United Voice News
National childcare crisis: Skills and pay of workers critical
Improving training and wages of childcare workers is critical to fixing the national crisis in quality standards says the LHMU, the union which represents Australia's early childhood workers.
In the countdown to the Federal election which sees the major political parties competing for votes on childcare, Louise Tarrant, LHMU National Secretary, is speaking on the future of childcare at today's National Association for Community Based Children's Services 25th Anniversary National Conference. *
"Children and families have a right to quality in childcare. Frankly, at the moment too many are missing out," says Louise Tarrant.
"They're being let down by government failures on planning, regulation and funding and by lack of accountability in the childcare system.
"The quality or, too often, lack of quality of services offered to our children is directly related to staff-to-child ratios and training and wages of early childhood workers.
"Early childhood workers must be at the heart of any serious attempt to improve the current 'dog's breakfast' of standards across Australia which has resulted in the widely-acknowledged childcare crisis.
"Yet workers are frequently left out of the debate despite overwhelming national and international evidence that the number and qualification of workers are critical issues in childcare quality."
"Quality of childcare cannot and will not improve without improving training and career structures for early childhood workers and without appropriate pay for their work.
"Wage rates are too low to attract and retain people in the industry. In NSW, for example, an early childhood worker with a one-year qualification can be paid as little as $16 per hour.
"As the Union representing these workers we are acutely aware of the inadequacies of the current system.
"Government neglect has seen standards plummet. Now is the time for government to do the right thing by our children."
*The two day conference at Caulfield Racecourse in Melbourne includes 150 representatives of community based children's services - staff, parents, local government, church and welfare agencies, educational institutions, social policy analysts, students and policymakers.
