A-Infos (en) France, UCL AL #367 - Antipatriarchy - Thirteenth National Meeting of Social Work in Struggle: A Constant Mobilization for the Recognition of Women Workers (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

In October, the 13th National Meeting of Social Work in Struggle (RNTS) 
took place in Marseille. 103 people gathered, representing some fifteen 
delegations. A look back at the discussions and perspectives in a highly 
feminized sector that is consequently more than mistreated. ---- Last 
year, new restructuring plans began in the sector: the elimination of 50 
to 60 positions in the specialized prevention service in Lille, the 
elimination of 500 contract positions within the Youth Judicial 
Protection service, and an ever-increasing reduction in resources and 
staffing for the support of unaccompanied minors, etc.

The State Between Silence and Dismantling the Sector
Faced with this disarray within the departments and associations, the 
State itself has requested a report on the sector. The conclusion is 
unequivocal: wages must be increased urgently, and a high-level 
collective agreement implemented to ensure better working conditions 
and, consequently, better support for the most vulnerable. What good is 
following the recommendations of a report oneself commissioned? The 
State's response has been quite different: total silence, resulting in a 
deadlock in negotiations for the agreement, and ever-increasing attacks 
against social workers, including the widespread adoption of 
fee-for-service billing and attacks on qualifications.

In response to these degrading measures, the sector is organizing, 
particularly through activist groups emerging from interprofessional 
general assemblies. But the repression is no longer subtle. In the Gard 
region, following mobilizations, numerous union members have been 
dismissed. In Toulouse, 500 employees were also dismissed by the 
Departmental Council via a simple email, in connection with the 
activities of the Social Work in Struggle collective. In specialized 
prevention services, colleagues were also dismissed for posing for 
photos with young people they support and a Palestinian flag.

Training that depoliticizes social work
Beyond budget cuts because our clients don't generate revenue and the 
"classic" institutional mistreatment, this year the State is tackling 
the problem at its source: training. Indeed, in social work, training 
programs define qualifications, the specific roles of each professional, 
and also the corresponding salary scale. The idea here is to dismantle 
the sectoral system so that there are only "social workers" instead of 
other professional categories. Ultimately, workers would no longer be 
specialized educators, social workers, or family and social economy 
advisors paid according to their qualifications and seniority, but 
rather social workers paid per task and based on a points system. This 
amounts to nothing less than pitting employees against each other.

Two ideas are at play in this dismantling of qualifications. The first 
is clearly the issue of social control over the masses, rather than 
support for autonomy and emancipation. The elimination of the reflective 
dissertation and the reduction of theoretical hours in training programs 
have the effect of attacking the professional stance and ethics of each 
social worker. There will be no more need for self-reflection, critical 
thinking, or situational analysis to provide individualized responses 
that closely meet needs; The task of future "social workers" will be 
solely to implement control policies.

The second point is less obvious: it is a reactionary attack on 
feminized professions. Caregiving, support, and interpersonal skills are 
not considered professions in their own right, but rather care skills 
naturally present in female workers.

Women's work is not real work for the state.
From the beginning of this article, we have been talking about male and 
female workers, but the reality is that we should be talking more about 
women workers. The gender distribution in social work is alarming: 9 out 
of 10 workers are women! The explanation for this distribution lies in 
history and patriarchy. Originally, social work with vulnerable, elderly 
or disabled people was overwhelmingly carried out by nuns or patronesses 
- that is, women from the bourgeoisie in a charitable endeavor. At the 
time, it was simply an extension of their role as housewives. Now that 
care work is a fully recognized professional sector, one might expect 
greater gender diversity in recruitment. Not so.

Social work is characterized by its qualitative aspects, as opposed to 
quantitative ones. Supporting a child in foster care involves hundreds 
of small, everyday gestures and words that build a relationship with 
another person, providing support and sometimes healing raw wounds. In 
other words, it involves professional skills that are difficult to 
objectify and evaluate, and are therefore considered an extension of 
domestic work. Men, unsurprisingly, are overrepresented in management 
and leadership positions. Still considered inferior and largely 
performed by women, social work is thus deemed unworthy of recognition 
or salary increases. And this is the crux of the vicious cycle: a 
feminized sector, therefore undervalued; no recognition in salaries or 
institutional budgets; no development of an attractive social sector for 
professionals and no efficiency for the public; deteriorating living 
conditions for service users, and so on.

Hope in the collective: What can be done then? It is inherent in the 
very role of a social worker, regardless of the situation, to never give 
up on the people they support and to try, to start again every day. This 
selflessness in service to service users is unfortunately not often 
reflected in the fight to improve their own working conditions. The 
challenge lies in making social workers understand that the two are 
linked. Several militant unions (CGT, SUD Santé Sociaux, and CNT) are 
established in the sector. Increasingly, the model of local collectives 
and general assemblies for action is becoming widespread in the social 
sector as well. The National Networks of Social Workers (RNTS) brought 
together union members, activists from collectives engaged in struggle, 
and isolated social workers, all sharing a common observation: a general 
weariness with pointless, intermittent strikes. A very proactive 
proposal was therefore adopted: a three-day strike on December 16, 17, 
and 18, with the specific objective of supporting the Solidarity March 
strike. It is up to each and every one of us to mobilize within our 
organizations to meet this challenge!

Myriam (UCL Marseille)

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Treizieme-Rencontres-nationales-du-travail-social-en-lutte-Une-mobilisation
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