My Blog

Tag: NDIS & Disability

  • We Cannot Truly Value Care Until Workers Using Digital Labour Platforms Get Fair Pay and Conditions

    Australia risks returning to the days when the value of a female care worker’s effort and their working conditions were largely determined in private, informal relationships out of sight and out of the scope of regulation that protects most other workers.

    For most of the 20th Century, women workers providing care and assistance to people in private residences were explicitly excluded from the industrial relations system that ensured rights and standards, including minimum wages and employment conditions, for 90 per cent of Australian workers.

    Homecare and other social and community services workers were only recognised as workers at the end of the century, after long and enormously difficult struggles by women and their unions.

    Finally, in the 1990s, for the first time, care and support workers gained regulated minimum standards of pay and conditions. Previously, as unregulated workers, they had extremely low pay rates and some of the worst working conditions in Australia.

    Fast forward thirty years to 2024. The care and support workforce is still highly feminised. It is large and it is growing 3 times faster than other sectors in the Australian economy. Most care and support jobs are still relatively low-paid and insecure.

    Today, however, the need for fair pay, better quality jobs, and career paths for care and support workers has the attention of government and other policy makers. In the wake of the pandemic there is greater appreciation of how the quality of these jobs impacts on the quality of care and support for the aged and people with disability.

    And it is very clear that, if we are to successfully tackle Australia’s gender pay gap and women’s economic inequality, we must ensure better pay and career pathways for care and support workers.

    But now, digital or ‘gig’ labour platforms are undermining the slow progress that has been made towards proper recognition and valuing of care work. This is because most platforms, through which aged care and disability support workers connect with people requiring care and support, insist that workers are independent contractors.

    Platforms compete in the NDIS and aged care markets by using independent contractors to provide cheaper services, while other service providers directly employ workers. Platforms profit from avoiding the costs of employment, including superannuation, training and supervision. Platform workers have no minimum employment standards.

    Digital platform care and support workers have a lot in common with previous care and domestic workers who, for most of the 20th Century, were invisible and isolated, and struggled to have their labour recognised as work.

    Platform workers are without any rights to minimum rates of pay, working time standards, superannuation or other benefits and protections they would have as employees. They mostly perform their labour without peer support, organisational supervision and training, and they are cut off from opportunities for development and promotion.

    Opponents of employment standards for platform care and support workers don’t see it like this. They argue standards are not needed as workers are “entrepreneurs” who set their own rates, earn more than employees, enjoy the flexibility of working when and where they want, and are doing this work as a “side hustle” on top of more substantial jobs.

    None of this is true of the majority of care and support workers on platforms. Most (70 per cent) believe they are employees of the platform, even though they’re not. Even the platforms’ own data shows that workers from groups likely to be vulnerable to exploitation – migrants and younger workers – are over-represented on platforms. Many workers are paid below the relevant award minimum pay rate.

    It makes little sense to refer to jobs as side hustles when 4 out of 5 home and community-based care and support jobs (on and off platforms) are part-time, often short-hours jobs.

    Just because jobs are part-time, or a worker holds multiple jobs, doesn’t mean fair pay and working conditions don’t matter.

    For decades, women had to put up with undervalued work while employers, economists and public policy makers argued women worked in care jobs for love rather than money, and their earnings were not essential income. Present-day arguments opposing minimum standards are a little different, however, they would achieve the same end, perpetuating undervaluation and gender inequality.

    The post We Cannot Truly Value ‘Care’ Until Workers Using Digital Labour Platforms Get Fair Pay and Conditions appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • Going Backwards: NDIS Workforce and Gender Equality

    Hundreds of thousands of NDIS participants rely on this workforce to provide personal support and care on a daily basis.

    The NDIS workforce is large and growing, currently employing about a quarter of a million workers, mostly women. Pay, working conditions and career opportunities in the disability support workforce are critical to the future of women’s economic equality in Australia.

    It is a decade since the NDIS was first piloted, yet the promise for workers, that the scheme would translate into ‘greater pay, … better working conditions … (and) enough resources to do the job properly’ has not been fulfilled.

    Rather, conditions of work in the NDIS are poor and deteriorating.

    The design of the NDIS, with its market basis and poor and uneven regulatory oversight, has undermined fair pay and working conditions for disability support workers and is threatening workforce stability.

    This briefing paper reviews this evidence and argues for significant reforms to address urgent problems arising from these design flaws and regulatory failures.

    The post Going Backwards appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • Workplace Law Reform Must Limit Cancer of Gig Work in Care Economy: Research

    Researchers have recommended limits are placed on the growth of gig work in the NDIS as part of the third tranche of the Commonwealth Government’s industrial relations reforms later for later this year. Researchers say the promised reforms to ‘Employee-like’ forms of work should be used to protect minimum employment standards and quality service delivery for care workers and consumers.

    Key findings

    • The gig work model is growing in the care economy and NDIS, undermining wages, conditions and gender pay equality
    • Care workers on platforms are younger, less experienced and more likely to be migrant workers than workers in the broader care and support workforce.
    • Platform care work is insecure on-demand work, working time is fragmented, pay can be unpredictable. Many workers’ earnings are equivalent to below award-level pay.
    • Worker-friendly flexibility is limited and is mainly only possible in short hours jobs. Flexibility comes at the expense of a living wage.
    • Care and support platform workers are isolated and largely invisible, working in private homes without organisational supervision, support, guidance or training.
    • In platform and other independent contracting arrangements, risks and responsibilities for care quality and client safety are devolved to individual workers.
    • Platforms compete by avoiding the costs and risks of business fluctuations, of employing workers and of accountability for care and support quality and safety. Costs and risks are devolved to low-paid and insecure frontline workers.
    • Platforms profit from retaining funds that are allocated for employong workers and providing training and supervision.

