Parents will be left in the lurch next week when thousands of childcare workers walk off the job in strike.
Parents will be forced to arrange alternate care for their kids or leave work in order to pick their children up when childcare workers go on strike at 3.20pm on Thursday.
Childcare union United Voice hoped the industrial action would force the government to consider a 35 per cent increase for workers.
Parents will be forced to arrange alternate care for their kids or leave work in order to pick their children up when childcare workers go on strike at 3.20pm on Thursday
The union said the government needed to support the industry by increasing subsidies to parents, according to The Daily Telegraph.
About 10,000 families will be affected by the strike action on Thursday.
The union said childcare worker pay rates were not in line with the increased training and qualification requirements of the job.
A Bachelor of Early Childhood Education takes four years and costs an average of $30,000.
An average childcare worker’s annual salary sits between $37,000 and $55,000.
Randwick Occasional Care for Kids director Sandra Bell told the Daily Telegraph she was embarrassed to pay her staff the award wage.
Randwick Occasional Care for Kids director Sandra Bell told the Daily Telegraph she was embarrassed to pay her staff the award wage
While Ms Bell claimed the pay was too low, she said she could not increase it because parents were already pushed to their limits
‘Educating kids for eight hours a day as well as tending to their eating, sleeping and nappy needs is very demanding work and $21 an hour is ridiculous,’ she said.
While Ms Bell claimed the pay was too low, she said she could not increase it because parents were already pushed to their limits.
‘We’ve already got some parents who cut back one day a week because they can’t afford it,’ Ms Bell said.
Parents receive an annual rebate of $7,613 per child.
A spokesman for the Minister for Employment Michaelia Cash said the upcoming strike action was unacceptable.
A spokesman for the Minister for Employment Michaelia Cash said the upcoming strike action was unacceptable
Costs of childcare have risen at five times the rate of inflation over the course of a year, according to a national study by Goodstart this year
‘It is disappointing, yet unsurprising that the union is seeking to inconvenience working Australians through industrial action,’ he told The Daily Telegraph.
‘The people who will be hurt most by this action are working women who simply cannot afford the extra pressure and inconvenience that the union is trying to inflict on them.’
The spokesman said childcare worker salary was in the hands of the national workplace relations tribunal, childcare centres and not the government.
Childcare union United Voice assistant national secretary Helen Gibbons said the government was shifting the blame.
‘The government could solve this tomorrow if they wanted to,’ she told the publication.
Childcare union United Voice assistant national secretary Helen Gibbons said the government was shifting the blame
‘The government could solve this tomorrow if they wanted to,’ Childcare union United Voice assistant national secretary Helen Gibbons said