The Rudd Government’s decision to support a union case for pay equity threatens jobs and services to older Australians according to Aged and Community Services Australia (ACSA).

The industry body estimates that a move towards pay equity could add as much as $1.4 billion to annual aged care spending.

The association’s CEO, Greg Mundy said aged care providers do not oppose wage parity for their staff members but he stressed they would need to be compensated.

“I think our members would have in principle support for pay equity in aged care but this would be very expensive,” he said.

“Our concern is that the government has made some noises about compensating the states for the changes but it has said nothing yet about aged care, which is directly funded by the Commonwealth.”

The government has agreed to support the Australian Services Union’s (ASU) bid to develop a national equal remuneration principle for the community services sector through Fair Work Australia.

If follows a decision in Queensland earlier this year which led to wage rises between 18 and 37 per cent for community services workers.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has hailed the government’s decision to back the test case as a victory for women working in social and community services.

“These people do difficult, complex work that is essential to our community. It is time we abandoned the view that the work of caring for each other is somehow less important just because it is mainly women who do it,” said the council’s president, Sharan Burrow.
 
“Equal pay for work of equal value must be an over-riding principle in the modern workforce.

But Mr Mundy said the a national roll out of the Queensland decision could affect the pay rates of all home care workers and personal care workers in residential aged care.
“It’s a fine principle but if you don’t fund it, some workers will be out of work and some people who receive services will lose out,” he said.

“We have already seen that failing to meet increasing labour costs has resulted in a reduced number of hours for people receiving Community Aged Care Packages (CACP).

“The average number of care hours per week under that program has dropped from seven to five in the past five or six years. This is not just theoretical – we are already seeing it happen.”