Aged care workers secure paid coronavirus leave

Fair Work finds low-paid aged care workers would be exposed to ‘significant financial difficulty’ if forced to self-isolate due to COVID-19.

The Fair Work Commission says workers in the residential aged-care sector were exposed to an ­’elevated risk’ of having to self-isolate, given the outbreak of COVID-19 cases in Victoria.

Workers in residential aged-care facilities have been awarded ­access to paid pandemic leave for three months after the Fair Work Commission found the low-paid workers would be exposed to “significant financial difficulty” if forced to self-isolate during the pandemic.

A commission full bench said workers in the residential aged-care sector were exposed to an ­“elevated risk” of having to self-isolate, given the outbreak of COVID-19 cases in Victoria.

The full bench said there was a real risk that employees who did not have access to leave entitlements “might not report COVID-19 symptoms which might require them to self-isolate, but rather seek to attend for work out of financial need”.

“This represents a significant risk to infection control measures,” it said. “These matters weigh significantly in favour of the introduction of a paid pandemic leave entitlement.”

The full bench said employees required to self-isolate may have exhausted their leave entitlement or if they were casuals, did not have an entitlement to paid leave.

“The requirement for self-­isolation is primarily to prevent the spread of infection which in the aged-care sector is especially critical because of the vulnerability of aged persons,” it said.

“Thus, the requirement to self-isolate may be said to be in the public interest. However, absent a paid pandemic leave entitlement or access to other leave entitlements, the employee bears the cost of this. For low-paid employees, this is likely to place them in significant financial difficulty and even distress.”

Employers had earlier opposed varying the aged-care award to provide for paid pandemic leave but the commission said financial assistance measures announced by the Morrison government “will substantially reduce, if not wholly remove the cost of any paid pandemic leave entitlement which might be established for the most affected residential aged-care employers”.