Connectablity, Ability Options and Finding Yellow member meetings
The CPSU NSW will be holding member meetings on the Expiry of Copied State Awards, including the Community Living Award, and transition to the Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award (SCHADS Award). We will discuss how this affects you.
We encourage members to attend one of the meetings scheduled below. If you can’t attend in person, please see the Microsoft Teams Link below.
Wednesday 9 November 2022
4:30pm-7:00pm
Mezza Room
Wallsend Diggers
5 Tyrrell Street
Wallsend
We have been receiving information from members that changes to SIL packages that involve a reduction in funds are generating roster reviews at very short notice. The changes may also include Disability Workers having to move to another group home as a result of changes to the roster because funds have been reduced.
There are conditions around how your roster can be changed as well as being transferred to another service (group home). There should be consultation around all significant change.
Your union, the CPSU NSW, is surveying members employed in the disability sector to determine the Work, Health and Safety (WHS) issues you may have. The results of the survey will assist the union in representing your rights for a safer and healthier workplace.
Under the Section 19 of the Work, Health and Safety Act 2011 all Persons Conducting a Business or Undertaking under the Act (that means your employer) in NSW have a legal duty to ensure the health and safety of their workers.
Please fill out the WHS Survey HERE. It will only take five minutes to complete.
Webinar on WHS in the disability sector
Want to learn more about WHS in your workplace? Here is your opportunity.
CPSU NSW WHS Educator, Suzanne Mathers will be running a one-hour webinar on Wednesday 13 April 2022 from 12:00pm-1:00pm.
When disability workers transferred from Ageing Disability and Home Care (ADHC) their conditions of employment transferred across. These are known as the Copied State Awards, that is the Crown Employees (Public Service Conditions of Employment) Reviewed Award 2009 and the Crown Employees Ageing, Disability and Home Care – Department of Human Services NSW (Community Living Award) 2015
Depending on your provider the nominated date for expiry of the copied state is due this year or next, depending on when staff transferred from ADHC.
It is important for members to know that your provider can not unilaterally change your conditions of employment. However, if an attempt is made to do so, there are a number of avenues the CPSU NSW can pursue.
Should you receive any formal advice that your employer is changing your conditions, you should contact the union.
As far as the CPSU NSW is concerned, the conditions for transferred staff remain the same and continue as they have for the last five years.
If you require any further information or assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact your union.
The CPSU NSW will be holding a series of virtual meetings in the disability sector in March and April. This is an opportunity for CPSU NSW members and potential members to hear from your union, as well as networking and discussing workplace issues of concern with your union.
Below is the list of meetings. Please register for the meeting for your provider.
Disability Services Australia Thursday 10 March
12:00pm-12:30pm. Register online HERE.
Cerebral Palsy Alliance Tuesday 15 March
12:00pm-12:30pm. Register online HERE.
Life without Barriers
Thursday 17 March
12:00pm-12:30pm. Register online HERE.
Ability Options
Tuesday 22 March
12:00pm-12:30pm. Register online HERE.
Finding Yellow Thursday 24 March
12:00pm-12:30pm. Register online HERE.
Connectability Tuesday 29 March
12:00pm-12:30pm. Register online HERE.
Benevolent Society
Thursday 31 March
12:00pm-12:30pm. Register online HERE.
Aruma Tuesday 5 April
12:00pm-12:30pm. Register online HERE.
Achieve Australia
Thursday 7 April
12:00pm-12:30pm. Register online HERE.
The Disability Trust Tuesday 12 April
12:00pm-12:30pm. Register online HERE.
LiveBetter Community Services
Thursday 14 April
12:00pm-12:30pm. Register online HERE.
Australian Unity
Thursday 21 April
12:00pm-12:30pm. Register online HERE.
Our members tell us that they overworked, and undervalued. Members reported being exhausted, not supported and feeling of despair.
The results paint a dire picture.
77.5 per cent of respondents have had another staff member in their workplace contract COVID-19
Only 3.2 per cent have RATs available for clients or staff
35 per cent said a client in their group home has contracted COVID-19, with another 13.45 per cent unsure.
22 per cent said they wore PPE only when there were known COVID-19 cases
72 per cent said they wore full personal protective equipment at all times, while 22 per cent said they only wore PPE during an outbreak
Further, members described inconsistent COVID-19 procedures. Many reported arriving for their shift at work only to discover there were cases at the site. This lack of warning means people will often start work without realising greater infection prevention and control measures, including PPE, need to be taken.
Your union is urgently asking that both State and Federal Governments:
Prioritise the distribution of RATs to the disability sector
Maintain a minimum isolation period for disability workers who are close contacts of a week
Introduce the same level of support to the sector as seen in aged care, including a surge workforce and retention bonus in recognition of the significant pressure the workforce faces.
Your union power depends on Disability Workers uniting and supporting each other.
Disability services: Amendments to isolation rules
On Thursday 13 January 2022, National Cabinet made amendments to the current COVID isolation rules that potentially apply to you and your workplace.
Up until that decision, persons defined at the already downgraded category of “close contacts”, those who share a household with a positive COVID case, were required to self-isolate for an already reduced six days.
The latest amendments to this rule mean workers from certain industries were exempt from this obligation.
It does require these persons to undertake a rapid test every two days – a ludicrous ask in the current circumstances due to the restricted availability of test kits.
