ABOUT 200 aged-care and disability workers in Orange could be looking for new jobs if plans to dismantle the department of Ageing, Disability and Home Care (ADHC) goes ahead.
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Central West Community Union Alliance spokeman Joe Maric met with 30 workers from ADHC in Orange on Monday to talk about changes to the sector, which could leave workers competing for jobs with private service providers.
The government plans to close ADHC in 2018 when disability support services are outsourced as part of the roll out of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
Mr Maric said the changes would impact disability support workers and community access workers as well as professionals such as speech pathologists and nurses who would be forced to seek employment in the private sector.
“There’s so much uncertainty about what the big picture will look like,” he said.
“Once the department is privatised there’s going to be no watchdog that oversees the services and makes sure they maintain a certain standard of care.”
Mr Maric said if the changes occurred, ADHC workers would also have to compete for jobs with ex-Electrolux workers who had been retrained to work in the sector.
“They’re pitting the retrained Electrolux workers against these guys [ADHC workers],” he said.
Mr Maric said companies may choose to employ the re-trained Electrolux workers over the ADHC staff in order to take advantage of the payroll deduction offered to companies that employed former Electrolux staff.
Mr Maric said not only were workers unsure about future work prospects, redundancy payments would not be offered to workers employed by ADHC.
tracey.prisk@fairfaxmedia.com.au