By Angus Thompson, Nicole Precel and Katina Curtis
The ministers governing Australia’s haemorrhaging aged-care and early learning industries say multi-employer bargaining will help women secure higher pay as tens of thousands of families across the country brace for childcare centre shutdowns while their workers strike.
In a major test for Labor, early educators will rally at Parliament House on Wednesday as part of nationwide industrial action involving thousands of workers to force the government to overhaul childcare funding to guarantee better pay and conditions.
Childcare worker Ruth Harper at East West Childcare Centre, which will close for half the day on Wednesday.Credit: Wayne Taylor
East West Childcare Association director Ruth Harper said her centre in Fitzroy, Melbourne, will close for half the day on Wednesday, with 14 staff involved in the action.
“We know that investment in early years sets children up for success throughout their lives,” she said. “Yet we are still wanting to pay people $22 an hour, it’s crazy.”
Early Childhood Education Minister Anne Aly and Aged Care Minister Anika Wells say allowing controversial multi-employer bargaining will help women in the care sector negotiate better agreements and pay rises.
“There is a historic undervaluation of the work done in female-dominated occupations like aged care and multi-employer bargaining could help address that undervaluation,” Wells said.
However, the key childcare union and operators say changing bargaining rules alone won’t fix the issue, and without a financial contribution from government, early learning providers would have to increase the fees they charge families to fund wage rises.
Business heads say giving employees the ability to form agreements across multiple businesses could tie employers down to unworkable conditions and open them up to industry-wide strikes. They have suggested an existing multi-employer bargaining stream for low-paid workers be reviewed.
But Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke said the “low-paid stream has clearly failed” after nurses couldn’t land pay rises in 2013 because they weren’t considered “low paid”, and he also backed the push for workers to strike pay deals across businesses.
“Since 2009 there have been only four applications for a low-paid bargaining authorisation and only one has been granted. This shows why – if we want to get wages moving – we need to update our workplace relations legislation,” he said.
The federal government has promised to spend $5.4 billion overhauling early childhood education, including by lifting subsidies for lower-income families and having the Productivity Commission review the sector with a view to creating a universal fee subsidy of 90 per cent.
Childcare operator Goodstart, the Early Learning & Care Council of Australia and workers have said the government needs to pin increased funding to the sector to higher rates of pay.
More than 1000 childcare centres nationwide are expected to shutdown on Wednesday, affecting more than 70,000 families, as early educators demand the government give them a reason to stay in the sector and pay them what they’re worth.
The United Workers Union director of early education Helen Gibbons called on the government to urgently mend the workforce crisis in early education and reform the sector, saying centres were turning away children due to lack of staff.
“Educators are leaving in droves, that’s a poor outcome for families,” Gibbons said, agreeing it will take more than changes to bargaining to increase wages. “The money has to come from somewhere, and we know that nobody wants to put up fees.”
As of July 1, 18 per cent of Long Day Care Centres nationally were operating with less than their required staff, According to the Australian Children’s Education & Care Quality Authority, thanks to a national shortfall of about 6000 educators.
Aly said she had already met with early educators and would continue discussions “to help us recruit, train and retain a high-quality early childhood education and care workforce.”
Opposition early childhood education spokeswoman Angie Bell said educators are “disappointed in the lack of action from this government”.
“I’ve been speaking with educators across the country for the last 100 days and while they love their job they’re concerned for the future of the sector.”
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