And the wages hearing begins
The union application to increase the wages of low paid residential aged care workers is currently being heard before a full bench of Fair Work Australia in Sydney.
The battle to increase the wages of low paid residential aged care workers is officially on, with the trade union application currently before Fair Work Australia (FWA) now being heard before a full bench in Sydney.
The Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union (LHMU) and the Australian Workers’ Union (LHMU), Queensland (AWUEQ) finally had their day in court, or so to speak. Their combined application to increase the wages of low paid facility staff by $10 (from $16 to $26) an hour made it to hearing after many months of waiting.
A full bench heard the unions’ opening submissions and witness testimonies, and the responding employers got their chance to cross-examine. The respondents will present their case after the applicant’s closing submissions.
Assistant National Secretary of the LHMU, Sue Lyons, said she was called as a witness for the applicant yesterday and cross-examined seven times by different employer representatives.
Ms Lyons said that quality of the cross-examination was poor because there were too many employer groups being represented. The employers’ approach, she said, was not coordinated and therefore ineffective.
“This is a sector that is crying poor but the amount of money that they are spending on lawyers and representatives is staggering,” Ms Lyons said. “We are yet to see where the employers are going but their cross examination was just ridiculous and a waste of time.
“They should really be challenging us on why we are making the claim that aged care workers are low paid and why we say that the claim includes everyone in the sector. But that’s not what their questions are about…So far, the employers have failed to demonstrate that there is any substance to their objections.”
CEO of Aged and Community Services Australia (ACSA), Greg Mundy, refutes the claim that employers groups do not have a coordinated response.
Mr Mundy said that that ACSA and Aged Care Association Australia (ACAA) submitted a joint response through EMA Consulting.
“We need to be represented in the industrial process. We have a single line of representation …It is a coordinated response but we can’t stop the Chambers of Commerce [and other organisations] responding off their own bats.”
Under the powers of the act, any employer with an interest in the case has the right to submit a response.
On the list of those employers that did are BlueCare, Bupa Care Services, Australian Federation of Employers and Industries, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and more.
The hearing is the first to use the new low paid bargaining powers of the Fair Work Act and residential aged care union members are the first low-paid employee group to have ever have sought a wage increase through FWA.
At the end of the hearing, which is expected to run until this Friday, FWA will rule whether or not employers are compelled to enter into enterprise bargaining negotiations with the unions. Then, it will be left up to the parties themselves to agree to an outcome. If they however reach a point where they agree to disagree, FWA can be again called to arbitrate and later summons the federal government to the table as a third party.
“From our point of view, it is a political question rather than an industrial one,” said Mr Mundy.
“Unless we get the money from the Commonwealth, we can’t do it. We don’t want to go into a bargaining process unless we have the things that we need to bargain with in place.
“We can’t afford to have pre-empted what will happen…..We need to make sure that the decisions are made in the right place and in the right order.”
FWA is also set to embark on a broader pay equity case for the social and community services sector which includes aged care.
