Just curious, I have never come across anything vaguely anarchist to do with older people, their lives and nursing homes, etc.
Has anyone else seen anything? Got any links?
Seems to be a pretty easy subject to sweep under the carpet, but its a pretty fucked up issue.
Inspired by the oldest poster thread, right?
I agree, it is a pretty fucked up area, & it's a very difficult one to call. On the one hand, those who care for the elderly in residential settings are ultra-low paid workers, with shit conditions & virtually no job security. And of course, those who care for the elderly at home (i.e. family members, who are mostly women) get paid nothing at all, other than "Attendence Allowance" or somesuch -- and that's if they know if they can claim it.
On the other hand, there's the conditions in the care homes. My gran died in a council care home, and it was fucking dreadful. The medical staff took the line that she was "demented," but she was just grieving my grandad, who'd recently died, after 40-odd years of marriage.
I was involved in a campaign to save a local care home a while back (about 10 years ago -- fuck, I'm old!). The approach there was, dignity & self-determination for the residents (who didn't want to be relocated), and pay the workers what they're worth. An effective line appeared to be "The council don't see an old person when they look at one, they see a price on their head. £400 a week (as it then was) from the state for looking after them. They're worth more than that, & so are the people who look after them."
Data on how much care homes get paid for looking after people is readily available (Department of Health), 'cause it's often in the public domain. As are wages paid to care workers and managers (you can also get these from job ads in the local paper), and costings for food (local authority websites), etc. Then you can work out how much money is being made -- always effective.
As for who was involved in the campaign, it was Unison (the careworkers' union), residents' families & the residents themselves. I was involved 'cause I was Branch Secretary of another public sector union at the time & was doing the solidarity thing. So not an anarchist campaign, by any means, but one that anarchists could have got (and indeed, were) involved.
(As you can tell, my boss isn't in today, so it's postings akimbo from the button
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