Our members in aged care have achieved memorable victories in recent years as their campaign for a better resourced sector bore fruit, with significant increases in federal government funding.

The challenge going forward for the sector is to ensure these extra resources are deployed as they were intended: to improve care and to solve the endemic issue of workforce shortages and poor working conditions for aged care staff.

The COVID-19 pandemic starkly exposed the dire state of the sector and the poor track record of aged care providers in ensuring taxpayers’ money was efficiently allocated to improved care.

Making employers accountable is the next step in our campaign to improve the lives of Australia’s elderly in aged care, and bargaining campaigns are a vehicle to advance our goals.

Historically, aged care has been a difficult area to get results, but with an increased union presence in workplaces, good branch organisation and the increased funding, we can achieve our goals.

Building the capacity to win will be helped by new federal laws that give improved rights and protections to union delegates.

Branch Beat looks at how our members at Opal are organising to improve the lives of their residents.

“We have more demented and sicker residents, and they can be violent and suffer from mental illness, which makes it more difficult. At the same time, staff levels haven’t gone up.”

Marta is one of a growing group of member leaders at Opal who are driving an organising effort that has seen membership growth by a third at Opal sites this year and the formation of new Opal branches.

“Staff are stressed out, we are unhappy, and we are anxious that we can’t give proper care to each of the residents,” said Marta.

Marta, who has been a member of our union for around 20 years, said she talks “all the time to staff about their problems”, in the staffroom, as well as on WhatsApp and Messenger groups, to reach people who work late shifts.

Staff are also organising around care minutes with many Opal facilities reporting direct care minutes below the mandated requirement.

Organising for better care, better workplaces using one-on-one conversations, Zoom meetings, and local WhatsApp and other social media groups, Opal members are now organising and ramping up the pressure on Opal to come back to the table with an offer that recognises Opal staff’s hard work.

For the first time, NSWNMA members at 47 Opal HealthCare aged care facilities voted down a new agreement after management offered a paltry pay increase, no improvements in sick leave and no improvements in staffing.

The No vote came after Opal ignored a petition from 1700 staff calling on the company to meet with union representatives to discuss a better offer.

Marta Frasca, who has worked as an AIN at a residential care centre on the NSW Central Coast for 23 years, said staff are close to breaking point.

“There has always been an issue with a shortage of staff, but in the last few years it has become more prominent,” she said.

Staff workloads have increased at her facility, as more residents now have higher care needs.

COVID HAS CHANGED THE GAME

Inadequate sick leave is another big issue for staff. Although the Aged Care sector is prone to sickness and infections, employees are only entitled to the legal minimum of 10 days sick leave by their employer.

“Here, infection controls such as masks and PPE ended about three months ago. Soon after we had an outbreak of influenza, and then COVID came back again,” said Marta, who has just been off work herself after contracting COVID.

Staff who contract COVID when the residents have COVID can be paid for “disaster leave”.

But Marta said because she was diagnosed with COVID just before the resident got it, she had to use sick leave.

Judy Woodward, an EN at an Opal site in the Tweed Valley, agrees with Marta that staffing levels are the number one issue for members. And it is an issue that is motivating Opal workers to join the union.

Like Marta, Judy also noted the way COVID has changed the game when it comes to sick leave, with NSW staff only entitled to 10 days a year.

“If we get COVID, whether it’s from the facility or from just carrying on our everyday lives, we then have to be out of the facility for seven days. So, if you’ve had a couple of lockdowns at work in the past 12 months, and if you consider that we have to take seven days each time, then we’re out of pocket,” said Judy.

“Victoria Opal gives staff 16 days leave, whereas we get 10. We’re just trying to get a fair deal.”

Along with other union members at her facility, Judy has recently helped form a new union branch, one of more than a dozen new branches to form at NSW Opal sites this year.

“We are more than a number in their facility,” Marta said. “We are people working hard to care for residents and to make the company money.”■