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Home >News >MEDIA RELEASE - MELBOURNE DISABILITY WORKERS STRIKE FOR CERTAINTY. PROTEST AGAINST PREMIER.

MEDIA RELEASE - MELBOURNE DISABILITY WORKERS STRIKE FOR CERTAINTY. PROTEST AGAINST PREMIER.

2017-08-03

MELBOURNE DISABILITY WORKERS STRIKE FOR CERTAINTY. PROTEST AGAINST PREMIER.

Rally toay at Daniel Andrews’ Office (Thursday August 3, 11 a.m.) 517A Princes Hwy, Noble Park.

Disability workers from Melbourne’s Eastern and Southern Metro Regions will take strike action today, protesting the Victorian Government’s failure to resolve a serious dispute over care quality, job security and wages and conditions. There’s1,622 staff supporting 1,258 clients in 193 residential units in the Melbourne and Southern Metropolitan Regions.

HACSU State Secretary, Lloyd Williams, said negotiations for a new enterprise agreement for disability workers had been extraordinarily difficult, with the Andrews Government threatening job, wage security and the quality of care through an attempted privatisation of the public disability sector.

“Disability workers have been forced to focus on job and wages security because the Andrews Government is abandoning its election commitment and is trying to privatise public disability services,” Lloyd Williams said. “Daniel Andrews personally promised staff he wouldn’t privatise DHHS services. Now he’s broken his promise.”

Daniel Andrews is continuing to talk about an NDIS rollout that provides choice and control for families and their loved ones when, in fact, he is removing the most important choice of all - giving people a choice between public and non-government / private services.

"Can you imagine if Daniel Andrews privatised public hospitals and public schools? That's what he’s trying doing to Victoria's most vulnerable citizens who want to continue using public disability services.”

The Government’s privatisation agenda has created enormous uncertainty across the sector. Workers face pay cuts of up to a 30% and cuts to conditions and job security. The HACSU EBA claim aims to stabilise the disability workforce, ensuring qualified and experienced staff are retained within the new disability services system, providing quality support to Victoria’s most vulnerable citizens. If the Andrews Government privatises public disability services, workers wages and conditions will eventually fall to the levels paid by the non- government sector. See below.

 

 

Weekly Wages

 

Public

Non Gov

 

Wage Cut

Support Worker (Cert IV)

$1,077.30

$958.28

$86.02 per week

Support Worker (Adv. Diploma)

$1,383,29

$1,041.96

$341.33 per week

House Supervisor

$1,290.03

$1,041.96

$241.07 per week

Area Manager

$1,875.47

$1,401.97

$473.50 per week

 

“There is a real risk of a mass exodus of experienced and qualified workers out of this sector, when we are supposed to be looking to double the workforce under the NDIS. Now, more than ever, we need public disability services as a benchmark for quality," Lloyd Williams said.

Contact Lloyd Williams, HACSU State Secretary, 0418 542 799 or Joe Taylor on 0400 328 583