Children's Services Award Under Review By The Fair Work Commission

On 9th November, a four-yearly review will be conducted of the Children's Services Award 2010.

United Voice Australia, Australian Childcare Alliance, Australian Business Industrial and New South Wales Business Chamber, Business SA and two individuals raised significant issues in Mentions held in October to change the conditions of the Award.

The variations sought by the Parties mentioned above are as follows:

United Voice

• introducing a training allowance;  
• inserting a note under the clothing and equipment allowance clause regarding on-site laundry facilities;  
• inserting the words “hat, sun protection (including sunscreen lotions)” into the clothing and equipment allowance clause;  
• deleting the higher duties clause or alternatively, amending it to remove the words “(including in-service training)”;  
• reducing the maximum amount of leave without pay for a Christmas close down from 4 to 2 weeks;  
• introducing the following allowances: a weekly allowance for an employee appointed as an educational leader; an hourly allowance for a responsible person physically present at a child care centre; a programming and administrative tasks allowance for children service employees that are required to perform additional programming and administrative duties in addition to their rostered hours; and  amending the non-contact time clause by extending non-contact time to 8 hours per week.

Australian Childcare Alliance, Australian Business Industrial and the New South Wales Business Chamber

• amending the ordinary hours of work and the rostering clause to provide employers with greater flexibility to change rosters other than with 7 days’ notice and;
• to allow ordinary hours to be worked before 6.00 am or after 6.30 pm.

Individual 

• including an Educational leadership allowance for employees with educational leadership responsibilities in early childhood education and care settings; and  
• including a Responsible Person allowance.

Business SA

• amending the casual employment clause by removing the restriction on employing casuals for temporary and relief purposes

For more detailed information and a full transcript of the Mentions, please refer to the following: Fair Work Commission Will Meet To Review Award 

Reference:
Lucas, Freya "Fair Work Commission Will Meet To Review Award", The Sector, 02 November 2018