These were the chants of more than 100 child-care workers who rallied here May 15 to oppose moves by the Employers Federation to cut their award working conditions.

Awards are legal documents established by arbitrators that set uniform minimum pay and working conditions in a particular job or industry. Depending on their collective strength and other social factors, workers in many industries actually receive over-award pay and conditions.

The workers, carrying handmade signs, came from at least 15 child-care centers around the city to protest outside a hearing on their award at the New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission. They are members of the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union (LHMU). There are some 20,000 workers, overwhelmingly women, employed in child-care centers around the state, working long hours for low pay.

"We're doing this ourselves," said Maggie Scott, who works four hours a day as a cook at SDN Children's Services in Marrickville. "We organized this stop-work rally and the union came in behind us," she explained. "We haven't had a pay raise since September 1997."

Scott went in to work early to precook meals for the day. "I didn't want to see the kids suffer because we had to take this action," she said. Scott also works as a nurse in order to make ends meet.

If successful, the Employers Federation's application to the commission would gut working conditions, which are already bad. The bosses seek to increase use of casual labor in the industry by starting temporary work contracts, eliminating 12 paid rostered days off a year, and ending paid lunch breaks in exchange for a 2 percent pay raise.

"If they get temporary contracts in, our four weeks' paid annual leave will be lost," said Andrew James, who works at the SDN center in Bellevue Hill. "They don't want permanent employees on their books in the summer months when there are fewer kids in care." Many workers had plastered themselves with stickers that read, "Temporary contracts: there's no future in that."  
 
'On the go all day'
James and others were eager to describe what they do in the centers. "We're on the go all day, from the minute we walk in," said Kim Lewis, who works at Liverpool Hospital Childcare Center with 11 others. "It's draining. You're greeting parents and kids with a bubbly smile, getting everyone organized, dealing with staff shortages, giving medications, writing assessments of each of the kids; everything has to be documented." Lewis leaves home at 6:00 a.m. and returns at 7:00 p.m. "I hardly see my husband," she exclaimed.

"We're not appreciated," James remarked. "People think we get lots of holidays and play with kids all day. They think we're glorified baby-sitters--but even baby-sitters get paid more than we do!"

Maria Nguyen, a worker at House at Pooh Corner on the grounds of the University of New South Wales who was born in Vietnam, said, "We work very hard. We want to defend our RDOs [rostered days off] and we want more pay." Workers pay for their RDOs by working, for example, 40 hours per week but only receiving 38 hours' pay, thus accumulating 8 hours pay per month. Nguyen explained that she has a diploma in child studies, which took her three years to get.

Purnima Chand, who works at SDN's Paddington center and is originally from Fiji, explained that with tertiary qualifications, workers get $13 an hour or $A395 [$US225] take-home for a 38-hour week. "If you don't have qualifications, you get $10 an hour." It is common for workers to be on the job for 11 hours a day to deal with working parents' schedules. They do not receive overtime pay rates for work beyond the eight-hour day.

The union has countered the bosses with a claim for a $A41-per-week increase and no cuts in working conditions. "Even with that kind of increase, these workers would still be underpaid," said Annie Owens, LHMU branch secretary.

Peter Mina, after working 10 days straight as a guard (conductor) on the railways, came to the rally on his day off to support his wife Colette, who works at the Liverpool Hospital center. "She comes home stressed every night," he said.

Mirjana Djuric, who left Yugoslavia seven years ago, worked full-time in child care there. She now works part-time at the Liverpool center while she improves her English. Djuric described the different situation and status child-care workers have in Yugoslavia. "I was considered a teacher. It is physically and mentally demanding work. For that reason we only worked six hours a day" as full-time workers. "Here there is too much stress, too much bureaucracy."

Djuric's workmate Kim Lewis pointed out, "Ten years ago I worked as a cashier at the supermarket. Today I'm only getting $1 an hour more than I did then," with huge responsibilities for people's kids.

Summing up the militant mood, Maggie Scott explained, "If we don't fight, we won't get anywhere."

Doug Cooper is a member of the Maritime Union of Australia.  
 
 
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