Dunedin residential care provider facing legal action over sleepover shift payments says the case could force its closure.
Corstorphine Community Baptist Trust chief executive Wendy Halsey said the care provider could face a bill of more than $900,000 for back pay, and then a yearly $110,000 shortfall for extra wages.
The Court of Appeal on Wednesday ruled IHC was obliged to treat sleep shifts like any other, paying at least the minimum hourly rate.
Dunedin's Public Service Association (PSA) branch lodged claims on behalf of members at the Corstorphine trust, and care provider Pact, at the end of last year, in anticipation of this week's ruling.
Service and Food Workers Union spokesman Alastair Duncan confirmed a claim had also been laid for workers at Dunedin's Community Care Trust.
More claims were pending, he said.
Ms Halsey said the court finding had shaken New Zealand's community care system, where money for wages was much tighter than in the hospital system.
Even without the back pay, Corstorphine would have to "shut up shop" if saddled with the extra wage cost.
Corstorphine had 16 full-time staff in four Dunedin care homes.
Workers were paid a $40 allowance for sleep shifts.
Ms Halsey had some sympathy with the union's argument for hourly pay, but it would be "bizarre" if the community sector was expected to pay for extra wages as it simply did not have the money.
Pact chief executive Louise Carr said the provider, which has more than 300 staff in Otago, Southland and the West Coast, had done the sums on the extra cost, but would not disclose them.
Pact paid sleepover carers a $65 allowance in its care homes for adults with mental-health issues and intellectual disabilities.
Community Care Trust chief executive Barney Cooper said the trust would meet Ministry of Health officials in Wellington on Tuesday, and hoped a solution could be found to satisfy both sides.
The trust provided 17 sleepovers a night in Dunedin, paying a $45 allowance for each, Ms Cooper said.
PSA Dunedin organiser Keith McFadyen confirmed the two actions had been filed with the Employment Relations Authority in anticipation of the Court of Appeal ruling.
A "mean-spirited" and "scare-mongering" reaction had ensued since Wednesday's ruling.
The union was trying to "calm" community sector chiefs by explaining that the ruling was not "about putting them out of business".
It was the Government's responsibility to step up with the extra funding, he said.
