News

Australian Unity – an “experiment” in aged care support

In June 2024, Australian Unity contacted CPSU NSW to advise it was considering workplace change. Nothing further was heard from Australian Unity until Thursday, 5 December 2024, when Australian Unity contacted CPSU NSW to advise:

“The experiment to test our new operating model is now extending into 6 additional sites across New South Wales. This decision to extend our experiment sites is a direct result of the learnings and feedback we’ve gathered through our Newcastle, and more recently Victorian Experiments activities.

The additional locations are Illawarra North & South, Macquarie, Inner West, Inner South West and Eastern Sydney.”

In 2024 and after the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety exposed the horrific experiences of our vulnerable elderly people in aged care that a service provider could consider the word “experiment” as appropriate language for use in any way relating to the aged simply beggars’ belief.

At a meeting of CPSU NSW members, the union’s industrial staff were advised by members of several significant concerns regarding the Australian Unity “experiment” including, no meaningful consultation around:

• The changes to work performed at their site e.g. staffing numbers, reporting lines.
• No Line management direction for new roles.
• Newly created positions which do not have role descriptions.
• The union is advised that some staff are being directed to commence in new roles on 4 December 2024, some of which have no role descriptions.
• Permanent placement into new roles or potentially being forced into other roles at the end of the “experiment”.
• Uncertainty about the preservation or cancellation of current employment conditions (including pay rates).
• New staff contracts or potential changes to existing staff contracts.
• Members advise that Australian Unity’s case allocation is obscure with no ability for staff to understand if case allocation is being fairly and equitably distributed to staff.
• Backfilling of roles. Some staff are being expected to plug staff vacancies by taking on extra work in addition to their own case allocation.
• Being forced to work additional hours beyond their contracted hours; and,
• Training being either inadequate, or ill-suited to the needs of staff and the elderly people they support.

Members also advise they have been issued paperwork which is “mandatory” to sign within 72 hours.

This tight timeframe leaves inadequate time for CPSU NSW members to have their “mandatory” paperwork reviewed to learn of any impact, good bad or indifferent, to their industrial rights at work.

CPSU NSW advise members not to sign any paperwork until the union’s lawyers have had a chance to appropriately consider any potential legal or industrial impact on members.

Industrial staff and local workplace representatives of the CPSU NSW have been in contact with Australian Unity to seek to meet on the afternoon of Tuesday, 17 December 2024, to discuss the rollout of the Australian Unity “experiment” across its NSW workplaces.