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For a family seeking urgent help or a child needing protection, time with a social worker matters. But the officers responsible for that support say too much of their working day is being swallowed by paperwork, extra duties, and an ever-growing number of cases.
Social Welfare Services officers began a 24-hour warning strike Friday, Oct. 23, gathering outside the Deputy Ministry of Social Welfare to demand action on problems they say have been left unresolved for years.
Their union, ISOTITA, says the consequences reach beyond staff working conditions: They affect the quality of help and protection available to people who turn to the state when they need it most.
In a statement, the union’s Social Welfare Services Officers’ Branch Council said the walkout followed two years of appeals and industrial action without a meaningful response to workers’ demands.
Officers report serious staff shortages, heavier workloads, additional responsibilities, and lengthy administrative procedures. They also point to problems with internal instructions and workplace safety.
“The problems have remained unresolved for years, despite announcements about restructuring and modernizing the services, while social needs are growing and becoming more complex,” the council said.
A temporary duty...still there 12 years later
One of the workers’ central complaints concerns responsibility for handling emergency financial assistance.
According to the union, officers took on that task temporarily in 2014, when the Welfare Benefits Administration Service was being established. Twelve years later, they are still doing it.
The council wants the transfer of that responsibility to the benefits service to begin immediately. It says the current arrangement duplicates work, puts people seeking assistance through unnecessary trouble, and consumes time that officers could spend protecting children, supporting families, and caring for vulnerable people.
For those using the services, the issue is a practical one: how much time staff have to deal with the circumstances that brought them through the door.
Four demands for change
The officers have set out four demands:
- Clearer instructions and less bureaucracy: Withdraw recent circulars that they say add paperwork and shift more responsibility onto frontline staff. Bring all current instructions together in one clear, accessible place.
- Transfer emergency financial assistance duties: Begin moving responsibility to the Welfare Benefits Administration Services.
- Set limits on caseloads: Establish a maximum number of cases per officer and program, taking account of each case’s seriousness, complexity, and the time it requires.
- Make workplaces safer: Introduce immediate security measures, including a police presence, and speed up moves to suitable offices that protect the safety and privacy of staff and the people they assist.
Workers say the waiting cannot keep starting over
The council said its general assembly had agreed in May to give the authorities until Oct. 15 to meet its demands.
At a meeting Oct. 13, however, the deputy minister asked for more time, saying a plan for possible future solutions might be ready around Christmas, according to the union.
Workers acknowledge that the deputy minister recently took office. But they argue that every change in political leadership cannot mean starting the waiting period again, particularly when the services’ management already knows the problems.
Their demand is for changes that give officers the time, clear instructions, and safe working conditions they say they need to help the public.
*With information from the Cyprus News Agency.
