Addressing such inequality will require unity from all levels of the profession, including BSW, MSW, DSW, PhD students as well as pre-BSW human service workers. The 21st century social service workplace involves almost 24 hour, seven days a week demands: work brought home to be finished after hours and on weekends, midnight emails and endless expectation of availability (further reinforced by NASW’s “pro bono” principles). The pandemic has been a reminder of the complexity of needs in service agencies, the low levels of funding impacting workers and communities and thus the alarming degradation of quality services. These conditions are intolerable for both community residents and workers alike.
We need to build a campaign for social workers now. We are therefore organizing an action campaign directed at all major social work professional organizations. Through these efforts we expect our national leadership to organize its members and use its resources to develop long-term, collectively focused campaigns directed at all funders, both private and public, that would demand an end to the gross inequities suffered by professional social workers and the communities they serve.
We have an obligation to our current and future workforce to be informed and sufficiently supported. We are demanding that NASW and its other leadership bodies form work group action clusters to immediately address and act on the following inequities:
Replace NASW’s refusal to set a “mandatory minimum income” for BSWs and MSWs with a demand for a starting salary that is set at least 10% above the median income levels of each region of the country, and congruent with other Masters- and Bachelors-level health and mental health professionals.
Revise the Code of Ethics to be aligned with the language and collective spirit of nurses’ and teachers’ associations and unions that boldly states that professional service requires working conditions that support dignity and well-being for the social worker as well as the client and community member.
We also call on national and local leadership to:
Initiate and actively support national and local campaigns such as the “3 for 5” campaign in New York State that is demanding a 3% yearly raise over 5 years so that all people working in social services can have a living wage allowing them to enter and stay within the middle class.
These small steps are meant to jump start a shift in our profession that emphasizes the value in collective action for systemic problems. Such actions replace an unfair over-use of personal self-care as an answer to burnout or expecting policy papers as a substitute for a mobilized membership. This kind of action approach would be similar to those used by far better paid nurses’ and teachers’ associations and unions.
By signing, you are taking an important step in signaling that our profession needs a new direction for the problems confronted by clients, community members and fellow professionals alike!