Out of control

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), The Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU) partnered in the research, providing a range of assistance. [...] Clearly, the high level of violence in Canadian facilities is not a necessary feature of work in long-term care and can be reduced. [...] The choice to concentrate on personal support workers is due to the fact that much, but certainly not all, of the violence occurs during direct care activities.[4] And because personal support workers provide the bulk of direct care, they are most frequently exposed to violence. [...] In the case of long-term care, gendered assumptions – particularly the devaluation of caring labour and the privileging of instrumental tasks over relational care work – have greatly contributed to the levels of workplace violence that we observe. [...] The Nordic data was collected as part of a larger study, NORDCARE: The everyday realities of care workers in the Nordic welfare states.1 In 2005, surveys were mailed out to a random sample of 5000 unionized care workers in both home-based as well as residential-based care for older or disabled persons in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.