Already over-worked early\u00a0childhood educators\u00a0could\u00a0be left with lower pay after\u00a0a\u00a0Fair Work Commission\u00a0ruling\u00a0stretched\u00a0award wage\u00a0rises\u00a0over\u00a0three-and-a-half\u00a0years, instead of\u00a0a shorter\u00a0time frame\u00a0proposed by\u00a0the Federal Government.<\/p>\n
The ruling means 200,000 educators currently benefiting from an historic 15 per cent pay rise could face a pay cut late next year, back to lower award wages, in a sector that already struggles to retain workers due to workload, stress and low pay.<\/p>\n
United Workers Union educators fought hard for\u00a0the\u00a0historic\u00a015\u00a0per cent\u00a0pay rise\u00a0delivered by the Albanese Labor Government\u00a0last year,\u00a0with\u00a010\u00a0per cent paid\u00a0in December 2024 and 5\u00a0per cent paid\u00a0in December 2025.<\/p>\n
The Federal Government made the pay rises in recognition of historic gender undervaluation occurring in the sector, ahead of unions successfully arguing in the Commission earlier this year for gender undervaluation pay rises. In the case United Workers Union members won pay rises of 23 per cent for an educator with a Cert III to address gender undervaluation.<\/p>\n
In its submissions to the Commission the Federal Government\u00a0said the\u00a0bulk of the\u00a0gender undervaluation pay rises should be\u00a0awarded\u00a0before the expiry of the\u00a0current pay rise\u00a0in November 2026, meaning no educator would lose pay when\u00a0funding for the pay rise ended.<\/p>\n
However in its ruling yesterday, the Commission stretched the pay rises out until, in some cases, June 2029.<\/p>\n
United Workers Union Early Education Director Carolyn Smith said it was disheartening to see early educators possibly impacted by a Commission decision that was seemingly out of step with the Commission’s own views on the importance of pay rises to address gender undervaluation.<\/p>\n
\u201cEarly educators dedicate their working hours to supporting\u00a0children, and\u00a0provide a vital service,\u201d Ms Smith said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are skilled,\u00a0experienced\u00a0and serious about their important work in\u00a0nurturing children.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year, there has been a string of devastating incidents reported in early education, and\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0become\u00a0clearer\u00a0than ever that supported, committed and well-trained educators are essential to the sector.<\/p>\n
\u201cDelaying the award increase is a step backwards that educators and the sector simply can\u2019t afford. We will see more and more experienced educators leaving the sector because they simply cannot afford to pay the bills in a job that doesn\u2019t value them fairly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Federal Government must step in to preserve the stability the 15 per cent pay rise has brought to the sector.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnion members will not be backing down. We will continue to fight for fair pay that recognises the important work of early educators nationwide.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Already over-worked early\u00a0childhood educators\u00a0could\u00a0be left with lower pay after\u00a0a\u00a0Fair Work Commission\u00a0ruling\u00a0stretched\u00a0award wage\u00a0rises\u00a0over\u00a0three-and-a-half\u00a0years, instead of\u00a0a shorter\u00a0time frame\u00a0proposed by\u00a0the Federal Government. The ruling means 200,000 educators currently benefiting from an historic 15 per cent pay…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":18336,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[108,272],"class_list":["post-75646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media-release","tag-early-childhood-education","tag-gender-undervaluation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75647,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75646\/revisions\/75647"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}