The significant gap in wages and conditions between nurses working in public and private hospitals and the aged care sector means employers which don’t provide fair wages and conditions are having difficulty attracting quality nurses to their sector, and patient care is suffering as a result.
The lack of transparency and accountability for the taxpayer funding provided in aged care is of particular concern, and it’s impacting on the wages and conditions of nurses in that sector.
On average nurses working across all classifications (RN, EN, AIN) in aged care are paid $135.13 a week (over $7,000 a year) less than nurses in the public sector.
For Registered Nurses (RNs) working in aged care their average wage is over $200 a week less than RNs working in the public sector.
This disparity has led qualified nurses – who are licensed to protect the public by ensuring they continue to provide high quality nursing care - to seek work in other sectors, or leave the profession altogether. Filling the gap are increasing numbers of carers or assistants in nursing who may or may not have completed training (such as a vocational certificate compared with a university degree for an RN) and who are currently not licensed. These workers are being unfairly put under increasing pressure to perform duties that are outside their skills and qualifications.
Nurses are concerned about the care that is being provided to the most frail and vulnerable in our community.
In addition many nurses working in aged care, and some in the private sector, are falling behind on many other conditions such as allowances for completing extra training, improved leave arrangements and higher shift penalties as their employers refuse to negotiate for established standards through a collective bargaining process.
Equity for all nurses
Restoring the balance in pay and conditions for nurses working in different sectors and states can only be achieved through a range of measures:
Nurses should have the right to collectively bargain for fairer wages and conditions through their union.
They should have the benefit of a clear safety net tailored to nursing in the form of a nursing occupational award.
Collective bargaining can deliver better outcomes and all nurses should have the right to collectively bargain for fairer wages and conditions and to improve on the award safety net.
In areas where collective bargaining is difficult, such as where employers refuse to negotiate on established standards or sections of the industry are reliant on government funding, there should be access to arbitrated settlements as determined by an independent tribunal.
The federal government must ensure their funding goes to close the wages gap between nurses working in residential aged care facilities and nurses working in other sectors, such as the public and private acute sectors and implement a mechanism to ensure that the dedicated funding is used solely to close the wages gap.
Nurses support the principle objective of establishing and implementing a national wages benchmark in residential aged care that provides comparative wage rates between nursing and care staff working in residential aged care and nursing and care staff working in the public and private acute care sector.
The levels of remuneration and conditions of employment of nurses and care staff in residential aged care are fundamental to the ability of employers in the sector to recruit and retain nursing and care staff. To attract and retain appropriate levels of nursing and care staff in the sector, the wages and employment conditions must be comparable to other sectors competing for staff.
Governments provide the vast majority of funding for the wages of nurses and other health workers across the whole of the health and aged care systems, both public and private. Given this central role of government (and taxpayers) there is a strong argument for this funding to be provided for equitable pay and conditions across all sectors.
Nurses had nationally consistent rates of pay and conditions across all sectors in the early 1990s prior to the introduction of enterprise bargaining. Nurses want a return of this equitable situation.
A shift in resourcing and the way money is spent can mean all sectors can attract quality nurses, and quality care is provided as a result. | 
