Newcastle disability workers strike against privatisation
More than 200 disability workers joined a four-hour stopwork in Newcastle on 4 November to oppose the NSW government’s plans to privatise the sector. The Ageing, Disability and Home Care (ADHC) workers – members of the Public Service Association – voted to take action to defend jobs and current levels of care.
The union says that the state government is using the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme as a cover for the privatisation of disability care. The legislation to introduce the NDIS into NSW, passed with Labor’s support, allows public sector disability jobs to be transferred to private companies. The NDIS enabling law removes affected workers’ entitlement to redundancy payouts when their public sector jobs are scrapped.
The union estimates that privatisation will mean the forced transfer of 14,000 workers, more than three-quarters of whom are women.
In August, 4,000 public home care workers were transferred by ministerial order to private employer Australian Unity. The company paid the government $144 million for the right to provide home care services throughout the state. Employee consent was not sought or obtained. Work bans squeezed out some concessions on the transfer of entitlements and enterprise agreement protections for a limited period.
In the Hunter region, recently revealed plans to close ADHC residential centres in Stockton, Tomaree and Morriset have workers worried. More than 400 residents of these centres will be relocated to 80 new privately run group homes. Disability workers and residents’ families say that clients with the most complex needs are cared for in the public sector, and private companies often cannot cope.
Anne Gardiner, general secretary of the PSA, said that in Newcastle the NDIS has become a “Trojan horse” for privatisation. “People have complex needs, and the government has presented no evidence or case to show that these needs are better serviced by private providers”, she said.
Workers warn that privatisation, combined with the closure of ADHC residential centres, means that there will be no carer of last resort for anyone whom the private sector is unable or unwilling to care for.
