Featured articles from our Aged Care Today magazine authored by our Ageing Australia team and specialists within the aged care sector.
We had the four-yearly review of modern awards, the Aged Care Work Value Case (ongoing), the Annual Wage Reviews and a number of applications to vary the Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award 2010 (with several ongoing).
There is now the FWC Gender Undervaluation – Priority Awards Review (the Review) which commenced in June this year after being foreshadowed in the Annual Wage Review decision.
The Review has the purpose to remedy potential gender undervaluation that exists in the classifications and minimum wages in five priority awards. These awards are:
ACCPA is proudly representing its members in the Review and has a consultative process in place with members who are impacted by it.
One of the most important matters to be addressed in the Review is the difference between the award wage rates for aged care home care employees and those for disability care home care employees.
This division of the home care employee classification occurred as a result of the implementation of Stage 2 of the Aged Care Work Value Case (the Case). This Case considered the home care employee classification in terms of aged care work and not the work of disability care employees.
This division was discussed by ACCPA and other parties during the Case, highlighting the issues that arise when a home care employee is employed to work with both aged care and NDIS clients by the same employer. ACCPA members made clear to us that this division is causing significant operational issues.
In the FWC’s Annual Wage Review 2023-2024 decision, the expert panel described the result of this division as “plainly anomalous”. They stated that based on the Stage 1 and Stage 3 decisions from the Case and the Stage 1 and 2 reports previously tabled, there is no reason to think that home care employees working in disability care have not had their award rates subjected to gender undervaluation in the same way as aged care home care employees.
As a result, they believed that this situation warranted “a priority consideration of whether the classifications and rates of pay for Home Care Employees – Disability Care under the SCHADS Award should return to alignment with those for Home Care Employees – Aged Care on the basis of the outcome determined in the Stage 3 Aged Care decision”.
In a challenge to this position however, the Australian Services Union (ASU) and other unions filed an application on 17 June 2024 to vary the SCHADS Award so that all employees who work with NDIS clients would be covered by Schedule B (the social and community services stream).
This variation would mean that those disability care home care employees currently under Schedule E would move into a different classification structure, which would potentially create greater division between the award provisions for aged care and disability care home care employees.
This application along with other important issues will be heard and determined by the FWC as part of the Review.
There is a timetable already in place with the hearing taking place in December 2024 so that the Review is concluded by the end of the Annual Wage Review 2024-25 as promised by the FWC.
This would mean that there is a likelihood that the outcome could be operational from 1 July 2025 – meaning providers may need to undertake an implementation process to comply with any new award terms and conditions.
ACCPA will keep its members informed about the Review and continue to consult on the key matters arising from the Review as it progresses.
Claire Bailey
Head of Workplace Relations, ACCPA
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