You CAN put a price on care

The Covid pandemic is a stark reminder that we all need care at some point in our lives. When everything else was shut down, our care workers had to keep doing their essential and skilled work - because lives literally depend on it. It is a scandal that social care workers, most of whom are women, are paid poverty wages for this vital work.

Our care workers deserve a pay rise

Minimum wage isn’t enough. Higher living costs in London mean that care workers can’t meet their basic needs, like a weekly food shop, and many now rely on food banks. Shockingly more than 40% of London’s social care workers are on zero hours contracts, compared to 24% in the rest of England. They don’t get sick pay and they have no guarantee of work, hours or pay.

What we are calling for:

Now is the time for leadership on this issue in London. Unless we take action now, care workers will continue to leave the profession and more and more Londoners will miss out on the care they need. We want care workers to have pay parity with the NHS and at the very least they should be paid a real living wage.

Get involved:

Take action for unpaid carers by wearing and sharing our price tag.

Sign up to download the asset and we will send you a price tag that you can download, print and photograph or film in a couple of simple steps. Don’t worry if you don’t have a printer - we will give you a ready made version too! Once you have your price tag ready, share it on social media using #MoneyForValue and tagging @WEP_UK.

With your help, we will create a care revolution from City Hall - driving down zero-hours contracts, driving up pay and investing in skills. This will be the foundation of our economic recovery. We will make London the best place to be a care worker and the best place to access care. Find out how to design the asset and take the social media video:

Sign up below. Make sure to click 'yes' to being contacted by email or we won't be able to send you the campaign!

Dear Sadiq Khan,

Despite the fact that streets are emptier and many public spaces are closed, street harassment is still a serious problem. I am calling on you as Mayor and Police and Crime Commissioner of London to ensure that women and girls can enjoy their daily exercise and move around our great city free from the fear or threat of violence or abuse.

One in five women and girls in the UK experienced street harassment during lockdown. This figure is far worse in London; more than half of women surveyed by Catcalls of London said street harassment got worse during the lockdowns, and 62% feared for their safety. Our branch in Lambeth conducted their own survey, and found that the most common forms of street harassment were catcalling, wolf whistling or unwanted comments, followed by unwanted physical contact, being followed, or sexual gestures. Respondents also said photos had been taken of them without consent, and perpetrators had even masturbated in front of them. 

London remains the worst city in the UK for street harassment and harassment on public transport. In 2016, ActionAid found that nationally, 36% of women feel at risk of harassment from public transport, but that rises to 51% for women living in London. Four years later those numbers have not changed; more than half of women experienced sexual harassment whilst using public transport in 2020, but only 2% felt able to report it. 

On International Women’s Day last year, you called for misogyny to be made a hate crime. Yet women are in the same position as they were in when you first became Mayor. We cannot simply wait for Central Government to change the law, and it is within your power to do something about this. Moving more Londoners to walking and cycling is a vital part of fighting Covid and making our city greener, but you cannot ask more women to use our streets without doing anything to ensure  they feel safe to do so. 

I am calling on you as a ‘Proud Feminist’ to fulfil your promise to make London a beacon of freedom and equality for women and girls, by developing a London-wide strategy to end street harassment and abuse on the transport network, including a public education campaign. I stand ready to work with you to make our streets and transport network safe for all women and girls. 

Yours sincerely,

Mandu Reid, Leader of the Women’s Equality Party and candidate for Mayor of London

Parents and Early Years providers are at breaking point and unless the government acts now, women’s unemployment will continue to soar - deepening and lengthening the economic crisis for everyone. This will affect mothers on the lowest incomes most acutely, who are nine times more likely to lose their jobs as a result of the latest school closures and lockdown.

Since March last year parents have been asked to home school their children for 100 working days. The result is that women are more likely to quit their jobs or be made redundant and children are being left behind.

We are calling on the government to introduce urgent measures to keep childcare and parents afloat through lockdown and beyond.

• A legal right to shared furlough or guaranteed Self-Employment Income Support for all parents. Currently, parents only have the right to request furloughing and 75% have been refused.
• Early Years and school staff to be prioritised in the next round of vaccines so that they can reopen safely as soon as possible.
• Increase child benefits to £50 per child and maintain the £20-a-week uplift in universal credit. With children at home, household bills are mounting and forcing families into poverty.
• Ten days extra paid annual leave for all parents and 20 days for single parents to help them manage caring responsibilities without the risk of redundancy.
• A bailout for nurseries to stop them closing permanently.