Child care - nothing for workers

Date: 12 May 2004

John Howard and Peter Costello have made no commitments in the Federal Budget to improve the wages and working conditions of Australian child care workers.

" This government is doing nothing to help the thousands of families desperately waiting for quality long day care places," Jo-anne Schofield, LHMU Child Care Union Assistant National Secretary, said today.

" Child care workers will be lucky to get $7 out of last night's Budget because the government has targeted the rich for its largesse - and done nothing for people earning less than $52,000.

" Most child care workers are earning minimum wages - getting paid between $12 and $14 an hour - so will not be seeing any of the tax cuts promised by Peter Costello.

" Nor has the Federal Government put aside any money to ensure that they can pay for wage improvements based on upcoming Australian Industrial Relations Commission rulings.

" The LHMU Child Care Union is aggressively pushing five cases through the Industrial Relations Commission at the moment all of which are expected to win real wage increases and pay equity for more than 70,000 Australian child care workers.

" The failure of the Federal Government to support these low-wage workers will result in cynical brinksmanship games by child care bosses claiming wage increases - not supported by government subsidies - will mean job cuts.

" The truth is the Howard Government refuses to properly regulate the growing profitable corporate sector which is reporting massive profit margins to the stock exchanges.

" They are reaping millions of dollars from government programs but are refusing to share these profits with their hard-working, highly qualified but desperately low-paid staff.

" Meanwhile the not-for-profit and community child care sector is put into a strait-jacked by a Federal Government program.

" Despite the $250 million funding increase for childcare there is nothing to address the structural issues of affordability of child care places and the quality-monitoring of child care centres.

" The failure to address these structural issues will simply fuel the excessive profits made by the corporate sector.

" Already the boss of the Peppercorn corporate childcare chain, Michael Gordon, has commented positively on the Federal Government's out-of-school subsidies.

" It is pretty clear that the private sector sees these new government operational subsidies for out-of-school care as a new market to add to their profits," Jo-anne Schofield said.

" Child care is a threshold issue for work and family policies. The failure to provide real support for day-care places shows that the Howard Government has failed families.

" The incentives for women to move back, even into part-time work, will not be possible if existing demand is not met and the government cannot assure mothers that they are monitoring and delivering quality places for our children," Ms Schofield said.

The LHMU proudly represents around 130,000 hard working women and men throughout Australia

Jo-anne Schofield LHMU Child Care Union Assistant National Secretary, 02 8204 7231 or 042 524 2684

For further information

Contact:	Andrew Casey
Union:	Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union
Phone:	8204 7206
Fax:	92821 4480
Email:	andrewc@lhmu.org.au
WWW:	http://www.lhmu.org.au/

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