CARE MATTERS: No Jab, No Job: 3 months on

Centre for Care Co-Investigator and Deputy Director of SPERI (Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute), Tom Hunt is joined by Rachel Harrison (Public Services National Officer, GMB) to discuss the issue of mandatory vaccination for care home workers in England. Since November last year, it has been mandatory for all care home staff in England to have had 2 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of their deployment in a care home. The introduction of this policy has led to debate and concerns about the ethics of mandatory vaccination, it has also raised questions about the employment model in the care sector, about UK government's willingness to meaningfully engage with care workers and about the respect and value given to care work, and to the people providing it.

The policy has been in effect for 3 months, today's episode explores the impact so far, and what some of the wider implications might be.

Read Tom's paper, 'Under-paid and under-valued: assessing mandatory vaccination for care home workers' here: http://circle.group.shef.ac.uk/2021/10/27/scpaper-mandatory-vaccinations/ 

Rachel Harrison is GMB's Public Services National Officer, responsible for health and social care. 

Rachel has worked for GMB for 21 years, the last 3 1/2 in post as National Officer. 

 

Tom Hunt is a Co-Investigator at the ESRC Centre for Care and Deputy Director and Policy Research Associate at the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI) at the University of Sheffield. He is a Senior Fellow at Unions 21. Tom is co-leader of SPERI’s Labour and Decent Work research theme. His research focuses on the changing nature of work and the effects for workers.

 

GMB website: https://www.gmb.org.uk/
CIRCLE website: http://circle.group.shef.ac.uk/

---Intro/outro music: Ambient Cool by Sunsearcher is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

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