News

We asked:- Do social workers need their own dedicated trade union?

Here are some of the responses we received.

Dear Editor,

I was delighted to see the article in this weeks edition, which I read with a growing sense of annoyance. An independent trade union just for social work staff does exist and has since 1978, a fact which is well known to all the contributors quoted in your article, and that is my own Union The British Union of Social Work Employees (BUSWE). Some facts might help to explain my annoyance. BUSWE was established as part of BASWA at their annual conference in 1978 when a motion was passed agreeing "the establishment of a new, independent organisation for BASWA members to pursue Trade Union Activities." For those who have forgotten I have a copy of the first recruitment letter sent out which has the BASWA address on its logo.

Oddly Ian Johnson forgot to mention that in his homage to the "size does matter" importance of Unison .I am saddened he takes the view that only a conglomerate union, only 3% of whose members are Social Workers, can properly represent the profession. In 1979, following threats from NALGO, now a constituent part of Unison, BASWA declined any further support to BUSWE and we have existed independently ever since. Since 1991 we have been seeking affiliation to the TUC but guess what at every turn Unison have opposed this. The thrust of the article, that the profession needs a serious and independent voice able to articulate and represent the real aspirations of social workers cannot be argued against. Under the current "leadership" the profession has been brought to the position that no-one is sure where we are going, whether we will exist even as a separate profession in a few years and the press sees us just as a scapegoat and not a valuable servant to society.

Oh yes pay and conditions. BASWA and Unison both say in their different ways that only the industrial muscle of Unison has secured what we now have. That includes pay, which is less than any other comparable profession for example, the police, nursing and medical, and teaching and which is losing comparability every year because unlike them our pay must be included with every other category of local government employee. Conditions which, locally and nationally employers are chipping away at every year and workloads which increase without recognition or recompense. Social workers only have no voice in negotiations because Unison won't let them have one. In my estimation to get one now would significantly improve the failings of the last few years. For years we have campaigned for a general council to be the professional body for Social Work. Like others I was at last years CSCC annual meeting when that was what we were told we had.

Today Arthur Keefe and Lynne Berry tells us it's no more than a regulatory body and of little real value in articulating our needs and values, and in any case the government is looking to strangle the baby at birth as part of its review of quangos. This debate is one which is crucial to social work in the future and needed to be started, but my plea is not to start again to build a Union from scratch but come and join us and use BUSWE as the platform to reclaim identity. Decent pay and conditions that properly reflect the job that is expected of us, give social work the identity and public recognition it deserves. I personally welcome the chance to be part of that debate.

Steve Anslow
General Secretary
BUSWE

I feel strongly during these current times of integration and with a new Mental Health bill looming that social workers require strong union representation of their own. A union which understands the unique minority position, especially for mental health social workers, of integrating with health care staff, which usually means estrangement from social worker colleagues and lack of understanding of role from health care colleagues.

Carrie Akass

I am not a member of BASW or Unison because neither of these offers social workers the industrial support necessary. When I worked in Wales I was a member of the National Association of Probation Officers [NAPO]. Although a small association it combined very successfully the role of professional body and trade union. I recommend it as a model for Social Workers. NAPO’s success serves to refute the spurious claim by Unison officials that a small union cannot work. I believe that there should be a social workers union and would join immediately should one be formed
 
John Wilson
Social Worker/ MHO
Fort William

Yes we do need our own union. UNISON demonstrates little understanding of our needs. As a manager I have found it even less sympathetic than when I was a front line worker.

Vivien Freeman
Team Manager
Children with Disabilities Team

Undoubtedly Social Workers do need their own trade union.  My experience of Unison is that they do not serve the interests of Social Workers as they should.  We need a Union that is dedicated to fighting for the rights and conditions of social workers.

Russell Chapman

I have felt for some time that as social workers we should have our own trade union.  I think that our specific needs get lost in the larger unions and we subsequently lose out.  Other professions, such as teachers, are separately represented - why not us?

Louise Dolphin

I agree that social workers should have one union to represent the needs, pay and conditions of social workers. The present system means that workers are affiliated to different trade unions and this therefore dilutes the strength of the whole body of workers. This was a tactic used by Margaret Thatcher to weaken the trade unions in the 1980's. I myself am new to social work and I am amazed that the local authorities continue to bemoan the lack of qualified and experienced staff and can allow those with some 20 years experience leave the job because their qualification is out of date. What other occupation would allow this to happen? Do they think that the workers have not developed beyond qualification during the last 20 years? Who will they pass on their experience to? Does anyone care?
 
