IEU members attend summit to advocate for ECT equity, fighting wage stagnation

Union representatives from the Independent Education Union of Australia NSW/ACT (IEU) are present at the Jobs and Skills Summit today, calling for urgent reform to industrial relations laws that have been “stacked against them for decades”, leading to “nationwide wage stagnation.”

The IEU represents the industrial and professional interests of degree-qualified early childhood teachers and has a straightforward aim at the Federal Government’s Jobs and Skills Summit: grant early childhood teachers sector-wide bargaining.

“Sector-wide bargaining would be a big step in the right direction,” IEU NSW/ACT Branch Secretary Mark Northam said.

“Currently, early childhood teachers (ECTs) face an adversarial system – they have to negotiate in small workplaces with individual employers or volunteer committees who are unfamiliar with industrial relations laws, and as a result their salaries and conditions have not progressed as they should.”

ECT and Union member Janene Rox is attending the Summit, hoping that its outcomes mean “everyone is on the same playing field.”

“The national gender pay gap is 14.1 per cent, but for early childhood teachers it’s even wider,” Mr Northam said. 

“Early childhood teachers should be paid the same as school teachers – they have the same university qualifications and undertake the same accreditation processes – they are the professional equals of their counterparts in schools.”

The union aims to build on momentum from the Jobs and Skills Summit with its own roundtable featuring Federal Early Childhood Education Minister Dr Anne Aly on 4 November. Early childhood teachers from Queensland, NSW and the ACT will convene to talk with the Minister about various professional and industrial issues, including fair and just sector-wide bargaining.