Across nutrition, healing and early learning, the State entrusts the wellbeing of an entire generation to women while failing to recognise and reward their labour as decent work. Care workers employed in the social sector of the Expanded Public Works Programme are challenging injustice through a national care workers’ platform advocating for decent work and fair remuneration.
"We know our value. Our work is essential. It is skilled work. Care work is currency. These are our demands."
1. Dignified wages
End use of “volunteer” status, which strips us of our rights, dignity and protection, while sustaining the functioning of the government’s public care system.
Graphic: Dignified wages
2. Formal, safe and dignified working conditions
We demand safe workplaces. Community Health Workers lack protective equipment and safety protocols and experience violence, harassment and abuse. Food Handlers often work in makeshift kitchens without proper flooring, ventilation, storage or hygiene tools. Many ECD centres are overcrowded and located in unsafe buildings.
3. Recognition and professional respect
We demand correct and formal job titles within government department organograms. Accurate job titles change how care work is valued, paid and protected. Recognition promotes decent work.
Graphic: Recognition and professional respect
4. Training, career pathways and professional development
5. Representation in policy design and decision making
