Robyn Marshall, Brisbane
The Liquor, Hospitality, and Miscellaneous Workers Union is taking an equity case to the industrial court to improve wages and conditions for childcare workers.
The childcare industry is dominated by women workers, and the skills involved in this area of work are often unappreciated. However, nowadays, childcare workers have to complete a tertiary degree or TAFE course in child development to obtain a position.
The wages for this very socially important job are absolutely abysmal: $14.37 an hour is the award rate for a person with two years' experience and tertiary qualifications.
An assistant earns $7-$10 per hour and a childcare worker in his or her own home earns a mere $3.50 per hour. In comparison, the award rate for a librarian is $27 per hour, a waiter $18.70 per hour and a supermarket checkout operator, $14.63 per hour.
The average cost of placing a child in day care is now $38-$50 a day. The cost varies with the service provided, but for a baby under the age of 15 months, child care usually costs more than $50 a day. There are massive waiting lists, and women have to book their baby into childcare centres as soon as they fall pregnant.
By law, childcare centres must employ one childcare worker for every four babies and there can be a maximum of eight babies in a centre. In contrast, centres can employ one adult per 12 children aged 4-5 years. Because it is less profitable, many childcare centres don't take babies at all.
In its fight for a wage rise the union is conscious that parents shouldn't have to foot the bill. The union is demanding that the government pay for the increase through the childcare benefit that is used to fund after-school care centres.
Because the wages in the childcare industry are so low, childcare workers themselves who have babies often can't afford to return to work, as their wages would not cover the childcare fees. Federal and state governments have done nothing to rectify this situation. No wonder so many women are choosing not to have children.
From Green Left Weekly, March 3, 2004.
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