Child-care expansion not an option
BY MARGARET ALLUM
"Some have wrongly attempted to stereotype my government as possessing what is described as an old-fashioned attitude to women. Not only is that wrong, but I think it is in part born of a resentment that the Coalition has chosen to pursue a new and different path towards achieving greater respect and choice for women within the community", said PM John Howard in September 1997.
That no longer so new and different path became even clearer with the release of the rather slim federal budget 2000-2001 document called "Strengthening our commitment to women", of which the key plank is the Stronger Families and Communities Strategy announced by the prime minister on April 16.
Full of platitudes ("Strong and healthy family relationships are the best guarantee of strong family and community relationships"), the package aims to keep traditional families together so they can serve as the basic unit of provision of social services. As such, the budget papers are a continuation of the super-conservative trajectory of the Coalition's agenda for women.
Reducing government
The document emphasises partnerships between "local organisations, volunteers, businesses, communities, families, individuals and all levels of government" — and there is a good reason the government put itself last on the list.
The shift of much of the social and community service provision from the public to the private sector (business, volunteer and domestic) has been swift and wide-ranging under Howard.
Government funding for education and public aged care and hospital care has dwindled, either to be redirected into the private sector or wiped from the budget completely. The impact on women, particularly as parents, has been significant and is set to worsen.
With the quality and accessibility of public care provisions diminishing, and private sector options becoming more expensive, the family becomes the only affordable option for the care of the elderly, the sick and the young.
But this care provision is incompatible with full-time work — so the caregiver has to work only part-time or give up their job completely. This burden nearly always falls on women.
In no other area is this as stark as in child-care, where the $851 million cut from the 1996-97 and 1997-98 child-care budgets has not only sent the child-care industry into crisis but has also had a significant impact on women's ability to participate fully in the workforce.
Funding cuts have resulted in conditions becoming so difficult for child-care workers that, for the first time in many years, child-care centres in NSW are set to close on May 15. Workers will strike on that day, seeking to maintain the already less than adequate conditions currently provided in the state award, which are under attack from the employers' federation.
Worsening conditions
Anna Augino from the Now and Then occasional child-care centre in Sydney told Green Left Weekly that the strike action coincides with the first hearing in the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) addressing the award issues.
She said that even though the overwhelmingly female workers must undergo extensive training (two years, full-time) in child development, health care and educational skills, this field is not recognised as a profession. As a result, pay rates and conditions are extremely inadequate, especially compared to similarly qualified workers in other professions. Augino said that a trained child-care worker in NSW could bring home as little as $400 per week.
At issue in the IRC hearings is the employers' offer of a wage rise (the first since July 1997) of 2.5% — around $10.35 on average — but only if child-care workers agree to relinquish hard-won conditions, such as paid meal breaks. Workers are also campaigning for child-free crib breaks and paid preparation time.
A result of a 1999 survey revealed that overwork, especially unpaid overtime, is a significant issue for child-care workers in NSW. Conducted by the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union (LHMU), the survey highlighted the effects of the cuts to funding in the industry.
More than 60% of child-care workers work up to five hours unpaid overtime per week, and over two-thirds say they are "very stressed". Fifty eight per cent of workers said that they are so overworked that they could not provide the correct level of care, and the majority said that their workload had increased over the previous year. Forty per cent said that they were less satisfied with work than 12 months prior.
The LHMU said that about 45% of child-care workers earn between $10 and $13 per hour, more than 35% earn less than $10 per hour and only 18% are on an hourly rate of more than $13.
According to the LHMU, more than 100 centres have been forced to close in NSW due to funding cuts, and many that remain open have shed staff. Nationally, at least 390 centres have closed since March 1996.
Alternatives dwindle
During the period of Coalition federal government, the number of families using care for preschool children has fallen by 8500 for low-income households (less than $27,000 per annum) and 900 for middle-income households. Ninety per cent of new centres are privately owned and have opened in areas where weekly family income is $51 above the national average.
Because of the government cuts and the rise in the cost of child-care for most parents, alternatives such as informal care provided by friends or family become the only affordable option, other than one parent (nearly always the woman) deciding to stay at home.
The government boasts in the federal budget papers of a record high of 65.5% of women's participation in the work force, but a large proportion of these jobs are part-time and/or casual.
In August 1998, 45% of women workers were part-time, compared to 12% of male workers. Far from giving them greater, much-appreciated flexibility, many women working part-time either wish for more working hours or see it as the only option available to them as parents.
Even government research papers have acknowledged the inadequacies of government child-care funding, revealing that there is still a substantial shortfall in the provision of services.
A parliamentary research report forecasted that there will likely be a substantial number of parents and carers who will not be able to access care or enough care. It also revealed that, as a consequence of increasing unaffordability, parents were forced to look for cheaper, and poorer quality, care or finding it necessary to withdraw from child-care altogether.
The report concluded that this is likely to have an impact on women's workforce participation.
In this light, the $65.4 million total of packages contained within the federal budget to "improve families' ability to access and choose child-care that meets their needs" is pathetic.
Part of the outlay will continue the shift of funding from public to private child-care provision — extending some government subsidies to private providers for the first time — and the rest, designed to be more "responsive" to family needs, will in no way fulfill the government's promise that it will "support parents in balancing paid work, education, community activities and parenting responsibilities".
According to the government, families which include shift workers, or members working outside standard business hours, and families who have a sick child and/or live in rural and regional areas, will particularly benefit from this package. As well, children now can be cared for in their own home by a trained child-care worker.
All for $65.4 million over four years? Not likely.
Substantially more than this token amount would be necessary to deliver real, affordable options for parents, especially women. For this government, however, increasing options for women is not part of its vision of a conservative Australia.