15% pay rise for aged care workers

Aged care industry bodies have welcomed the Fair Work Commission’s decision to increase salaries of aged care workers, but are calling on the government to fund the pay rise in full.

Increases to salaries are sorely needed, but so is matched funding, said the Aged & Community Care Providers Association (ACCPA) in a statement. “As we have clearly stated, time and again, our sector is in financial crisis and cannot afford unfunded pay rises of this scale.”

To date, the government has stated that it would fund 10% of the pay rise from 1 July 2023 and an additional 5% from 1 July 2024.

ACCPA CEO Tom Symondson said that now that the Fair Work Commission has decided to implement the pay rise in one go, it is critical that government revisits its position on funding.

“With seven out of every 10 aged care providers already losing an average of $21 per resident per day, this decision of the Commission changes everything,” Symondson said.

“We have publicly supported the need for significant pay rises for our workforce and fully supported the government’s 2022 election commitment to fully fund them. However, this must not be at the costs of our sector’s ability to deliver care to older Australians.

The Aged Care Workforce Industry Council (ACWIC) Deputy Chair of ACWIC, Graeme Prior, also welcomed the increase but encouraged the government to move quickly to support the funding of the wage rise in full, from 30 June.

Prior acknowledged the progress on improving wages but said there are still other aged care workers including support and administration staff, and other foodservice workers, who are not included in the increase. “These workers are central to the provision of safe, person-centred care and their work should be properly valued,” he said.

Weighing in on the decision, Health Services Union (HSU) National President Gerard Hayes said, “This is an important step forward. To prevent aged care from collapsing every link in the chain must be strengthened. There’s no point lifting wages for direct care workers if large chunks of the workforce miss out. This decision will include more classifications, and we will continue to push to have the entire aged care workforce covered.

“HSU will continue its efforts to have an additional 10% increase applied, taking the entire increase to 25%. We will also continue to push hard for this to apply to the entire aged care workforce.

“Some aged care workers are paid as little as $22 per hour and are really struggling to stay in the sector. This provides some light at the end of a very dark tunnel.”

Image credit: iStockphoto.com/FJZEA