We hoped to make progress on your new agreement when we met with Able’s mainland managers last week for negotiations, but they’re still refusing to listen to reason about fixes for the workload pressures you’re under and desperately needed increases to leave.

Since Able had gone to the effort and expense of sending management down for the day to meet face-to-face, we would have thought they’d show up ready to make some progress.

Instead, they’ve said no to almost all the improvements we’re asking for, including improving your personal leave, long service leave, the buddy shift allowance and processes to help manage workload pressure.

We did explain to them that better personal leave, vaccination leave and pandemic leave for workers means that participants and other workers are kept safer because people won’t feel as pressured to show up to work sick and contagious. It’s a very reasonable ask and it benefits everyone – but Able have still said no.

On wages, Able are still sticking to their guns on only offering the legal minimum increase. “Well, we won’t break the law” is a really disappointing view to take on what your work is worth.

We know you’re worth so much more than the bare minimum – and it’s especially hard to swallow when other disability providers in Tasmania are putting more on the table. Able should be fully aware of the cost-of-living increases on rent, mortgages, groceries, petrol, etc. and know that their wages have to keep up.

They have said they may consider moving their position, but they were non-committal about it. We’re going to show them examples of what other disability providers are doing and they’ve agreed to look at these and come back to us.

Our next meeting is on Friday 12 May, so you should expect a decent offer from Able by then. If not, we’ll need to seriously start talking about what our next steps will be in pushing them to make a fair offer, including industrial action.

Keep an eye out for more information soon, and if you’ve got any questions in the meantime, please get in touch with us through HACSUassist.