Striking care workers will be seeking public support for their campaign from race-goers at Aintree tomorrow.

Striking care workers will be seeking public support for their campaign from race-goers at Aintree tomorrow (Friday).  Most of the care workers are women, and as it is Ladies’ Day at Aintree they will be wearing Suffragette-style sashes while distributing leaflets designed to look like betting slips. 

The care support workers are employed by Alternative Futures Group (AFG) and are taking action in a dispute over cuts to sleep-in top-up payments.  The staff are paid little more than the minimum wage and stand to lose thousands of pounds a year.   

A public petition in support of the ‘care at night, pay us right’ campaign has amassed some 13,000 signatures.  You can sign the petition here.  

The strike begins tomorrow (Friday) at 7am and runs for 24 hours.  The strike will then resume for a further 48 hours from 7am on Monday 8 April.   

Paula Barker, UNISON North West Regional Convenor said:

“AFG management are gambling with their workers’ livelihoods by cutting back on sleep-in payments.  Staff are only paid the minimum wage and they cannot afford a cut in their incomes. 

“The staff take great pride in the service they provide and care deeply about the service users they support.    But they need to be able to afford to pay their bills.  Some staff simply can’t afford to stay in their roles and AFG risk losing experienced and highly-skilled staff through this reckless cut. 

“For the sake of the staff and service users, AFG need to stop their attack on care workers’ incomes.”