargaining which is the best way to ensure the rights of PHS workers.’
If your trade union wants to contribute to the project, please contact mark.bergfeld@uniglobalunion.org
