We met with Southern Cross Care yesterday to continue negotiations for your new agreement but, despite your agreement being expired for almost a year, and your next pay rise due on 1 January 2021, SCC continue to play silly games.
 
Here’s where things stand:

• They refused to commit to backpay. What a way to thank aged care workers, some of the heroes of the pandemic.

• They refused to respond to any of your claims.

• They refused to make a pay offer.

Surely they committed to something?

• They said they still want to split your agreement in two.

But the reasons for that don’t stack up. Yesterday there was a lot of talk about ‘readability’ being better with two separate agreements, even though the two new agreements put together will be longer than the current one.

We told them the reason for dividing the workforce was clear - it means they can offer different workers different wage increases and split them when it comes to taking action against SCC cuts.

• They showed they want to start making cuts to your current conditions.

SCC want to give themselves more flexibility to negotiate away penalty rates and overtime through expanding individual flexibility agreements. We asked for an example of how they might use that and they used the example of asking a worker to agree to working flat rate - so no penalties or overtime once you’ve gone over your maximum hours in a fortnight.

This is unacceptable and we'll notify SCC that if they don’t get their act together ASAP, we will be heading to the Fair Work Commission to seek their intervention.