The IEU backs the campaign by activist shareholders to pressure G8 Education into funding paid parental leave for staff.
G8 is the country’s largest sharemarket-listed childcare provider. It employs about 10,000 people - mainly women - at more than 400 childcare centres throughout Australia.
Yet it is in a minority of Australian employers in not offering paid parental leave in addition to the government-funded scheme to attract and retain staff.
Shareholders to vote
G8’s shareholders will vote on a resolution to provide employer-paid parental leave at the company’s AGM in Brisbane on 29 April after it was filed by lobby group Sustainable Investment Exchange (SIX) on behalf of more than 100 shareholders.
The resolution, which will be voted on by all G8 shareholders at the AGM, asks that the company follow the Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s best practice guide in creating a paid parental leave policy.
Members can also sign the union’s petition calling on G8 to fund paid parental leave, which we plan to hand to the company’s directors at the AGM: ieu.asn.au/petition-g8-paid-parental-leave
Call for economic equality
The IEU represents university-qualified teachers in long day care centres and non-government preschools in NSW and the ACT.
IEUA NSW/ACT Branch Secretary Carol Matthews said childcare providers such as G8 should provide staff with employer-paid parental leave to address the sector’s staff shortages and high turnover rates.
“A lack of employer-paid parental leave contributes to women’s economic inequality,” Matthews said. “And a lack of paid parental leave exacerbates the ‘motherhood penalty’, whereby women suffer a dramatic loss in earnings in the first years of parenthood.”
More than 91 per cent of the early childhood education and care workforce are women.
Some ECEC employers fund paid parental leave for staff – including Uniting, Goodstart Early Learning, KU Children’s Services and SDN Children’s Services – because the union has successfully negotiated this provision into enterprise agreements.
The IEU welcomes the campaign by SIX to pressure G8 to fund paid parental leave for staff.
“Our members in G8 are women supporting other people’s families,” Matthews said. “They should have support for their own families.”
Data from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency shows G8 had a 20 per cent gender pay gap for average total remuneration in 2023-24.
Time for CEO to step up
G8 Education chief executive Pejman Okhovat’s salary package is reportedly worth $3 million a year. Yet university-qualified teachers at long-day care centres operated by G8 earn only a fraction of this salary and have no access to employer-paid parental leave.
Mr Okhovat last year said G8 was committed to working with the government, unions and the Fair Work Commission to “ensure the best outcome for educators in the sector so that we provide the best possible outcomes for children and families”.
“Mr Okhovat should practise what he preaches through G8 funding staff paid parental leave,” Matthews said. “Improving pay and conditions for teachers and educators in this sector means better learning outcomes for children.”
