Wage rise for childcare workers

CANBERRA — A May 10 Australian Industrial Relations Commission decision delivered a wage increase of between $6 and $148 per week to more than 15,000 childcare workers in Victoria and the ACT.

Joanne Schofield, Liquor Hospitality Miscellaneous Union (Child Care Union) assistant national secretary stressed on May 11 that the union "will work with parents and community groups to stop any profit-taking by unscrupulous childcare operators as a result of this pay win".

"Finally childcare workers have achieved professional recognition of their important work", Schofield added. "LHMU Child Care Union activists [are] agitating for the pay increase to spread across the nation.

"Although employers made every effort to delay and obstruct our members' three-year campaign, they will now have to accept that low-paid workers will not continue to subsidise this important community service."

Yet many will continue to do so, as a significant proportion of childcare workers are unqualified and have won a pay rise of just $6 a week.

Commenting on the federal budget, Schofield said, "There's very little in this budget to assist working families or the families of childcare workers. The federal government has proposed 80,000 out-of-school hours care places to support the return to work of single mums ... There's already a work force crisis in this sector due to low pay. Childcare places are not much use without the qualified staff."

Josephine Hunt

From Green Left Weekly, May 25, 2005.

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From GLW issue 627