With health care and social assistance now the largest employing industry at 16% of Australia’s workforce, growing demand and staff shortages have increased the industry’s reliance on migrant workers. Despite their growing numbers, migrant workers’ perspectives are often missing from policy and system design conversations.
New research from the Institute for Safety, Compensation and Recovery Research (ISCRR) highlights the physical, psychosocial and systemic risks faced by migrant workers, and the urgent need for change.
Workers in the health care and social assistance industry face numerous workplace hazards including physical hazards such as manual handling, pets, and unsafe environments, and psychosocial hazards such as physical, verbal and sexual abuse, complex client needs and client-family needs, high job demands and high emotional demands. These workplace hazards are exacerbated by the structural hazards of job insecurity and exploitation, lack of support, poor hazard identification and reporting systems, and the marketisation of care – that is, emphasising the care of the client over the health and safety of the worker.
The risks are compounded for migrant workers, who can face additional risk factors such as racism and discrimination and challenges with language and culture. With the industry forecast to continue its growth, and an expected continued reliance on migrant workers, proactive risk prevention is critical to ensure those workers are protected and feel safe to speak out about their workplace conditions.
ISCRR’s research into this issue sought to pilot a collaborative, participatory, qualitative approach to better access the voices of migrant workers employed in home care. Culturally responsive and participatory methods improve engagement with under‑represented workers, and to this end bicultural, bilingual community ambassadors supported culturally safe access by conducting interviews in participants’ preferred language and format.
The resulting study offers insight to the experiences of migrant workers in the home care industry along with a detailed discussion about the implications for policy and practice for individuals, unions (including civil society organisations and multicultural community-based organisations), organisations, and WorkSafe as the regulator.
This research provides more detail around the risks in home-based care being systemic and requiring coordinated responses across employer, regulatory and community sectors. With workforce demand increasing and reliance on migrant workers growing, addressing these issues is critical to the sustainability and safety of the sector. The project has also demonstrated the value of participatory, culturally responsive methods, which can be applied in future research with other marginalised worker groups.
Read more: Exploring Unheard Voices: Migrant Workers in Home-Based Care - Migrant Workers Centre