To think triple split shifts are completely fucking ridiculous.

[safariboot]

Pursuant to these article

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-42758615

www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/birmingham-council-carers-strike-over-14179002

So Birmingham City Council now plans to demand care workers work for a few hours, don't work for 2 hours, work for a few hours, don't work for 2, work for a few more. Every single working day.

So they're expected to get into work at for example 8 am, then they stop being paid at 12 but are expected back in for 2. Unless they live real close to their work they're left with the choice between spending ages travelling home and back again, or killing 2 hours in the middle of nowhere. And then it repeats. So the employees will be actually working 16-hour days, with 6 of those 16 hours as unpaid breaks.

It just seems completely fucking ridiculous, and insulting to demand any employee work like that, let alone care workers supporting the most vulnerable people.

Hmm in our school full time TAs work like that: 9-12 and 1-3.30. TAs in our school walk out on the dot because schools are so tight fisted about hours.

My dp is a carer and does this. Start 6.45am. Calls until about 12.30. Home for a couple of hours. Out again about 2.30pm. Calls until 9.30pm and home for 10. Mileage paid. So out for 15/16 hours. Paid for 8/9. Makes cooking meals hard. Makes looking after 4 kids hard.

I think the ta example is an u paid lunch break which is normal, not a split shift.

But care workers are treated like shit. Happened under Labour, though.

Nobody’s cares if you google should carers be paid for travel time it clearly says yes. Unison being one of first up. Fact it if they suddenly had pay each carer 4h a day travel (not counting first and last call) they would all have to close.

YANBU. It was bad enough when I was a student and worked a normal split shift (8-12 then 4-8), I always felt like I'd worked 12 hours and been paid for 8.

It's just exploitative and shouldn't be legal in my view.

What’s worse in some ways is that many care companies pay by the minute.

And then there's all this sighing and hand-wringing about 'Who's going to care for our ageing population! But I don't want to sell my house, I want to leave the money to my kids as a deposit!' Well, you can't have it both ways. It's a shit job so you can sky high turnover in it because it doesn't pay.

I'd like to do this job in the future but only want to work part time. My worry is they'd be putting me down for all kind of split shifts extra hours that I wouldn't want to be doing and feeling like I have to.

The problem that care agencies face is the amount that the local authority pay per client. This has dropped dramatically, hence carers then feel the pinch in their pocket.

My wife worked for local authority for many years they were pretty good then equal pay came in. Unsociable hours disappeared as well as payments for sleep-ins. In fact every bonus payment went as these extras were unfair on those who worked 9-5. The last ever shift my wife worked started 7am on a Tuesday till 12.30, then 2.30-7 followed by a sleep-in starting again at 7 until 4.30.

Typical BCC their track record on HR is appalling. They had to sell off the NEC to pay for their equal pay claims. A couple of months ago it was the bin men on strike and now this. If perhaps they got rid of some of their glory projects they could pay their staff a proper wage.

Am horrified to read what people are getting paid for this role.

I worked as a carer in 2000-2001, it was normal then and nothing has improved....

School employees are county employees in most cases. TAs are paid similarly:

Arrive early and start.
Get paid for 9:00 - 12:00
Actually work until 12:15/12:20/whenever lunch starts.

No paid lunch, but you can't go far if you're working in the afternoon and have to be back in an hour or less...

Get paid for 1:15 - 3:15 (or similar 2 hour block in the afternoon) even though you start early and end after that on most days).

Not great.

PLus everyone must provide pensions and employers % are slowly rising think soon it goes up to 4-5% of over all pay? Great for Goverment in future not so great on the ground.

It’s not the same for TA though they get big chunks together of time. The
Job isn’t reliant on them working for free for 4plus hours a day. Imagine if doctors paramedics or midwifes were only paid for time in your home and all the time back and forth in your ambulance was just traveling time. Oh and we expect you to fill up ambulance with petrol from your own pocket. On mim wage.

'It’s not the same for TA though they get big chunks together of time.'

Yeah, it's not a school hours, term-time job, either.

That’s exactly it akire

I've done this in homecare and it drove me to a depressive crash.

First calls 7am finish am calls at 10am
Lunch calls 11.30 til 2
Evening 4.30 to 10.30
12 days in a row then 2 off.

No pay for travel time, I worked out once I was making £4.50 an hr.

I knew carers got a shit deal, but I actually can’t believe that this happens. This is fucking awful.

magine if doctors paramedics or midwifes were only paid for time in your home and all the time back and forth in your ambulance was just traveling time. Oh and we expect you to fill up ambulance with petrol from your own pocket. On mim wage.

That is a really good analogy.