The first ANMF (Vic Branch) negotiated multi-employer enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) in aged care has been approved by the Fair Work Commission.
The new agreement covers four not-for-profit, stand-alone providers in Gippsland: Carinya Lodge, Rose Lodge Hostel, Woorayl Lodge and Hillview Bunyip Aged Care.
What is a multi-employer agreement?
During its first term, the Albanese Labor Government introduced the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Act 2022. This amendment to the Fair Work Act – the national legislation that governs terms and conditions, and rights and responsibilities, of employment in Australia – updates workplace laws relating to bargaining, gender equality, workplace conditions and protections, and more.
One of the key aspects of the Amendment is that it enables more workers employed by different employers in the same industry – private aged care, for instance – to bargain together, increasing their bargaining power through strength in numbers.
Before the Amendment came into effect in mid-2023, the ANMF was required to negotiate a separate EBA for members at each individual employer – with limited exceptions, most notably Victoria’s public sector EBAs.
How can it benefit members?
When more members work together they may achieve stronger results than might otherwise be possible if bargaining alone.
This is why the multi-employer bargaining rules have such potential – especially for members at smaller workplaces such as residential aged care facilities, local governments, palliative care, dialysis, endoscopy, radiology, pathology, and IVF clinics.
In March 2025, the Fair Work Commission approved a multi-employer agreement that ANMF successfully negotiated to cover 14 individual bush nursing centres across Victoria.
ANMF is currently supporting the Australian Services Union’s negotiations for a multi-employer agreement to cover workers at several local councils, including City of Melbourne, City of Greater Dandenong and Maribyrnong City Council, among others.
A win for Gippsland aged care members
The new GRACE Aged Care Victoria Enterprise Agreement 2025-2028 achieves for members at the four stand-alone employers several improvements over the previous EBAs at each individual employer. These include:
- industry standard wages for RNs, ENs and PCWs (some of the employers were previously paying below industry standard)
- inclusion of a clause ensuring that Aged Care Work Value case funding will be passed on to employees via wage increases
- additional annual wage and allowance increases of at least 2.75 per cent per annum over the life of the agreement
- introduction of paid parental leave – six weeks for primary carer and two weeks for secondary carer
- five weeks annual leave for both RNs and ENs (previously four weeks for ENs)
- payment of annual leave loading on all periods of annual leave
- increase in personal leave days without evidence
- increase in compassionate leave
- increase in redundancy pay entitlements
- inclusion of a workplace delegates rights provision
- improvements in the PCW classification structure to ensure that PCWs who hold a Cert IV are automatically classified at PCW Grade 3.
