Thread: Employment is this legal the way they treat their workers??

My sister has problems and can't work full time due to medical reasons, she is obligated by Centre link to work 15 hours a week or she looses her benefit.Cemntre link deduct any earnings from her entitlement.
Her Ex husband doesn't support there son and my sister has to make do bringing up her son on her own.
She works part time for a Catholic organisation doing home care for the elderly. Her work involves the home hygeine care of the elderly clients , her job is to wash and clean faeces on the private parts of the clients. Not a glamous job.

She gets paid by the organisation $19.50 an hour.
Now this is where I think it's suss, although this Catholic service provider claims to be non for profit. I think they must be in breach of some employment rules????
My sister only has a few clients, as when they go into hospital or respite or die, she looses a client, the organisation don't replace them with other clients for her.
Some jobs are only 1/2hour, the organisation only pays her for the time she spends at the job. so 1/2 hour gets her 1/2 of $19.50. Then she must use her car to travel to the next job, for this she doesn't get a rate per km travelled. They pay her a flat .50c for travel.
One client she has, her duty is to take the elderly client out for a couple of hours shopping, a trip out from the house. My sister has to use her own car again to do this trip, and gets a flat .50c for travel and the hourly rate.
When my sister was on 2 weeks holiday, the organisation rang her mobile and told her one of her client's was in hospital , and was fretting, and asked if my sister would mind popping in to the hospital and pay the old lady a visit.
My sister infromed them smartly she is on holidays and is not a charity and free service.
Another time that asked her if she would drive from Rosebud to Moorabbin to so a 1/2 hour job. For this she would have got .50c traveling and 1/2 hour pay. She told them no it would cost her more in fuel than what she would earn, it was about a 140km round trip.
This organisation seems to think their workers are some sort of charity workers.
This week she faxed her work sheet hours through to the pay office, they claimed they didn't get it, so she had to re-fax it, they then found the original one sent, but then told my sister it missed the pay cycle. And it will be in her account on Sat instead. My sister lives penny by penny and can't afford these stuff ups, but they just say sorry you'll have to wait.
Come holiday time you must notify them that you want to be paid your holiday in a lump sum, she notified them with lots of warning time. Then come her holidays there was no money for her to go away as they reckon they were not notified and her holiday pay will be paid fortnightly. So my sister had counted on her pay to pay bills due and wanted to go camping for a couple of days, she had to change her plans.
As far as claiming vehicle use expenses on her income tax, that's nil as she earns very little to qualify paying tax so she can't offset tax with expenses as she doesn't pay tax.
She also did her back lifting a client and was on work cover for 2 weeks a few years ago, her back is still causing her problems, but the administrator at the organisation, told her she didn't do it on the job and she was born with a back problem!
Surely there must be some regulation of minimum hours and travel allowance, because this sounds like a very poorly run organisation.
The clients only pay $5 to the organisation and vet affairs also pays.
As my sister is an employee,and not a volunteer surely they can't get away with this, it's like slave labour.

It's easy to say look for another job, but my sisters health and mental state she can't handle it, she has been referred to some help in this area, but centrelink only sees black and white and they say you must work or no benefits.
My sister exists, but doesn't live.

Originally Posted by Roverlord off road spares

...She gets paid by the organisation $19.50 an hour.
Now this is where I think it's suss, although this Catholic service provider claims to be non for profit. I think they must be in breach of some employment rules????

A Catholic service provider - sounds like "Calvery Care", at least that's what my mother (90+ years) calls them. She has women from this organisation come in twice a week. One day to do some simple domestic work, hanging out washing, vacuming etc. And one day to take her shopping.

I think the correct name is "Calvery Silver Chain". Here is a link to their employment contract for 'support workers'. The conditions of employment and payment (scroll to pages 10 -11) pretty match the numbers you quote. However, note these clauses.

Minimum visit time is 45 minutes, however some funded contracts have pre-existing 30 minutes visits for which the SW will be paid 40 minutes.

Travel and travel time to and from jobs or between jobs is not paid. For travel undertaken as part of the care plan, the worker will be paid 99 cents per km. All staff receives payment of 57 cents per job after the first job each day. The petrol assistance will apply to all workers or jobs where there are not other travel arrangements in place eg remote areas using company cars. Where the Support Worker is required to use their own car to travel more than 25 kilometres from his/her home, or the nearest Calvary Silver Circle office, (whichever is the lesser), to the first point of service for a period of work of less than three hours duration, the worker shall be paid a transport allowance for each km over 25 kms.

Your sister needs to make sure she is being paid according to the terms and conditions of her employment contract.