Alana Hughes

Alana is a cleaner at Southern Cross Care’s Mt Esk facility in Launceston, where she’s worked for 22 years this May. The job has always been a passion for Alana, who’s still coming to work every day at almost 65 years old.

“The reason I came to aged care was because of my love of the elderly people – I now am nearly one myself! But that’s why. I always wanted to work with or around the elderly.”

Alana wants the community to understand just how important her job is, because isn’t just nurses and care staff who are there for older Australians and their loved ones in aged care.

“We’re not ‘just’ cleaners. We interact with everybody that comes into the building. If families are emotional or upset when their loved ones are passing, we have to be there for them. Some nights you go home and you just go, ‘I’ve had enough’… but you come back the next day. Because you want to be there and you want to do something to help these elderly people.”

In her role as a delegate, Alana wants to be part of changing aged care for the better. As a union leader at work, she’s speaking up for workers like herself by advocating for a much deserved 25% pay rise for all aged care workers, which HACSU is fighting for at the Fair Work Commission through our work value case.

“We do a lot,” she says. “We deserve respect for it.”

You can read more about the aged care work value case and our fight for a 25% pay rise on page 10.