    “Unregulated gig work is a cancer for workers rights in Australia,” said Dr Fiona Macdonald, Policy Director, at the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work.

    “The growth of gig work on digital platforms in the care economy eats away at minimum employment conditions and shifts risk on to care consumers and staff.

    “Care is a public good. Stopping the gigification of disability and aged care workforces is necessary to prevent public funding allocations for essential workers’ wages, superannuation, training and supervision from being diverted to profits.

    “Sector-specific reforms are currently being considered for the road transport industry. Yet, in the public care and support sectors, the same concerns—safety, sustainability and viability—are being approached through disconnected policy processes, rather than being addressed head on.

    “The Women’s Budget Statement reiterated the Government’s commitment to ‘a sustainable and productive care and support economy that delivers quality care and decent jobs’. Gig care work should be addressed with a view to gender equality.

    “We are seeing the Gigification of care work and, without protections, we will risk seeing this spread to other sectors of the labour market.”

    Recommended policy responses:

    • The Government has committed to reforms to ‘Employee-like’ forms of work in 2023
    • These reforms must be designed to restore full employment rights and benefits to all care and support workers, including minimum wages, super & WHS
    • Comprehensive employment minimum standards should apply for all care and support workers, regardless of employment status
      Digital platforms in the care sector should be bound by mandatory codes of conduct

    The post Workplace Law Reform Must Limit Cancer of ‘Gig Work’ in Care Economy: Research appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • Unacceptable Risks: Gig Models of Care and Support Work

    New research reveals the unacceptable risks of digital labour platforms and the expansion of gig work in low-paid feminised care and support workforces. Risks are to frontline care and support workers, people receiving care and support and to workforce sustainability.

    The report calls for comprehensive industrial reforms to address gig work as part of broader workforce strategies for the NDIS and aged care sectors.

    The research finds that care and support ‘gig’ workers, treated as independent contractors, are in highly insecure work without minimum standards and effective rights to collective bargaining.

    • Many essential frontline care and support workers earn below award-level pay.
    • Work and incomes are insecure: work is on-demand, working time is fragmented, pay can be unpredictable.
    • Workers must cover their own superannuation, leave and workers’ compensation.
    • Gig work in the feminised workforces poses a serious threat to better recognition and equal pay.
    • Better jobs and careers for frontline workers are vital to closing the gender pay gap.

    Four in every 5 of the 240,000 aged care and disability support workers are women.

    • Care and support workers on platforms are younger, less experienced and more likely to be migrant workers.
    • Platform workers lack access to support, training and progression opportunities.
    • Gig workers lack employment benefits and entitlements, including leave and superannuation.

    Flexibility of work is only possible with short hours work and comes at the expense of decent pay and working conditions. Workers cannot earn a living wage.

    • Risks to workers are also risks to vulnerable people with disability and the elderly.
    • Care and support platform workers are isolated and largely invisible, working in private homes without organisational supervision, support, guidance or training.
    • Workers bear risks and responsibilities for care and support quality and client safety, including for highly vulnerable people.
    • Care labour platforms compete unfairly with other NDIS and aged care providers.
    • Unfair competition poses a significant threat to the sustainability of Australia’s long-term care systems.

    Platforms compete by avoiding the costs and risks of business fluctuations, of employing workers and of accountability for care and support quality and safety. Costs and risks are devolved to low-paid and insecure frontline workers. Platforms profit from retaining public funding that is intended to employ and pay essential workers fairly and to provide them with supervision and support.

    The post Unacceptable Risks appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • Precarity and Job Instability on the Frontlines of NDIS Support Work

    In this new report, researchers document the experience of front-line disability service workers under the NDIS based on first-hand qualitative interviews.

    The report was a joint initiative of two leading academic researchers (Prof. Donna Baines, formerly of the University of Sydney, and Dr. Fiona Macdonald of RMIT) and the Centre for Future Work. Researchers conducted detailed face-to-face interviews with 19 front-line disability service workers, mostly in the Newcastle, NSW region. (Newcastle was one of the locations chosen for NDIS trials, so workers in the region have more experience with the reality of NDIS delivery problems.)

    The interviews indicated 8 major problems negatively affecting the stability, quality and sustainability of work for disability support workers:

    1. The new system is not providing sufficient support for participants with intellectual and other cognitive disabilities, including in designing and managing individual programs of care;
    2. DSWs are experiencing increased instability and precarity in their jobs, elevated levels of mental and physical stress, and irregular hours and incomes;
    3. New workers joining the disability services sector are often less skilled, less trained, less experienced, and sometimes reluctant;
    4. DSWs experience particular challenges working in the private realm of NDIS clients’ homes;
    5. The informal and inconsistent provision of transportation and other necessary functions to NDIS clients results in a significant shift of costs and risks to workers;
    6. DSWs are experiencing increased levels of violence in their work;
    7. Relationships with managers have changed dramatically under the new system, undermining effective supervision, coaching, and training; and
    8. Worker turnover, given the insecurity of work and income and the challenging conditions of work, is extreme.

    The deterioration in job stability and working conditions under the NDIS will inevitably impact on the quality of service experienced by NDIS clients; it will also exacerbate the overarching challenge of recruitment and retention facing disability service providers as they try to attract the 80,000 new full-time equivalent workers required to operate the scaled-up NDIS.

    The researchers conclude with several policy recommendations to improve the quality and stability of work for disability support workers, and the quality of care for participants.

    The post Precarity and Job Instability on the Frontlines of NDIS Support Work appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.