Childcare workers across Australia are walking off job to demand pay hike

Thousands of childcare workers across Australia are expected to walk off their jobs on Tuesday, leaving over 300 centres closed. The workers are set to take part in an Australia-wide protest to demand a 30 percent pay hike.

At least 6,500 of early childhood teachers and educators who run the country’s childcare centres will likely be absent to join the protest, which comes after losing a Fair Work Commission equal pay test case in which they claimed that childcare work was undervalued because of gender inequality.

Helen Gibbons, United Voice assistant national secretary, confirmed that there are around 320 centres from the east to the west coast that are set to close. She said there are a number of centres that will close rooms and send delegations along to the various actions happening across Australia.

Gibbons added that it is fairly obvious this group of workers is massively underpaid and undervalued. ''You think about the enormous responsibility that they carry, and that they are skilled professional educators, and we are paying them as little as $21 an hour,” The Sydney Morning Herald reports her as saying.

According to the Independent Education Union, early childhood teaching work is done in an environment that is "stressful and intense, noisy, requires dealing with human waste and confined,” the ABC reports.

In WA, hundreds of workers will join their national counterparts in the protest. Parents are encouraged to make alternative arrangements for their kids on Tuesday.

The ball was now in Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s court, according to United Voice WA Assistant Secretary Karma Lord. Lord said the Australian leader had plenty of time to “fix the mess.”

Gibbons said the country spent .49 percent of GDP on early education, compared to the OECD average of .81 percent. This is comparable to New Zealand, which spent .91 percent of its GDP on early education.

Education and Training Minister Simon Birmingham said in a statement that he expects early learning and childcare centres to pay workers “as much as they can afford.” He added that the government’s role is to assist families in accessing affordable care, not to run those centres.