‘You couldn’t have a heart and want to strike’: Mobilising workers in England’s social care sector

Grace J Whitfield

doi:10.1177/03098168211054803

Abstract

This article uses John Kelly’s mobilisation framework, with its foundational concept of injustice, to explore workers’ propensity towards unionism in England’s outsourced social care sector. Drawing on 60 interviews with union organisers and officers, care workers, support workers and care company managers, this research highlights the difficulties of union organising in the sector and explores theorisations of mobilising. The research contends that for mobilisation theory to provide insight into relationships between work and unionism, varieties of injustice and collectivism need to be contextualised. Paid care provision generates both employment-related injustices and care-related injustices, which lead to divergent collective identities and attitudes towards unions. An absence of a coherent entity for workers to attach blame to – within a context where private providers frequently remain reliant on state funding levels – affects whether injustice and collectivism progress to mobilisation and unionisation.

Highlights

This article engages critically with Kelly’s (1998) mobilisation framework to contribute an analysis of the role of injustice and collectivism in encouraging or inhibiting unionism in England’s social care sector
The commissioning practice used by local authorities relies upon domiciliary care workers carrying out a number of small visits throughout the day
Care workers argued that the pay for travel time was insufficient

Summary

Introduction

This article engages critically with Kelly’s (1998) mobilisation framework to contribute an analysis of the role of injustice and collectivism in encouraging or inhibiting unionism in England’s social care sector. It focusses on mobilisation within domiciliary care, Capital & Class 00(0). Greater funding does not necessarily translate into improvements for workers (Rubery et al 2013) and residential homes are frequently reliant on private equity backing, with an expectation to increase returns on investments (Burns et al 2016)

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Conclusion