Paddy Lillis – Usdaw General Secretary says: “We are proud to support National Carers Week, an annual event highlighting the contribution unpaid carers make every day. The vast majority of care in the UK is provided by family and friends, who make up the UK's 6.5 million carers and without their willingness and ability to provide care, local authority social services and the NHS would collapse under the strain.
“This year the campaign is focused on ‘make caring visible, valued and supported'. The vital role carers play was writ large during the pandemic and it is right that we continue to call for improvements to the support they receive. Many thousands of working people step in to fill the gap in care and the Government should provide them with greater support.
“All too often carers feel life is a pressure cooker of competing demands, with worries about money, time off work, their own health and that of the person they are caring for. Now, with more people than ever providing care, the Government must act to recognise and properly reward their enormous contribution.”
Usdaw is campaigning for the Government to lift the pressure on working carers by:
- Better enabling carers to balance work and care by introducing a statutory right to ten days paid carers leave for all working carers from day one of employment.
- Improving protection from discrimination and redundancy for carers by strengthening the law.
- Raising the rate of Carers Allowance and extending its reach.
Notes for editors:
Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is the UK's fifth biggest trade union with around 360,000 members. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also has many members in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemical industry and other trades.
Usdaw’s ‘Working Carers Know Your Rights’ leaflet: https://www.usdaw.org.uk/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?guid=f25fe99c-577e-48ed-9612-efc2f31a60b0
Carers Week: www.carersweek.org/
For Usdaw press releases visit: http://www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Twitter
@UsdawUnion