HSU welcomes Labor Party plan to fix care pay

The Health Services Union (HSU) welcomes today’s announcement that an Albanian Labor government will strengthen the powers of the Fair Work Commission to order wage increases for low-paid care workers and predominantly female.

Quotes attributable to HSU National Secretary Lloyd Williams

“HSU is pleased to see a real Labor Government plan for workforce development in the care sectors. Currently, the mechanisms to ensure that the care sectors have the capacity to cope with low wages are extremely restrictive and contradictory. This has resulted in a persistent undervaluation of the critical elderly care and disabled workforce.

“Australia will continue to see demand for older workers and disability support grow rapidly. We need a government that is focused on fixing the system to provide secure, highly valued and fairly paid jobs to attract and retain workers.

“The Morrison government is devoid of ideas, plans or vision for the rapidly growing care workforce. For nine years, we have seen nothing but the neglect of these essential workers who are overwhelmingly women.

“We need to have a government that prepares for future demands for the care workforce, and the announcements from Labor today are a positive step in that direction.”