speak out with Aged Care watch
SHINE A LIGHT ON STAFFING, PAY AND WORKLOAD ISSUES IMPACTING AGED CARE ACROSS AUSTRALIA
The Purpose of Aged Care Watch
Aged Care Watch is a crowd-sourced reporting tool allowing aged care workers, residents, family and community members to share their experiences in aged care by reporting unfilled shifts, understaffing issues and pay rates.
The United Workers Union developed Aged Care Watch as part of our national campaign to change aged care.
KEEP PROVIDERS ACCOUNTABLE
54% of aged care facilities aren’t meeting the care minute requirements.
While the government legislated 200 minutes of care time per resident per day, providers have made changes to rosters, duties and roles which means carers’ workloads have actually increased.
The level of care has not improved.
Raise awareness
- For mandated care minutes to lead to quality aged care, there needs to be transparency around the implementation of care time.
- Aged Care Watch gives workers, residents and family members the ability to report understaffing issues and share how the lack of care time impacts both residents and workers.
- Together, these stories highlight the systemic issues across the country and gives us the data to back everything up.
Keep the pressure on decision-makers to establish worker oversight
- The government and the public need to hear from workers on the ground about whether things are improving in aged care.
- Providers must be held accountable for implementing dodgy workplace changes to lift their care minutes count.
- Publicly recording crowd-sourced care time issues will put pressure on the government to establish worker oversight over the implementation of care minutes.
- Aged Care Watch will show federal politicians exactly what is happening in aged care in their local area.
- Imagine your local MP getting an email every single time a shift goes unfilled in your workplace!
KEEP WAGES TRANSPARENT
Wage disparity in Aged Care is real!
A Level 2 Food Services Assistant can get paid $30 p/h at one facility while someone else in this same role gets $25 p/h at another facility.
Just $4 difference an hour adds up to $160 a week, which is over $8000 a year!
Expose wage inequality
- Aged Care Watch’s Pay Report lets you anonymously share what you earn in a specific role at a specific aged care provider.
- This will pressure providers to support fair wages and pay consistency so they’re more competitive.
- Directly compare wages and freely discuss them with other Aged Care workers.
Set wage standards in Aged Care
- Pay secrecy only benefits your provider. Since 2022, all employers are legally prohibited from enforcing pay secrecy clauses.
- Setting wage standards in aged care is about fairness, equity and empowering workers to advocate for the recognition and compensation they rightfully deserve.
- Wages across the sector should be readily available so aged care workers can make informed choices about where they work.
Ensure the pay rise is passed on
- We need to ensure every aged care worker gets every cent of the recent Work Value Case pay rise.
- When the 15% pay correction came into effect, many providers made mistakes or tried to intentionally absorb some of the increase themselves.
- It’s up to us to hold them to account! To do that, wages need to be transparent.
Your privacy and security
It’s important that you can share your experience with confidence. Every report published is strictly anonymous in order to protect the privacy of aged care workers and residents. The names of the facilities are included in reports, however the exact timing of incidents and unfilled shifts is not recorded or made public.
Personal information will never be published or shared outside of the campaign to Change Aged Care.
Individual story reports are moderated and any identifying or confidential information is removed before the report is published.
WE KNOW SPEAKING OUT WORKS!
Aged Care Watch was first launched by United Workers Union in 2021 and has since accumulated over 10,000 reports across hundreds of aged care facilities.
The tool was essential in increasing public awareness of the crisis in aged care, it helped raise aged care as a key election issue, and to legislate the increase in care time minutes.