Opinions on the funding program to increase childcare wages (workers or parents)

There has been a campaign going to try and get government funding for increases to child care workers wages.

This last week it was announced that the campaign was successful. I am a little skeptical I am sad to say.

Basically how it works is CCB approved centres (only) are able to apply for funding to pay their workers from around $3-5 per hour extra.

However there is enough funding for only 40% of all centres, so basically 60% of us will have to remain on the existing wages while the lucky others get the raise.

Centres have to apply and the funding is first in first served, once the money is gone, that's it.

Funding exists for a period of 2 years only - nothing is clear about what happens then (imagine the fee increase required to cover that payrise if there is no funding).

My concerns are:

The competition that will arise for staff in centres with the funding and the disasterous place it will leave centres needing staff that don't have the additional wage rate.
How will centres afford to continue paying staff if the grant is taken away in 2015?
How is this recognising the value of childcare educators if it only values 40% of them.


Anyone have any thoughts, workers or parents?

I think we have to take it as a tiny step in the right direction. It is hard to be overjoyed about it though as there are so many conditions attached. The union is pushing for a major increase in members do that when 2 years is up the there will be more people power to fight again. This is what I have read when told that 60% of the staff need to be members to qualify.

The whole EBA thing worries me. What are the owners going to try to put in there. It could be a long process of tooing and froing and missing out anyways due to time restriction.

I hadn't thought of your point in regards to staff leaving unqualifying centers for the ones who qualified. That os scary!!

It is great that the govt is 'thinking' about childcare and ech education and the state i which it is in, but this is not a great way to go about reforming childcare wages. It will be a bit of a disaster, me thinks!

i think it should be across the board at say $2 an hour, rather than some centers getting $5 an hour. I was shocked to see how low the payrates were, for the people who put so much time and energy into wrangling my toddler

Good thread ausgirl, I posted on FB that I thought this was a great win, On the face of it, It's a big positive. However another BBer highlighted to me that there is more to it.

As a working parent I want great people attracted to work in childcare so my child has wonderful, skilled carers that are happy and do a great job. So paying them more means some potentially great CC workers who have moved onto higher paying fields may return to what they love. However, do I personally want to pay higher childcare fees to ensure this - well frankly not if I don't have to.

Ideally as the campaign continues it would be wonderful if it extends past 2 years and encompasses all childcare workers. Our centre have been rallying this year (there was an event a few months ago, and there have been posters and communications from our centre about this campaign, I don't know if that means that our centre will be one of the lucky ones to directly benefit). I hope so as our carers are fantastic, work long hours and do a brilliant job so definitely deserve better remuneration. Do they deserve it over their colleagues - who knows, however I've always believed people should be paid for performance, rather than just a set amount cos that's the going rate. Pay harder workers more - it's a no brainer in any field. How do we measure that in childcare though, I have NO idea! However it sounds like the funding certainly isn't going to be distributed in a fair way.

One issue this raised I would be interested to discuss - I was reading some of the reader comments on another site about this and there was a lot of debate whether this funding should come from the government, or directly from the user of the service (eg parents), and I was surprised to read that many people stood by the stance of "You had the kids, you pay for them" and that parents should pay much higher fees to cover the higher wages. It's really not as black or white as this. IMO a high proportion of people using childcare have two wage earners contributing taxes to the ecomony. Why are they less deserving of having tax payer funding benefiting/returning to them in some way. The same argument "You had the kids, you pay for them" could be said to parents that choose not to work and stay home but are happy to receive Family Tax Benefits etc - its all government money being shared about. Working parents are contributing more money via taxes to the economy than non working parents, why are they not deserving of tax spending? And where do we stop funding aimed at children? Close all public schools and make all parents pay full tote for education, after all, "you had them, you pay for them" :)

Anyway, I digress, its not just about what parents have to pay, the issue is much bigger than this. After looking more into it, I agree with ausgirl that there is risk that unfunded centres will struggle to find staff and there needs to be something in place long term, not just for a 2y period. Although with the looming election, it may just end up being another thing that the Liberal govt will wind back anyway. If it does come to an end, then childcare costs could sky rocket for parents to cover the shortfall, from a personal perspective as a parent paying for childcare, that's scary, that's more money we need to find in an already tight budget. It may force more parents out of work as the cost of care v income becomes untenable and then put further strain on the economy as more will claim FTB as no longer working etc. Its just a vicious circle I guess. A permanent solution is definitely needed.

What about the people making the profit!! That's half the problem. Licensees and owners don't want to give up their BMWs etc to pay staff what they deserve. They expect child care workers to go back to work for unpaid staff meetings, unpaid working bees, unpaid staff development sessions which are usually on a weekend. Unpaid kids Christmas parties, kindy graduations, parent teacher interviews, orientation nights. Half the time staff do paperwork in their lunch break or at home.oh staff are away let's combine rooms so we don't have to pay a relief staff to come in. I wonder if parents knew that?

