Childcare workers to receive 15 per cent wage increase, as walk off scrapped

Childcare workers will no longer walk off the job after the Albanese government agreed to bankroll a 15 per cent pay rise for early childhood educators at the cost of $3.6bn over the next two years. The deal will be conditional on childcare centres agreeing to cap their fee increases and require services to meet the national safety standard. The wage increase will be also offered to family daycare employees and in-home care workers for the first time. Funding for the existing two-year subsidy – which benefited more than 200,000 educators – was set to conclude in December after the government chose not to renew it in this year’s federal budget. The decision sparked outrage from the sector, with the United Workers Union claiming last month educators could face pay cuts of between 4 per cent and 15 per cent upon the deal’s expiry. The UWU subsequently threatened to strike on July 15 in a demonstration that would have seen thousands of childcare workers down the tools, but has since been cancelled. Anthony Albanese said in a statement educators “help give our children the best start in life”. “They do incredibly important work and they deserve to be fairly paid for it,” the Prime Minister said. Education Minister Jason Clare hailed the wage increase as “good news” for workers and families. “Our early educators deserve every cent they get and this funding locks their pay rise in,” he said. “Turns out if you pay people more, more people want to do the job”. Early Childhood Education Minister Jess Walsh conceded early childhood educators had been “underpaid, undervalued and overlooked” for too long. “And as a result, they were walking out the door,” she said.