Support workers are feeling undervalued and are sick of being paid peanuts, reports Lauren Mentjox
You would not pay a babysitter as little as Vincent Harding is paid on his night shift. He is waging a legal battle in an effort to compel his employer - the Spectrum Care Trust, which employs 850 staff at 80 residential homes across greater Auckland and Waikato - to pay at least the minimum wage for ``sleepover' shifts at the homes of people with disabilities.
Mr Harding works for the charitable trust as a community support worker in what is called a residential house in Torbay. He and his colleagues support five intellectually challenged men 24 hours a day, seven days a week. ``Sleepovers' are required under their contracts.
The problem is that Spectrum Care does not consider a sleepover to be work. Instead, it pays employees an allowance of $46.45 for the eight- hour shift.
``That works out at about $5 an hour,' says Mr Harding. ``You wouldn't pay a babysitter that.'
Last year, Mr Harding's union, the Public Service Association, took a case on his behalf to the Employment Relations Authority.
It successfully argued that a sleepover shift meets the legal definition of work.
When Mr Harding has a sleepover shift he works from 3pm until 11pm and then sleeps on a pull-out bed in the lounge until 7am.
``There is an alarm in the room so, if residents go outside or to the toilet I can see what is happening,' he says.
``I get disturbed by that, but I don't get paid unless I actually get out of bed and interact with them.'
In the morning, Mr Harding starts another eight-hour shift until 3pm, meaning he spends a full 24 hours on the site.
Mr Harding has worked for Spectrum Care for nine years and says the people he looks after have become like family to him.
The case, he says, is about justice.
``Someone had to step forward to make sure we get paid at least minimum wage for some thing that should be deemed work.'
The result of the legal battle could have industry-wide implications as it could open the way for all community support workers to be paid minimum wage rates for sleepovers. How ever, the authority's findings didn't all go Mr Harding's way.
Spectrum Care said - and the authority accepted - that because workers are paid fort nightly and that pay is determined by averaging the hours worked in that period, employees did receive more than the $12 minimum wage ($12.50 from April 1).
Auckland University Associate Professor of law Bill Hodge says there are provisions for workers to be paid an allowance for sleepovers, but there is also a principle: if employers are paying someone a certain amount they should not be paid less in another part of their job.
Mr Harding says Spectrum Care needs to pay properly if it wants to attract people who will stay on in the job. ``It's a very specialised job looking after some of the most disadvantaged people in New Zealand. I give them medicine; I am aware of their behaviour management and their intellectual challenges. I am also there at a moment's notice to support them, so I feel quite undervalued in that way.'
Both parties have challenged the authority's determination with the Employment Court and are currently awaiting a court date.
Public Services Association spokesman Nick Hirst says the union will again argue that workers should be paid at least the minimum adult wage for sleepover shifts.
Chris Harris, Spectrum Care Trust's chief executive, says the disability service sector is keenly interested in the outcome and will comment once a ruling has been made.
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