The substantial increase in pay for aged care workers after the Fair Work Commission’s decision in its work value case for the sector won’t be $3.4 billion a year.
For a start, the FWC is unlikely to accept the union submission for a 25% increase. It’s likely to be substantial, but well short of that. Now that the government has confirmed it will fund whatever the FWC decides, the FWC has a relatively free hand — after all, this is a work value case, so it’s about a fundamental reappraisal of how aged care work should be remunerated, not a minimum wage case or industrial dispute. But the figure is more likely to have a one in front of it than a two.
Second, the FWC is likely to phase in the increase, perhaps over two or three years, and perhaps at different rates for different workers within the sector — starting with those with the highest qualifications, whose retention is crucial.
The cost to government may eventually be several billion a year once the increase is fully rolled out and the aged care workforce begins growing again. Currently it is smaller than it was in 2019.
Which is the thing: focusing on the cost of properly remunerating aged care workers ignores the ongoing cost of not remunerating them properly. In a tight labour market with worker shortages everywhere, plenty of aged care workers have opted to take lower-stress, higher-paid jobs elsewhere, putting further pressure on providers to maintain quality of care and service. In most sectors suffering worker shortages, there’s a high degree of substitutability for the products or services involved. For aged care, there’s limited or no substitutability, especially in regional areas where the closure of an aged care facility means homelessness for residents.
The question is thus about whether we can afford not to remunerate aged care workers properly.
The Coalition clearly thinks we can: one of the few Victorian Liberals left standing, Jane Hume, accused the government of “siding with unions” on aged care remuneration, saying “Labor is taking the side of the union in any claim that is made”.
Hume seemingly hadn’t bothered to make even the most basic effort to inform herself of the case. It’s not an industrial dispute, as Hume seems to think — unusually, aged care employers and unions are virtually unanimous in arguing workers need a large pay rise.
Nor does she seem to be aware the Commonwealth has a key role in the case because it funds aged care: “The question to answer is whether those wage rises will be passed on to residents; will they be passed on to ordinary Australians about to go into aged care.”
Actually the answer is obvious to anyone with even a nodding acquaintance with the sector: the government funds the sector. While it was in office, the Coalition had begun the overhaul of the funding mechanism in line with recommendations of the aged care royal commission, evidently without Hume having the foggiest idea.
Having humiliated herself completely, Hume then added insult to it all, demanding to know if pay rises would “make a difference to productivity”.
If she’s suggesting that the remaining aged care workforce isn’t working harder than she’s ever worked in her life, day in and day out, to provide a service her own side of politics refused to fund properly, perhaps she should go spend a month looking after senior Australians — and living on an aged care worker’s salary.
It was bad enough that the Coalition soaked its hands in the blood of seniors when it was in government, presiding over the preventable deaths of hundreds of aged care residents. Hume seems determined to add profound stupidity to the Coalition’s record.
To unpick the ‘high stress, low pay’ part of the job: it’s only high stress if the employee cares. So a proportion of the sincere carers will leave. Some sincere carers will stay, but in reduced numbers. Therefore the proportion of workers who don’t care increases, and this appears to be a downward spiral with a built-in feedback mechanism. The ‘low pay’ part of the equation is similar. Those who are able to get a better job with more pay do so, leaving a higher proportion of workers who cannot, for whatever reason (language, experience, age, education etc). So there we are, with nursing homes often staffed by incompetent people who don’t care, just as the Royal Commission found. Privatise the industry and it becomes a nightmare, with profit a motive. Reduce inspections and the wheels really fall off. The need to turn all this around is compelling. The temptation to do it by slow degrees must be resisted with the big decisions taken immediately, and the rest will follow over time. I think that will bring change soonest.
As an ambo I would take a new resident to the nursing home, and there would be the name of the dead previous resident of the room still on the door. The world of the old can be fraught.
I retired in 1996, so my experience is not recent. Back then I found local conditions quite OK, except for staff numbers perhaps. I even picked out the room I wanted when the time came, if it ever does. Good luck everyone.
The cost is easily dealt with politically. You just run the bad apples defence. Untrained staff. Unqualified staff. Bad eggs on staff. Get your mates at seven, nine and news corps to beat up the scandal about these staff and the ABC will surely follow. Insist on brand new qualifications. Throw money at your mates in the aged care and training sectors to implement these new qualifications. Use the new qualification requirements to downgrade pay rates for all the staff at the lower levels. Rinse and repeat. How many times have we seen it in the care sector already?
Another gift from the Rodent to the continuing detriment of the community – privatising government aged care for Moran et al.
It’s been all downhill since then, drowning in a public shame of overflowing bedpans, inedible food and foetid bed linen.
If only there were some way, when his dotage is terminal rather than obvious as now, that he could be sent to one of his mate’s pre-charnel houses.
Stupidity? I’d argue it’s more callousness – you know, that prerequisite quality for every aspiring Coalition politician – together with utter contempt for anyone who actually works for living.
This always seems to happen in the ‘caring professions’. Workers are expected to do a very difficult, labour-intensive job ‘to make a difference’ – ‘because they care’. But everyone needs money to live on. If you want sufficient good motivated long-term staff, they have to be paid in money, not warm feelings of having made a difference
I don’t profess to be across all the ins and outs of this issue, but I understand that there are nursing home companies that make a fortune, and some of the owners are worth millions. If this is the case, we need to question why the government is subsidising the sector.
No for-profit company that pays huge executive salaries and dividends should ever be propped up by the government – cut executive pay and raise workers’ wages. Do a thorough audit of company tax arrangements and deny support to any company off-shoring their finances.