We need a representation of interests for 24-hour carers!
Let’s get organised!
We demand an end to bogus self-employment for 24-hour personal care workers and take legal action!
Good care and support needs good working conditions!
To finance the process, we have started a crowdfunding project at respekt.net.
What it is about:
Formally, 24-hour personal care workers work almost exclusively as self-employed entrepreneurs whose clients are referred by placement agencies. Self-employment is characterised by the lack of personal dependence of the worker. An entrepreneur is not bound by instructions and can freely determine working hours, place of work and work processes. He/she runs his/her own business and is not integrated into an external business organisation.
All this does not apply to personal care workers. They are personally and economically dependent on the placement agency, subject to control and do not have their own resources. Often, the so-called agency contracts also provide for competition clauses and non-competition clauses, which are typical contents of service contracts.
In reality, there is a legal employment relationship between the personal care worker and the agency. By constructing a bogus self-employment, the agencies circumvent their obligations as employers and the caregivers lose the protection they are entitled to under labour law.
Personal care workers actually have to be there for their clients 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for two to four weeks at a time, and for two to three euros an hour!
We are IG24, the association for the promotion of the interests of 24-hour carers in Austria, and we no longer accept this inhuman situation.
Good care and support needs good working conditions!
Like our colleagues from Germany and Switzerland before us: We are going to court!
Support us so that a court case puts an end to bogus self-employment!
Justice for the 24H caregivers!
#WEGmitderSCHEINSELBSTSTÄNDIGKEIT
IG24 – Interest Group of 24h-Carers in Austria: WHO WE ARE – OUR GOALS
We are 60,000 and indispensable!
Every few weeks we, mostly women, travel from Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Croatia or Hungary to Austria, on often overpriced transport, to look after and care for physically and/or psychologically seriously ill people in their homes. For several weeks, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, often completely isolated with the people we care for.
We work as self-employed entrepreneurs, although neither the place, time nor content of the work have the character of self-employment. We work as assistants, although our daily work would be inconceivable without carrying out care activities.
But because our pseudo-self-employment and our status as assistants makes our labour cheaper, our demands have so far gone unheard.
Our social security is almost non-existent, there is no protection for us under labour law. We work for a shameful two to three euros an hour, 24 hours a day. The path to poverty in old age is guaranteed; in retirement we are usually left with no more than one to two hundred euros per month.
Almost all of us are placed with people in need of care by agencies. Agencies that charge a lot of money for their mediation work, from us and from the persons in need of care, with often immoral clauses in their contracts – agencies to which we are largely delivered unprotected. The fact that there are now almost a thousand agencies in a small country like Austria is evidence of the gold-rush atmosphere in this industry.
In the households where we work, in addition to the difficulty of the work, we also repeatedly find inhumane conditions; we are often housed in small chambers that do not deserve the term room; often the food we receive is insufficient. Often our access to electricity, heating or hot water is restricted by the relatives of the person in our care. Often the work we are asked to do (gardening, taking care of animals, etc.) has nothing to do with the actual assistance work. We are often subjected to (sexual) assault and violence by the patient, but also by family members.
It is for all these reasons that we are now organising!
Some of us have joined together with supporters to form the
IG24: Interest group of 24-hour carers
You too can join us!
Our goals:
Fight against apparent self-employment – PROPER EMPLOYMENT CONTRACTS NOW!
We want to enforce an employment relationship regulated by the public sector and paid accordingly.
Establishment of free, independent advisory structures
...which enable us to consistently confront grievances within the employment relationships, in the placement companies and the families.
The experiences of the Romanian and Slovakian 24-hour counsellors as well as the flagship project CuraFAIR of Volkshilfe Upper Austria clearly show that the free offer of independent legal counselling in the mother tongue already represents an enormous step forward. The quick implementation of counselling centres in every province is therefore an urgent and effective measure.
Publicly addressing the grey area of care and support
We work as assistants, although our daily work would be unimaginable without performing care acts.
Making taboo issues such as (sexual) violence in the workplace visible and combating them
No more inhumane conditions! Decent accommodation and food, contact points in case of (sexual) assault and violence against us.
Restore our dignity
We want to regain our dignity as women and as migrant workers and better support each other in our everyday isolation facing often excessive demands.
Help! Translators urgently needed!
Dear friends of IG24,
We are urgently looking for volunteers to translate news articles and updated information on our website!
Despite intensive efforts, we have unfortunately not yet succeeded in obtaining financial support for such work in 2022. Most of our resources go directly into advising and supporting colleagues. So if you have a very good knowledge of one of the languages offered – Bulgarian, BSK/Croatian, English, Romanian, Slovakian or Hungarian – and at the same time a very good knowledge of German, and you know a bit about MS Word or Libre Office Writer, AND WOULD LIKE TO SUPPORT US: Please get in touch!
Subject: Help with translations
THANK YOU!
NEWS
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Due to work overload, we are currently unable to translate the news into all of the languages in which we offer content. Please understand …!
(14.10.2021)