Your employer is proposing a new enterprise agreement with changes to your wages and conditions at work. 

Soon you’ll be asked to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the proposal. If accepted, the new enterprise agreement will be in place for the next three years.

The HSU does not accept that this proposed enterprise agreement is good enough. The wage offer is too low and key conditions from the current agreement have been changed or removed.

The HSU rejects this offer, and we encourage you to vote ‘no’ to this agreement.

Please see details below of how the offer could impact you.

Wage Offer + Changes to pay

2% wage increase per year

Management are proposing just a 2% wage increase per year, for three years. The first increase is payable from operative date of the agreement and then subsequent increases from the first full pay period on or after 1 July in 2022 and 1 July 2023.

The HSU said that this wage offer is far too low and does not respect the vital work that aged care employees do every day. Management say that this is all they can afford.

 Removal of wage safety net

Management are removing the wage safety net, which guarantees you’re pay rates will be at least 2% above the relevant modern Award rate. Currently the safety net protects your wage rate to ensure that you will always be better than the modern Award. The HSU argued strongly that this is unfair and will leave HSU members worse off, but management have not listened.

Freezing + Reduction of allowances

Management are proposing to freeze the uniform, laundry, medication and mileage allowances, meaning no further increases during the life of the agreement.

Normally your allowances increase annually however management are refusing to increase these allowances each year in this agreement. This is unfair and means the value of your allowances will not keep up with rising cost of living.

Management are also planning to change some of the allowances, such as certain meal and clothing allowances, which will reduce them and could leave staff worse off.                                                                     

Changes to key conditions of employment

1. Casual conversion has been changed. Casuals must now wait 12 months before they can apply to be made permanent (previously this was 6 months). This is worse for casuals than the current agreement.

WORSE OFF

2. Paid parental leave for primary care givers has been increased in the to 6 weeks top up pay from 4 weeks top up pay in the current agreement. This is marginally better, but still well below the HSU claim and other providers in the industry.

BETTER OFF

3. Provisions have been added to further allow management to change the roster at short notice when another employee is on leave from work.
Management can already change the roster due to employee absence or in an emergency, so no significant impact is likely.

NEUTRAL

4. Part time and casual aged care classification employees will now receive a minimum of 2 hours pay for each portion of a broken shift.

BETTER OFF

5. Health Professionals will now receive only a 50% penalty for working ordinary hours on Saturdays and Sundays, down from 75% penalty in the current agreement, leaving them worse off.

WORSE OFF

6. Casual aged care and home care employees will be paid 25% higher Saturday and Sunday penalties to now include their casual loading.

BETTER OFF

7. Casual aged care, casual health professionals and casual home care employees will now receive a 275% penalty (up from 250%) for working on public holidays to include their 25% casual loading.

BETTER OFF

8. Right to request flexible working arrangements have been inserted into the agreement.

BETTER OFF

9. Training clause has been updated to ensure staff are paid their appropriate rate when required to attendance compulsory training.

BETTER OFF

We say that aged care workers deserve better!

If a majority vote ‘no’ the HSU will hold further meetings with management and we will continue to push for a better wage offer and no reduction in your conditions.

If you have any questions about the proposed agreement or the voting process, please contact the union on 1300 478 769.

In Unity, 

Gerard Hayes,

Secretary HSU NSW/ACT/QLD