More than 300 Sunderland care workers back strike over equal pay

Care workers vote for action, and the union widens the fight

More than 300 care workers at Sunderland Care and Support (SCAS) have voted overwhelmingly for strike action over equal pay, according to GMB (opens in a new tab). The indicative ballot closed on 16 October 2026, and the union is now moving to a formal, legally binding ballot in the coming days.

GMB is not stopping at care. It will also ballot the wider Sunderland City Council workforce (opens in a new tab) over equal pay, including teaching assistants and catering staff. A dispute in one care company has become the opening move in a council-wide fight.

That matters well beyond Sunderland. The complaint is about what happened to women's pay and pensions when care moved out of the council, and any strike would land on a home care service.

The care vote is the union's case for everyone else

GMB organiser Joyce Guthrie called the vote "an historic result in the fight for equal pay" and said the mandate "should be a wake up call" to Sunderland's leadership.

The union has tied the care result directly to its decision to ballot other staff. A strong vote among care workers gives it a case to point to as it asks teaching assistants and catering staff to back action too.

In our view that raises the stakes for the council. A deal with care workers alone may not close the matter, because the same equal pay argument is now being put to other female-dominated roles.

The gap opened when care left the council

SCAS is the council's arm's-length company. Its care workers have been in dispute with Sunderland City Council over equal pay since the service was outsourced.

GMB says women workers lost access to the Local Government Pension Scheme and were paid less than male colleagues doing work of comparable value. Both are claims about terms that changed at the point care left direct council employment.

Pensions are already a live question across care, as our piece on the promised care worker pension sets out. Other councils that moved care into arm's-length companies on different pay terms could face similar questions, though no other dispute has been reported.

The council says it is still talking

Sunderland City Council said it was continuing to engage in discussions with the union, according to a wire report (opens in a new tab). It has not set out what those talks cover or what it might offer.

No turnout or share of the vote has been published. There is no date yet for the formal ballot, and no strike date.

The formal ballot will show whether the overwhelming vote holds when it counts in law. The harder question sits with the council. Can Sunderland settle with its care workers before teaching assistants and catering staff have their say?