Within it,the “single interest” multi-employer bargaining stream will enable employees to bargain across several businesses if the majority of workers from each employer agree to do so,sparking outcry from businesses who say employers will be pulled into unworkable pay deals.
The early education sector is more amenable to the system,with providers and a key union agreeing to explore it at an industry forum that included the Community Child Care Association last month.
Ahead of what is expected to be a heated Senate debate,Burke stood with a crowd of early educators at parliament on Thursday to celebrate the passage of the bill and paid specific tribute to the Victorian example.
Price said their current agreement,finalised in 2020,was the third iteration of the multi-employer deal since 2013,and not only set out pay well above the award,but favourable conditions around programming and staff ratios.
She said that given many members of the agreement were helmed by parent committees,they benefited from the pooled resources and expertise the system allowed. “I’m not sure it’s a panacea for everything though,” Price said.
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She said some providers actually withdrew from the previous agreement because it wasn’t viable for them without further government funding.
In a submission to a Senate inquiry on the industrial relations bill,the Early Learning and Care Council said bargaining wasn’t the primary impediment to increasing wages,but funding.
“Under current funding arrangements,the only way providers could increase wages by 10-30 per cent would be to increase fees charged on families by 6-17 per cent. This would undermine the objectives of the government’s Cheaper Child Care affordability reforms,” the submission reads.
Unions and providers are uniformly calling on the government to overhaul the funding of the sector,which is primarily done by subsidising parents’ fees,so that public money can be pinned to wage rises. The Productivity Commission has been tasked with reviewing funding.
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“Without the additional funding from the government to increase educator and teacher wages,it just means families are paying more,” Price said. “There’s only two sources of income:it’s the government or families.”
She said their most recent agreement had taken 18 months to negotiate,but expected separate multi-employer agreements to be negotiated under the reforms to be faster.
United Workers Union early learning director Helen Gibbons said everyone was focused on finding solutions to the workforce crisis,adding the sector was already talking about how to make multi-employer bargaining work,“and what preparation we can do now”.