The ongoing dispute between a union and Tasmania's largest aged care provider has gone to yet another level as industrial action escalated on Wednesday.
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The Health and Community Services Union's latest bans at Southern Cross Care Tasmania include stopping delivering linen to and from laundries, no longer emptying bins in kitchens and not vacuuming foyers or management offices.
Staff at SCC's nine Tasmanian aged care facilities - five in the South, four in the North and one in the North-West - were already carrying out bans such as taking their full breaks on time and not filling out paperwork for the Aged Care Funding Instrument.
HACSU Tasmania assistant secretary Robbie Moore said the bans were designed to put pressure on management, rather than impact the level of care for residents.
It comes as enterprise agreement negotiations continue to stall, with pay for lunch breaks being one of the main sticking points.
HACSU wants paid lunch breaks to be maintained in the agreement due to staff being on-call during breaks and claimed the removal of this was a pay cut, while SCC cited workplace health and safety in not wanting staff be on-call during breaks, and not paid.
Mr Moore said staff were already largely missing out on breaks and were working either early or late, and estimated staff would be paid $3000 less a year without paid meal breaks - a figure SCC did not dispute.
"It's just an attack on some of the lowest paid workers who have gone above and beyond during the COVID pandemic," he said.
"The reality is that throughout aged care and disability, almost all shift workers are paid for meal breaks. It's been an industrial entitlement for over 50 years.
"I think it's an insult to staff to say that paying them less will make their workplace safer."
Enterprise negotiations have been ongoing since the last agreement lapsed several years ago.
SCC took the matter to the Fair Work Commission last week in an attempt to end the work bans, but withdrew.
SCC chief executive officer Robyn Boyd said it was her understanding that very few staff were participating.
"The vast majority of our staff are not exercising the bans, they are managing the soiled linen, they are emptying bins in the kitchen, and that's because they don't want to use the residents as a bargaining chip in relation to EA negotiations," she said.
Ms Boyd said the removal of paid meal breaks was not about saving money.
"What would it cost them if they were to injure themselves at work because they hadn't had a break? Because they weren't hydrated? Because they didn't have any energy? Because they're not eating food for eight hours?" she said.
"That would cost far more in terms of workplace injury."
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