Our centre is community based and not for profit, I think that would make a difference. No greedy owners

I'd say the community based ones still expect their staff to do a lot of out of hours work for nothing.

Great thread Ausgirl. I worked in a great community based centre where we were respected and paid for out of hours or given time in lieu. We were also given 1 1/2 days a fortnight for planning etc. they did it that way cause it was the law to pay for out if hours and it was the right thing to do.

Regarding original post I think the scheme seems a bit half-arsed and short-sighted. I also dislike the way the true facts about the scheme are not reported in the media.

I am not convinced about 'greedy' owners - you could say that about every businesss out there - private hospitals and nurses would be a similar example. Isn't there an award for childcare workers which sets minimum? There may or may not be a problem with 'greedy' center owners but I think that is one of the lesser problems with regard to childcare.
The two main ones being paying staff appropriately and childcare affordability - which are of course intrinsically linked.

I can't see a model whereby parents pay full costs of childcare working - it is too expensive and as in the past would mean many of the population not in the workforce and not paying tax. So then I think the government should look into other models -such as payment of fees before tax or a Hecs type scheme to support parents to pay through childcare years.

Well yeah there is an award and you get paid the award but when I pointed out how there is a lot of unpaid work happening it was an example of how some owners expect work for free. How are they going to pay for this? Not by using some of their profits, ( which I feel they should). In pretty much all scenarios the bottom line is high in owners priorities. Some fees are incredibly high and I'm not sure where that money goes because they sure aren't paying staff for the extra work they do. I don't think families should pay full fees either. I think owners possibly being capped on what they can charge to minimize exorbitant profits and government funding is probably the only way staff will be better paid. And of course better pay and conditions equals better education and care for children. But it should be for everyone in every centre to make it fair.

By the way, I wasn't impressed with the union reps pushing for memberships either. Pretty much saying there needs to be 60% staff in union and it needs to happen today!! I agree its s good thing to have so many child care workers in the union but I think they were a little loose with the truth and applying a bit too much pressure.

The union has disgusted me with their behaviour and totally turned me off them - even though I am a member. They insisted on seeing each staff member seperately when they easily could have addressed them as a small group - this I believe was because they could put pressure on a 18 year old without backup to sign up much easier than several of them together supporting each other. They made all of my junior staff sign the form there and then without any option to consider membership first.
And they straight out lied to me - I had LOTS of direct questions one which was ''if union membership is not compulsary in Australia, why are we forced to join to benefit from a government funded payrise' I got some total bs answer which was not the truth at all.
Fairwork Australia has issued a statement saying that membership in a union is NOT a requirement to get this payrise.

I also don't agree totally on the greedy owner comment - yes there are some out there who have multiple centres that make lots of money - but there are small ones like mine who don't make much at all.
BUT they are in business to make a profit - any other business has the right to make a profit - they pay their staff the requirement by law and make money - millions of businesses do that.
I do wish I was a not for profit centre - mainly because you can get so much funding from grants etc if you a deemed nfp which for profit services aren't able to. There is a kindy in my area which has less than 12 enrolments - they received $11 000 for new equipment at the end of last year $8000 from another grant for equipment and have just been approved for funding for significant renovations - additional rooms and a new kitchen. The teacher has told me they have so much equipment they will never use it all and it was hard finding things to spend the money on as they just have so much - (there is a pile of easel paper as high as the ceiling in one storage room and she said that's only half of it). When were talking 'greed' that seems like a pretty fine example to me!! Why not leave the funding for someone else to apply for if you have so much?

Yes nfp centres usually offer much more = they are better equipped and have lovely play spaces - all because they get so much free money to use - I doubt they'd have all of those things if the people running the centres were having to pay for it out of their own pocket.

I think this scheme will work quite well if its applied to the part of the industry that is not sucking profits out.

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I think this scheme will work quite well if its applied to the part of the industry that is not sucking profits out.

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Which unfortunately is unlikely to be the case as owners of centres apply once for all of their centres - centres will be approved on first come first served basis so if big owners are approved first, the funding will disappear quickly.

Fair enough comments ausgirl re the greedy comment. However, I think they should pay you and with penalty rates if you attend work for any purpose during your own time and they don't because they don't want to cut into their profits. Similarly, hire a cleaner if the work environment needs a de clutter/ clean and not expect your staff to come in on the weekend for free. I guess that is beside the point of the topic though.

Re the union, I couldn't agree more. It's sad because I also have thought union membership is only a good thing but they have been very devious. They need to pay for all the money they spent on the campaign. However, they will come in handy when all these EBAs are worked out, a bit of support and back up for the workers.

