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Tag: Fiona Macdonald Acting Director, Centre for Future Work

  • Submission to the Productivity Commission Study on Aged Care Employment

    Gig Economy

    Submission to the Productivity Commission Study on Aged Care Employment

    by Fiona Macdonald

    Author

    Fiona Macdonald

    Acting Director, Centre for Future Work

    In 2021 the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety recommended that gig work, independent contracting and other ‘indirect’ employment arrangements be restricted in the publicly-funded aged care sector.

    The Royal Commission found that, to develop the ‘well led, skilled, career-based, stable and engaged workforce’ required to provide high quality aged care, service providers should be directly employing aged care workers as employees.

    Rather than adopting this recommendation, the Federal Government referred the matter to a Productivity Commission inquiry.

    The Centre for Future Work made a submission to the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into Aged Care Employment, in which we argue there is ample evidence to show there are unacceptable risks and consequences for both care workers and people receiving care, where workers are engaged as independent contractors, including as gig workers.

    Restricting gig work and other indirect employment arrangements in aged care will also remove one form of unfair competition between aged care services providers. It will stop platforms, labour hire firms and others making profits in the publicly-funded care sector while avoiding the normal costs, risks and responsibilities of employing workers and providing care to the elderly.



    Full submission

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  • Budget Analysis 2022-23

    Tax, Spending & the Budget

    Budget Analysis 2022-23

    A Budget to Get to the May Election – But No Further
    by Greg Jericho, Mark Dean, Eliza Littleton, Fiona Macdonald, Dan Nahum, Alison Pennington, Lily Raynes and Jim Stanford

    Authors

    Greg Jericho

    Chief Economist

    Mark Dean

    Laurie Carmichael Distinguished Research Fellow

    Eliza Littleton

    Senior Economist

    Fiona Macdonald

    Acting Director, Centre for Future Work

    Dan Nahum

    Economist

    Alison Pennington

    Senior Economist

    Lily Raynes

    Anne Kantor Fellow

    Jim Stanford

    The Commonwealth Government has tabled its budget for the 2022-23 financial year. As the nation emerges from two years of lockdowns and border closures, with less than two months until a federal election, this budget is focused on getting the government re-elected – rather than addressing the challenges of public health, stagnant wages, and sustainability facing Australia.

    This failure is all the more regrettable given the enormous discretionary fiscal resources which the government has at its disposal: the budget projects $133 billion in extra tax revenues over the next five years, compared to its MYEFO projections just three months ago, thanks to strong economic growth and rising nominal GDP. But instead of ploughing those revenues into reforming human services (like health, aged care, early child education, or disability services), undertaking a genuine policy to revitalise domestic manufacturing, or accelerating the energy transition, the government has prioritised one-time cash handouts to entice voters in the upcoming election.

    In this comprehensive budget overview, the Centre for Future Work’s team of economists unpacks the budget, considers its effects, and suggests alternatives.

    Our report reviews all aspects of the budget’s impacts on work and workers, including: wages, employment forecasts, vocational education and higher education, women workers and caring labour, labour standards enforcement, and manufacturing and energy jobs.

    Please also check out these rapid-response budget commentaries from two of our economists:

    “Six graphs that reveal the sugar-hit election strategy,” by Policy Director Greg Jericho in the Guardian Australia.

    “Budget billions wasted as real wages go backwards,” by Senior Economist Alison Pennington in The New Daily.



    Full report

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  • Precarity and Job Instability on the Frontlines of NDIS Support Work

    Insecure & Precarious Work, Public Sector, Procurement & Privatisation

    Precarity and Job Instability on the Frontlines of NDIS Support Work

    by Donna Baines, Fiona Macdonald, Jim Stanford and Jessie Moore

    Authors

    Donna Baines

    Fiona Macdonald

    Acting Director, Centre for Future Work

    Jim Stanford

    Jessie Moore

    The national roll-out of the NDIS holds the prospect of a significant enhancement in both the resources allocated to disability services in Australia, and the autonomy and flexibility of service delivery for people with disability. But it also constitutes an enormous logistical and organisational challenge. And the market-based service delivery model built into the NDIS is exacerbating those challenges, by unleashing a widespread fragmentation and casualisation of work in disability services.

    In this new report, researchers document the experience of front-line disability service workers under the NDIS based on first-hand qualitative interviews.

    The report was a joint initiative of two leading academic researchers (Prof. Donna Baines, formerly of the University of Sydney, and Dr. Fiona Macdonald of RMIT) and the Centre for Future Work. Researchers conducted detailed face-to-face interviews with 19 front-line disability service workers, mostly in the Newcastle, NSW region. (Newcastle was one of the locations chosen for NDIS trials, so workers in the region have more experience with the reality of NDIS delivery problems.)

    The interviews indicated 8 major problems negatively affecting the stability, quality and sustainability of work for disability support workers:

    1. The new system is not providing sufficient support for participants with intellectual and other cognitive disabilities, including in designing and managing individual programs of care;
    2. DSWs are experiencing increased instability and precarity in their jobs, elevated levels of mental and physical stress, and irregular hours and incomes;
    3. New workers joining the disability services sector are often less skilled, less trained, less experienced, and sometimes reluctant;
    4. DSWs experience particular challenges working in the private realm of NDIS clients’ homes;
    5. The informal and inconsistent provision of transportation and other necessary functions to NDIS clients results in a significant shift of costs and risks to workers;
    6. DSWs are experiencing increased levels of violence in their work;
    7. Relationships with managers have changed dramatically under the new system, undermining effective supervision, coaching, and training; and
    8. Worker turnover, given the insecurity of work and income and the challenging conditions of work, is extreme.

    The deterioration in job stability and working conditions under the NDIS will inevitably impact on the quality of service experienced by NDIS clients; it will also exacerbate the overarching challenge of recruitment and retention facing disability service providers as they try to attract the 80,000 new full-time equivalent workers required to operate the scaled-up NDIS.

    The researchers conclude with several policy recommendations to improve the quality and stability of work for disability support workers, and the quality of care for participants.



    Full report

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