Unions and peak bodies are calling for changes to the industrial landscape to make it easier to negotiate a better deal for early childhood teachers and educators, Sue Osborne writes.
The system is broken. It’s time for change
In August, the ACTU invited workers from several sectors to attend Parliament House in Canberra to explain to MPs how the broken industrial relations system affected their everyday lives.
Early childhood IEU member Janene Rox, accompanied by IEUA NSW/ACT Branch Organiser Tina Smith, attended the event in Canberra. Janine told her story to nine different parliamentarians.
Janene, from the southern suburbs of Sydney, wants a brighter future for all early childhood professionals.
“My daughter wants to be a teacher. I am fighting for the future of the profession.”
Janene and Tina joined representatives from nursing, aged care, transport and others who spoke about the problems they face seeking better outcomes in the current industrial climate.
Tina said, “The industrial relations system and the Fair Work Act have been broken for a long time. Employers are not shy about exploiting the loopholes in the current system when it comes to getting what they want and pushing down on teachers’ rates of pay and working conditions.
“The process of bargaining can be laborious when the union has to bargain separately with each early learning centre.
“Sector bargaining for the early childhood sector would capture the teachers who cannot bargain for better outcomes because of the limitations of the Fair Work Act and our industrial relations system.
“Our early childhood teachers choose early education and care to make a difference in young children’s lives.
“They didn’t sign up to be industrial relations change agents. When they join their union that is what we do for them, fight for better working conditions and remuneration.”
In her early childhood career spanning 30 years, Janene has at times had to work second jobs as a swimming instructor, casual university lecturer, tutor and election scrutineer to make ends meet.
“I told them how much I love my job, how it’s an amazing sector to work in, but how over 30 years it has been difficult to get ahead in life,” Janene said.
“I come from a hard background of public housing. My mum and dad did a fantastic job. My teachers were great, and I went to university, but low pay made it difficult to break the cycle.
“To reach my goal of giving my own family better opportunities in life, I have had to give up the timewith them.
“Trying to bargain for increased wages in the early childhood sector is hard when many early childhood teachers don’t even have pay parity with school teachers, and they do not earn a great wage for what they do.
“Most early childhood services are stand alone, private or community run centres. To try and go through a bargaining process with a committee is challenging.
“It would make much more sense if there were sector-wide enterprise agreements and industrial laws that covered us across the country.”
Janene is not alone with this wish. Several organisations have put forward workforce strategies for the early childhood sector, acknowledging that there is a crisis, and change is needed, including a different approach to the industrial system.
Workforce strategies
The Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) Workforce Strategy plan, Shaping our Future, has elevated teacher workforce, wages and conditions as the number one priority.
It states: “A 10-year National Children’s Education and Care Workforce Strategy, Shaping our Future, aims to foster a sustainable and high-quality workforce of early childhood teachers and educators.
Community Early Learning Australia, Early Learning Association Australia and Community Child Care Association have joined forces with a six-point plan submitted to government to improve the sector.
Points 5 and 6 call for: “The creation of a national industrial instrument for the education and care sector to provide educators with fairer levels of pay” and “a National Children’s Education and Care Workforce Strategy”.
Also in August, IEUA NSW/ACT Branch Organiser Kate Damo went to Canberra to attend the media launch of Thrive by Five’s Workforce Action Plan which calls for early learning workforce action to be at the top of the agenda to address Australia’s jobs and skills shortage.
The plan outlines key priorities to tackle the workforce shortages affecting the sector, including amending the Fair Work Act to allow for effective equal pay cases and sector level bargaining.
Key priorities include:
- funding an immediate pay rise for early childhood educators and teachers
- amending the Fair Work Act to allow for a pay review in line with the professional value of the workforce
- progressing implementation of the National Early Childhood Education and Care Workforce Strategy as part of the Jobs and Skills Summit agenda
- establishing a collaborative process for a longer-term early childhood education workforce reform.
Starting Now is another strategy for early childhood education by the Centre for Policy Development.
It suggested the Federal Jobs and Skills Summit should table a national approach to early childhood education, including unions, governments and employers, to deliver new career pathways and improved remuneration for early childhood professionals.
The paper recommends swift and coordinated action in three key areas:
- Action to give parents the confidence to balance work and home by ensuring education and care is available and affordable. This includes accelerated changes to subsidy arrangements, measures that ensure public spending flows through to families, educators and teachers, and smarter spending coordination between governments.
- Action on rewarding, secure early childhood careers so children and families can work with early childhood professionals they know and trust. This included appropriate valuation of early educators’ work; making early childhood careers a priority at the national Jobs and Skills summit in September; a tripartite dialogue between unions, employers and government; training incentives for early childhood careers; and lifelong learning for early childhood professionals
- A national mission for a universal early childhood system. This includes a formal agreement between ministers to work together on a universal early childhood system; a reform task force to implement it; a special commissioner to lead a Productivity Commission review into universal early childhood education and care; and long-term funding agreements.
Janene is optimistic. “Attending the ACTU event gave me a sense of togetherness, with all the other unions there, supporting each other. As a collective, we can stand up for ourselves and get something done.”
References
Shaping our Future
www.dese.gov.au/child-care-package/early-childhood-workforce-initiatives/national-childrens-education-and-care-workforce-strategy
Six Point Plan
www.cela.org.au/publications/amplify!-blog/mar-2022/our-6-point-plan-for-education-and-care
Thrive by Five Workforce Action Plan
thrivebyfive.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/tb5_200722_workforce_plan_A5_digital-1.pdf
Starting Now
cpd.org.au/2022/07/starting-now-centre-for-policy-development/