1. Social policy and social services delivery: The salience of unions' resistance in protecting the right to care Social policy and social services delivery: The salience of unions' resistance in protecting the right to care Orly Benjamin Bar-Ilan university Orly.benjamin@biu.ac.il

2. Institutional context (1) Institutional context (1) Government policy aimed at: (1) Reduced expenses (2) Weakening unions Privatization and Outsourcing: Subcontractors – No-profit organizations Temporary Help Agencies Personal contracts Reduced rewards for caring employees in fixed term contracts Proliferation of “bad jobs” In the private sector

3. Questioning the right to care Institutional context (2): Neo-liberalization undermines achievements of all equality promoting struggles – Feminist achievements included (1) Undermining part-time stable quality jobs as the achievements of the ‘working mom’ (2) Undermining the achievement of Allowances support for single mothers – generating dependency on bad jobs (3) Undermining unions’ achievement in the public and social services: nursing, social work, teaching

4. Fragmentation / Polarization Unions’ achievement in the social services: nursing (1979) social work (1973), teaching (1970) Collective Contracts: Wages – payment ladders, wages increments, training rewards, job sizes Economic globalization – Neo- liberalization: New Public management – outsourcing

5. EducationHealth and social services Community services 178.023.619.0 Employed in public sector 151.653.730.9 Public Non- profit 36.4192.160.7 Private Non- profit 67.1(15.2%)54.9(15.9%) 57.0 (31.8%) For Profit 8.120.111.9 Small business 59.7%93.1%89.4% Percent in Non- government employment Public Vs. Private employment in the social services (2012)

6. Theoretical Approaches Julia Evetts, 1999 Donna Bains, 2004 Mignon Duffy, 2011 P. Armstrong, 2013 Deskilling The dominance of managerial professionalism over occupational professionalism Caring for nothing: Taylorisation and confinement of opportunities to manifest skills Depriving care workers from recognizing the relational aspect of their work, skill and reward what conditions prevent care providers from developing and/or using the skills they require to make good care?

7. Social policy and social services delivery: The salience of unions' resistance in protecting the right to care What power relations operate in the shaping of employment conditions for fixed term employees in caring work?

8. Institutional Ethnography 35 Interviews with: 6 – public sector administrators – managerial professionalism 12 – public sector administrators – occupational professionalism 4 - public sector administrators in charge of contract management 4 - service delivery organizations 8 - employees of privatized services and union representatives 1 – contract legal preparation – external firm

9. Unintended consequence (1) Occupational standards administrator: The Union voice is heard and conditions for nurses improve – non- nurses are introduced And then the union entered and demanded employment conditions, days off, training… then threats began to arrive from the service deliverer … the service deliverer convinced the ministry that they have difficulties recruiting nurses so they got permission to recruit 28% of non-nurses…

10. Unintended consequence (2) Occupational standards administrator: The Union voice is heard and conditions for nurses improve – non- nurses lose their right to care The service deliverer first thought that they'll employ the nurses between September and June but the union resisted that and ensured the nurses' stable employment but this only relates to the nurses but not to the others... The others are aware of their temporary status and their energies remain low…

11. Limited consequence (3) Union organizer: The Union voice is heard and conditions for workers improve – Just for one project largely we managed to achieve 25% increase to our salaries; this increase is maintained still… They cannot reduce the work costs. The new tender includes additional hours, more trainers and more professional positions for social workers. All these do not apply for the other hostels

12. Limited consequence (4) Occupational standards administrator: The Union’s voice is not heard: Training doesn’t get to be recognized as necessary You need to train caring employees… but this aspect is expensive and the question is always what to invest the money in – more classes or training the team. It seems that the Ministry people think that it is enough that the caring employee is a good mother or a good wife. They reduce the standards in advance because they don't believe in training...

13. The union’s are able to improve employment conditions for caring employees: Increase salaries and increased protection. The issue of training as an economic risk, is shifted to the shoulders of the employees. Union’s achievements are limited as the New Public management remainst dominant.