Brian Cranswick
South Yorkshire

 

There has to be an argument for our own union, not on the basis of pay but on the basis of accountability. Too often social work staff primary focus is about 'back covering' rather than an knowledge that they are doing a difficult job, under difficult conditions, to the best of their ability.

The public perception of social workers is to say the least, poor and is fuelled by constant bad press, and ineffectual acknowledgement and support by local authorities. The Climbie report highlights deficiencies in all involved yet to my knowledge the only person who lost their job was the social worker.

A union which just represents social workers in their own right can recognise the professionalism that we try to attain and advocate, support and progress the progression. Perhaps that way we would be counted as professionals rather than scapegoats for a society that seeks to blame and finds Social Workers an easy target.

Ian Samaden

 

I am a currant member of BASW and a former member of UNISON. I left UNISON as I did not feel that it represented the needs of social workers. UNISON are a very large union and do not see members who are social workers as a priority. Other professions eg, teachers have their own union so why do social workers not have a union? As a profession our pay, conditions and status has dwindled since the 1970s.

I accept that we will only have a social work union when social workers make it happen, and that we all have to play our part in this process. As a social work profession we need people with the leadership qualities who can start a trade union. The BASW are excellent at representing social workers, however they are not a trade union and are not involved in negotiations over pay and conditions. As a social worker I would welcome an opportunity to join a social work union while maintaining my BASW membership.

Anthony Manning

 

A few years back, I decided to become more involved with my (then) local union Unison, so I became a steward. However, I only ever attended one union meeting and I was the only representative of/from social work. The first item was where they agreed to spend some £6,000 of union money on seats and a printer for the office. The next item was where they agreed to write to the King of Thailand to request him to discourage people from eating dogs. I left and never returned, but for me, this typifies the reasons underpinning the real need for social workers to have their own strong union. It is pointless belonging to the same union that supports library staff, clerical, park attendants and so on. Social workers need their own union like the fire brigade, and teachers.

Stewart Ford

 

I have thought for a long time that we need our own trade union - like other professional groups. Although we come under Unison, their drive for many years has been their lower paid members: they do not consider social workers to be low paid. I'm afriad I do. While I fully support attempts to raise low pay, social workers have lost ground over a long period of time to other similar occupations. We have waited long enough to be put on the front burner. In my local authority in the last year or so they have created a new post of Family Support Assessor/Family Support Worker. These posts have salaries that overlap the social work scale and notionally require NVQ3 - but they don’t all have this by any means. Managers explain this policy by the difficulty in recruiting social workers so - rather than address the reasons why there is a lack of applicants (one of which has to be to do with pay) - they have gone for a cheaper option, with Unisons co-operation. These FSA/FSWs are reluctant to do NVQ3 on the job - they are now arguing that they should be able to do NVQ 4 because they want to go into management. My understanding is that NVQ4 is equivalent to the Social Work Degree.  Indeed, our team managers are currently being compelled to do NVQ 4 and our senior managers NVQ 5. Where this leaves social workers/OTs etc. I can't see.

I don’t feel Unison looks after social workers interests at all - I don’t even think it is interested in us.  If there was an alternative, I would certainly join.  As it is, a committed trade unionist for many many years, I have recently cancelled my membership because of my lack of trust in Unison. As long as we rely on Unison, I don’t think we have any future.

Kate Kelly

 

You're not kidding....but only as long as it was not muzzled or held to ransom or governed by some political bias.

Social work is on the cutting edge of community needs, and is held responsible for its actions no less than the police, firemen, NHS or any other public sector organisation and therefore needs specialist support and recognition from its own union!!

Phil Buckman

 

If social work and social workers are to continue to have an identifiable professional future, then is a good idea to define that identity as best we can. A dedicated trade union can only be a good thing surely, especially if the continuing transfer of social work and social workers to PCT's, for example, results in the progressive reduction of effectiveness of UNISON.

Social workers need to protect the existing professional value base and not see it gradually eroded over time by mergers, reforms, redesign and ignorance.

Ian Newman
Care Manager

 

As a Child Care Social worker who has worked for two different local authorities over a number of years, it is my opinion that social workers are not good at standing up for themselves and they keep letting the local authorities and the government do what they want. In real terms I have seen my wages decrease and our work load increase. We are becoming more paperwork orientated and spend less time with the young people we should be helping. Whilst colleagues will complain about it to each other no one will do anything about it. It is about time we were recognised as the professionals we are and given the recognition we disserve, if there is a national body which will start this process with our interests at heart that I would gladly join them. We are a service that no one wants but that no one can do without and without support we will go under

David Ludlow