Disability Support Worker Awareness Week

PSA SFWU JOINT MEDIA STATEMENT

August 11, 2009
For Immediate Use
Disability Support Worker Awareness Week Mon Aug 10 to Sun Aug 16

The Public Service Association and the Service and Food Workers Union are working together to raise awareness of the work done by disability support workers.

Every day more than 110,000 disabled New Zealanders rely on disability support workers for medical support, meals, personal care and help the home.

Disability support workers provide support 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for people with disabilities who live in community houses. They also visit homes and support people incapacitated by a disability. Their work enables people with disabilities to be as independent as possible.

This is demanding work that requires a wide range of skills and knowledge but in takes place out of public view.

This is why the PSA and SFWU are running a Disability Support Worker Awareness Week from Monday August 10 to Sunday August 16.

Disability support workers are multi-skilled providing medical support, meals, personal care and domestic help to people with disabilities - some of whom need round-the-clock support, seven days a week.

For this complex and demanding work they are paid as little as $14.20 an hour, only marginally above the adult minimum wage of $12.50 an hour.

This is due primarily to a lack of funding from the government and the complicated and confusing way that the disability sector is funded.

The low pay and difficult working conditions make it difficult to recruit and retain disability support workers and there’s a shortage of staff in the disability sector.

The PSA and SFWU have 7000 members working as disability support workers.

We are running Disability Support Awareness Week as part of our campaign to improve the pay and working conditions for these workers who 110,000 disabled New Zealanders rely on every day for their quality of life.

ENDS

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