Childcare sector win multi-employer bargaining order
Thousands of Australia's lowest paid workers will now be able to negotiate for better pay and conditions. The Fair Work Commission has granted early educators and child care workers the right to collectively bargain in the first test case of new collective bargaining laws passed by the federal government earlier this year.
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TVTranscript
00:00 One of the things that's really clear is we know that in order to fund a wage rise, the
00:07 money has to come from somewhere.
00:08 And what the government's legislation is allowing us to do is to bring the government into those
00:12 negotiations.
00:13 What we don't want is families to bear the cost of any additional wages.
00:17 What we do need is a really important dialogue that this process allows between employers
00:24 of all sizes, employee representatives, the unions in particular, obviously, and the government
00:30 to make sure that we can make that work effectively and we can build the workforce we need.
00:35 Well, I wanted to ask you about that because this decision allows the government to come
00:41 to the negotiating table.
00:43 Who's ultimately going to pay these higher wages?
00:46 I mean, the people or the parties that are a part of this agreement, you know, will have
00:52 an obligation to pay whatever the agreement specifies there.
00:56 What we do know very, very clearly is that the government has introduced an improved
01:01 childcare subsidy to improve affordability for families.
01:05 That acknowledges that the costs for early childhood education are really significant
01:09 there.
01:10 It is absolutely imperative, considering the payroll and wages are the absolute majority
01:15 of our costs out there, that the government works with us and we hope they will and we
01:21 believe they will to ensure that what we can negotiate through this process is supported
01:26 and funded accordingly and does not come at the cost of those families there.
01:30 OK, so you want the government to fund whatever pay rises negotiated here?
01:34 Absolutely.
01:35 It's an imperative that they are part of this funding discussion.
01:41 And to their credit, they've facilitated this legislation to allow for that to occur, for
01:46 them to be involved.
01:49 Would it lead, though, to higher childcare costs for families?
01:55 I think that's not the outcome that anybody is looking for.
01:58 I think it's really clear both from the unions and from us employers who are part of this.
02:01 But is it a possible outcome?
02:03 Oh, look, it is a slight possibility.
02:05 And I think what we'll need to see is how this plays out over the over the months ahead.
02:10 What we don't, what we know is we need to get to an outcome as quick as possible because
02:14 we really need to stabilise our workforce because we know there are many services out
02:18 there who are not operating at full capacity due to a lack of available staff and wages
02:22 is one significant part of improving that outcome.
02:25 And that obviously flows on to families who can't get the access that they need, which
02:29 really has a bigger impact on our economy more broadly.
02:31 [BLANK_AUDIO]