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One issue this raised I would be interested to discuss - I was reading some of the reader comments on another site about this and there was a lot of debate whether this funding should come from the government, or directly from the user of the service (eg parents), and I was surprised to read that many people stood by the stance of "You had the kids, you pay for them" and that parents should pay much higher fees to cover the higher wages. It's really not as black or white as this. IMO a high proportion of people using childcare have two wage earners contributing taxes to the ecomony. Why are they less deserving of having tax payer funding benefiting/returning to them in some way. The same argument "You had the kids, you pay for them" could be said to parents that choose not to work and stay home but are happy to receive Family Tax Benefits etc - its all government money being shared about. Working parents are contributing more money via taxes to the economy than non working parents, why are they not deserving of tax spending? And where do we stop funding aimed at children? Close all public schools and make all parents pay full tote for education, after all, "you had them, you pay for them" :)

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Just in response to this - these are some of the statistics I found around this (from makecarefair)

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Impact on a woman’s career

48% of women said the cost of childcare negatively hit their career but not their partner’s career
71.6% of women said their partner’s career had not been held back at all
24% of working mothers say working isn’t viable however they remain in the workforce due to independence and the necessity for career progression
Leaving the workforce for cost of care reasons has a compound negative effect. After leaving the workforce 52% of unemployed carers feel that their skills have been reduced whilst off work, and 49% have reduced confidence in their ability to return to work.
The relationship between the cost of care and employment choices affects employees on all incomes, i.e. from those on relatively high incomes (AUD$90K and upwards) to those on relatively low family incomes (AUD$50K and below).
Hence strategies to address all incomes groups will have a significant impact upon choice and workforce participation for all employees.
Impact on workplace participation and the Australian economy

51% say one parent would have to quit their job if the costs of childcare increase
For every AUD$1 the Government spent on childcare, the Government get back AUD$1.86 in revenue from improved workforce participation rate
50% of parents would increase their hours of work if care was more affordable
46% of parents say the cost of childcare for their children under school age is too high relative to their income. 36% are considering leaving the workforce
26% have already reduced their hours of work because of the high cost of care for children under school age.
Strategies to reduce the cost of care will have a direct impact on employment outcomes as there is a strong casual relationship between the financial cost of care and employment choices, and affordability is a key issue for all employees with caring responsibilities
In 2006, affordability of care influenced the departures of 64% of employed carers from the workforce, and 60% of unemployed carers would return to the workforce if care was more affordable.

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The bit in bold is particularly interesting and is not a bad return really.

I actually despair at most of the comments that you see on media sites on the issue - a lot of them show no grasp of the economics of work and childcare - the whole you had kids you pay for them argument is ridiculous and almost always ends up with a comment about we don't need children because we can just allow migration - well I am sure quite a few of those migrants will want children too. I hope that people who actually make decisions don't spend too much time thinking that is what 'real' people think - I am sure that people who post on media sites maybe are less than 1% of the actual population.

Personally, I can't stand the greedy owners comments, unless you have actually seen the financials of a centre, you have no place to discuss it. I think it's very ignorant to assume all centres not classified as "not-for-profit" are profiteering. There are some that I have no doubt make a tidy profit but I would perceive this to be a select few and not the vast majority so please don't 'tar us with the same brush'.

The real "greedy" ones are the property investors who buy the properties/land/business sites and then expect the businesses to lease it making between tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. If the government could put money into owning the properties it would certainly inject much more funds back into the businesses (centres) themselves.
I don't know of any centres that actually own their property in our area and where I work is well over $30 thousand a month in leasing fees alone.

Ausgirl as for your original post, I had a massive rant on my FB as I think it is a ridiculous scheme that only serves to create a divisive industry and more trouble for parents and business later on. It is not targeted at all of the Early Childhood industry only LDC centres, its theory is to create "more high quality workers" which really means staff will just leave centres to find others that do have payrise funding. This is not a sustainable, and don't even get me started on "fair" way, to support the professional wages if the industry! I read on the CFK website many centres will not even apply as it is simply a disgrace to the whole system.
I also agree that families who have two incomes that rely childcare are definitely not taking more than their fairshare back given they are contributing more to our economy. It is a very misunderstood argument and distasteful / sour grapes to say "SAHP don't expect people to pay for them to look after their kids, why should their working partners pay for someone else's childcare".

It's always good to hear other people's ideas and opinions!
I think the greediest organization in childcare by far was the huge publicly listed one that was Australia wide that clearly put profits before children. I know of children who went hungry in these centres and staff who weren't looked after and who weren't even allowed to buy easel paper for Children. Thank goodness there has been some changes!