One of these categories, disability/vulnerable persons support likely applies to your workplace.
Your union, the CPSU NSW has grave concerns regarding the removal of this requirement and its affect on our members’ workplace health and safety. The completely foreseeable outcome is that more of your colleagues will inadvertently come to work carrying COVID and transmit it to their colleagues, and in turn their close contacts, and so on. The CPSU NSW encourages members to put in incident reports where they have been put at risk because of COVID-19, whether this has been because of inadequate personal protection equipment (PPE), or being forced to attend work while a close contact.
These new rules appear to be attempting to address the labour shortages in some industries not by addressing the spread of COVID through increased availability of PPE, vaccines and testing, but by attempting to stoically ignore its existence.
The CPSU NSW has little confidence that these lax rules will reduce worker absenteeism and in fact may do the reverse, as they come after a successive weakening of our isolation requirements that now put your workplaces at the frontline not of just service delivery but of transmission.
As your union, we remind you are a close contact at home, in that someone in your household has been diagnosed with COVID, you are, pending the relationship, entitled to access your sick/personal leave in order to provide care for them.
As the union for you and your colleagues, regardless of these weakened exemptions we urge you to consider doing so.
This is a minimum standard set by National Cabinet and does not have to be adopted by an employer. Your union is writing to your employer advocating that it has better infection controls in place than what is being recommended. This is for the protection of all our members, their families and the members of the community you may come in contact with during your duties.
Workplace health and safety is always paramount. And at a time when a pandemic is ripping through our community, never has it been more so.
Disability Sector Delegates Council Annual General Meeting
The Disability Sector Delegates Council (DSDC) held its Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 9 December 2021.
The DSDC has representatives from across the transferred NSW disability sector. These members are striving to build a stronger union voice for transferred disability workers by promoting and advocating for their common interest. Those representatives are:
Ability Options Darren Holt
Achieve There is a one vacancy
Aruma Thea Wall (while Thea is on leave John Fenton is the delegate to the DSDC), Lynda Dean, and Vicki Mulligan.
Australian Unity Loretta Wilson.
Cerebral Palsy Alliance Alan Gilroy, and Michael Glenton.
Connectability Rachel Smoothy
Disability Services Australia Cristy Sullivan
Life Without Barriers Darren Borrow (there is one vacancy)
Livebetter There is one vacancy
Northcott John Williams, Trevor Coughran, and Faith Dent.
The Benevolent Society Kathy Nash
At December’s AGM the following were elected to the executive of the DSDC:
Chairperson – Faith Dent (Northcott)
Vice Chair – Alan Gilroy (Cerebral Palsy Alliance)
Secretary – Kathy Nash (The Benevolent Society)
Assistant Secretary – John Williams (Northcott)
Women’s Officer – Lynda Dean (Aruma)
The DSDC wishes all CPSU NSW members a safe and Merry Christmas.
If you would like to arrange a CPSU NSW visit please contact the CPSU NSW on 1800 772 679
Be part of the Disability Workers Facebook Group HERE.
NSW Government mandates COVID vaccination for Disability Services Workers
The NSW Government has issued a new Public Health Order (PHO) that makes COVID vaccination compulsory for Disability Services Workers. Click HERE for a copy of the PHO.
Clause 6C requires people providing disability services to be vaccinated. Specifically a person providing disability services must:
have their first dose of the vaccine from 9:00am, 25 October 2021 until 9:00am 29 November 2021 in order to work; and
have received two doses of a vaccine from 9:00am 29 November 2021.
Disability services means services provided in person to a person with a disability. This includes services funded or provided under the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
A person is exempted under clause 8(1A) if they are unable to be vaccinated due to a medical contraindication. They will be required to present an approved medical contraindication form to their employer.
Clause 7(3) imposes an obligation on the employer of a person providing disability services to ensure the worker is complying with the direction under clause 6C.
The CPSU NSW strongly encourages members to talk to their doctor about vaccination.
For further information or assistance contact the CPSU NSW on 1800 772 679.
Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Rostering Principles contained in the copied state instrument, the Community Living Award (CLA) for transferred FACS (ADHC) employees still apply. As such, your employer must strictly adhere to the Principles.
Team meetings
Some disability providers’ group home team meeting arrangements have changed to online virtual meetings. Some group homes have cancelled or suspended team meetings, and or held them with minimal staff, adhering to NSW Health guidelines with social distancing requirements.
Minimum hours paid
We remind members that the entitlement is to be paid a minimum three hours for shifts regardless of the team meeting duration.
This may not be an issue for full-time staff, but may impact on rostering for part-time staff. Attendance at team meetings, whether virtual or face-to-face, is considered being on duty.
Part-time CLA entitlements
Part-time staff members work less than full-time hours, and the specified number of hours for a part-time staff member may be balanced over a week or fortnight roster and paid an hourly rate (calculated by the award ) with a minimum three hours for each shift start.
There are provisions for part-time staff members who may request or have requests made by an employer to work additional hours, and in some circumstances be entitled to overtime rates as per the CLA.
Casual minimum shift hours
A casual employee is engaged and paid on an hourly basis. A casual employee will be paid for a minimum of three consecutive hours for each engagement.
Please contact the CPSU NSW Member Support Centre on 1800 772 679 for advice and assistance if required.
Join the NSW Disability Workers Facebook Group HERE.
