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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!

Therefore we go to court.

To finance the trial, we have started a crowdfunding project at respekt.net.

Read what this is about

…A big “THANK YOU” to all who help finance the trial!

Special thanks to RD Foundation Vienna for the generous donation.

You can help finance
the process here:

We demand an end to bogus self-employment for 24-hour personal care workers and take legal action!

 

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 forces with supporters to form the

IG24: Interest group of 24 hour carers.

You can join us, too!

 

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.

You too can join us!
Do you want to support us?

Infos for 24 hour carers

Situation & Problems

FAQs – Tips for carers

Your rights

Information videos

IG24 – History, Goals

Downloads

IG24 PROJECTS

Care4Care: from precarious to safe working conditions

Improving the working conditions and safe labour migration of migrant 24-hour caregivers working in Austria

Our Work, Our Rights!

This project is dedicated to digital opportunities for giving 24-hour carers access to objective information. The goal is to highlight to them their rights and the legal options open to them

Carers go to court!

We demand an end to bogus self-employment for 24-hour personal care workers and take legal action!

IG24 NEWS

Due to work overload, we are currently unable to translate all news into all of the languages in which we offer content. Please understand …! If you want to read all news, and understand German, please click on the red button.

Click to read all news in German

HELP! Translators urgently needed!

Dear friends of IG24,

We are urgently looking for volunteers to translate news articles and updated information on our website!

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!

Email to:

Subject: Help with translations

THANK YOU!

 

Would you like to receive the IG24 newsletter?

After registering, you will receive an e-mail from us with a link that you must click on to confirm your registration.Please also check your spam folder.

We do not share your e-mail address. You can unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time. You will find the unsubscribe link in each of our newsletters.

 

Yes, please, send me the IG24 newsletter

 

In 2021 IG24 won the “SOZIALMARIE” main prize    :o)

We also won the “SOZIALMARIE” audience award.  THANK YOU    :o)

We are member of the UNDOK

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(4.1.2023)