GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

workers that they have the choice to join the Social Workers Union. I think that

is great. I think you would all agree from a brand new union in 2011 to having

that membership base, it has been a massive learning curve.

I will maybe share with you some of the demands on our members. I suppose

it is the legal necessity. Social workers work within a legal framework and I

suppose we have all read the headlines in the Daily Mail and other newspapers

about the constant barrage of criticism towards our profession. It is always

blaming a social worker, so that is really difficult when you work in that bubble,

because it is not our way to tell you all the good news. I could stand here all

day and tell you about the amount of children I have saved from hardcore

abuse, but at the end of the day the media focus on the negative. I think that is

hard for our profession. It is hard for our profession, because if anything goes

wrong it is scrutinised in a heavier way by the media, so our members need

protecting from that. They also need protecting from the sort of bureaucracy

and I think we are all part of that, that at the end of the day it is a difficult

framework to work in.

I suppose for me as the General Secretary the question of who protects the

protectors, that is often side-lined, because our development in the profession

means that often that is overlooked to say, “Who is looking after you as a social

worker?” so I am pleased that that message is getting through to our

membership base.

The need for a trade union. Research was done in 2005 and I have put that

up, because there has probably been more modern research, but, bizarrely,

that still stands the case for social work, that Asquith Clark and Waterhouse

argued that it is internationally recognised that social workers are often low

paid, indeed in respect of our qualification, bearing in mind that some of our

social workers have been through five years of university, they are relatively

low paid. We can work very long hours, we work with heavy, complex

caseloads and we have to juggle with the demands of our managers, the

clients and also the professional body and maintain that professional

registration. That is quite interesting. Our members are still finding that, that

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