Mackay Whitsunday childcare workers strike for 25 per cent wage increase

Childcare staff fed up with being treated as “babysitters” are striking across the state as unions claim there’s not enough people to cover growing demand and new centres.

Kellie Bettridge, Rachel Williams, Jaimie Schusser and Wendy Edwards are fighting for a 25 per cent wage increase as part of the Big Steps campaign. Picture: Michaela Harlow

Childcare workers will today be joining in statewide strike action in a fight for a 25 per cent wage hike as they push to be “valued as educators, not babysitters”.

But the union does not want the extra dollars passed on to the parents.

Instead, workers in the Mackay and Whitsunday region desperately want more childcare centres and people to staff them, in a bid to ease lengthy waitlists compounded by the crippling shortage.

“At the moment there is so many childcare workers leaving the industry,” Mackay region childcare worker Wendy Edwards said.

“Our idea is to get the voice through to the government that we need a payrise.”

There are currently about nine new centres proposed for the Mackay district to help ease the burden.

“Parents are literally having to book children into centres that have nurseries the day they get pregnant,” Ms Edwards, who is also a United Workers Union representative, said.

She believed the government did not seem to understand that new centres on the horizon were only useful if people were willing to work in them.

“Where are you getting the staff?” Ms Edwards said.

Mackay childcare workers Kellie Bettridge, Rachel Williams, Jaimie Schusser and Wendy Edwards are fighting for a 25 per cent wage increase as part of the Big Steps campaign. Picture: Michaela Harlow

“No one wants to work in the industry.

“We’re losing all our older educators who know how the industry works.”

And while initiatives such as free childcare were a positive for parents, they only put more pressure on the centres already at maximum capacity.

“Parents are like ‘oh great we’ve got free childcare, then where are we putting these children?’,” she said.

Wendy Edwards is also a United Workers Union representative. Picture: Michaela Harlow

Ms Edwards had been working in childcare “on and off through maternity” for about 15 years.

“I’m still here because I have all the confidence in the government that they’re going to realise that we need a payrise,” she said.

Without change, there was a risk, Ms Edwards said, that even more staff would leave the industry, particularly in Mackay where the cost of living has soared in the face of huge rent hikes.

“If they don’t, I literally need to move on because I’m a single parent and I can’t afford it,” she said.

“I want to see educators valued as educators, not babysitters.

“We do a tremendous amount of work for these children.”

Ms Edwards said the union, and workers, did not want the cost of any payrise passed on the parents but for “the government to subsidise it”.

The Big Steps campaign, which stems from new workplace law, involves a National Day of Workplace Action on July 26 to push for a 25 per cent wage increase, securing government funding for the payrise and a stronger voice for educators in the workplace.

This publication reached out to Industrial Relations of Australia Minister Tony Burke for comment but there was no reply by the time this article was published.