Aged care workers miss out on pay promise

Many aged care workers who thought they were going to receive a long overdue pay rise in the new year will now have to wait at least six more months for any pay rise after the Albanese Government revealed its’ 15% pay rise promise will now be phased in over the next one and a half years.

We are pleased that the Fair Work Commission has announced an increase to aged care industry wages by 15% for direct care workers, that is, all nurses and classifications of home care workers. But this is just ‘catch up pay’ for underpaid nurses and it does not address the impact of inflation. 

While this may be the first of many changes to reform the aged care sector in line with the recommendations made by the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, it is just not enough to keep care workers in the industry.

The problem is that the lowest paid segment of the industry is the support, hospitality and administration workers and they were the ones left out of the Commission’s recent decision. 

We hear that the Government has said it is not feasible to bring in the wage boost for these workers yet as the Government has to implement the pay increase through “various aged care funding mechanisms”. In other words, no pay rise.

You can bet that the aged care bureaucrats in Canberra are getting their pay rises now, so why don’t they get of their backside and help this underpaid sector?

Workers deserve better and the Albanese Government has broken a promise.

The risk here for the aged care industry and for aged care residents is that support, hospitality and administration workers will not be attracted to or be retained in the sector to work if the low pay and conditions continue. And no staff = poor aged care.

The workers who thought they would get more in their pay packet for Christmas will most likely not get a pay rise until at least 1 July 2023, according to the Fair Work Commission. We understand that the remaining 5% increase will then be phased in a year later, meaning workers will have to wait one and a half years to get the full 15% pay increase.

By then, inflation will have stripped around 14% or more out of workers pay packets leaving them with a real pay increase of around 1% at best. Not fair!

And in the meantime, these disadvantaged workers have to pay higher costs for food, electricity and rent. Not fair!

On behalf of these loyal, hard-working aged care workers, we call for the Albanese aged care pay increases to be introduced now and in full. The Albanese Government should not break their promise to aged care workers at Christmas.