Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Preface to the Revised Edition
- Introduction: Women, the State and the Politics of Caring for Children
- 1 The Kindergarten Movement and Urban Social Reform
- 2 For the Sake of the Nation
- 3 A Mother's Place …?
- 4 Hitching Child Care to the Commonwealth Star
- 5 Playing Beneath the Sword of Damocles
- 6 For Love and Money
- 7 Child Care – an Industrial Issue
- 8 New Players, New Rules
- 9 Equity and Economics
- 10 The Market Rules … OK?
- References
- Index
6 - For Love and Money
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Preface to the Revised Edition
- Introduction: Women, the State and the Politics of Caring for Children
- 1 The Kindergarten Movement and Urban Social Reform
- 2 For the Sake of the Nation
- 3 A Mother's Place …?
- 4 Hitching Child Care to the Commonwealth Star
- 5 Playing Beneath the Sword of Damocles
- 6 For Love and Money
- 7 Child Care – an Industrial Issue
- 8 New Players, New Rules
- 9 Equity and Economics
- 10 The Market Rules … OK?
- References
- Index
Summary
The development of a strong industrial consciousness amongst child care workers is important not only to ensure that they receive the pay and conditions commensurate with their responsibility for the physical, emotional and intellectual development of young children, but also to ensure that a significant group of women gain recognition of themselves as ‘workers’. Such a development will make a major contribution to ensuring that good quality, government funded child care services become a widespread and ongoing feature of our society.
Brenda Forbath, ACTU Child Care Co-ordinator, 1984Until the mid-1970s, the groups which dominated the child care debate were concerned mainly with claims upon the state regarding the provision of services– in particular with the availability, type, cost and location of services. From about this time, however, industrial aspects of child care provision became an additional focus of attention and trade unions began to emerge as important participants in child care debates and campaigns. In the period from 1973 to 1983, the relationship between the trade union movement and child care providers and lobbyists was transformed. The level of unionisation and political activity amongst workers in pre-schools and child care centres steadily increased, necessitating the negotiation of some formidable obstacles – from the deeply ingrained attitudes of service and voluntarism held by most early childhood workers, to structural impediments such as the isolation of workers in small centres and the fragmentation of union coverage.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Politics of Australian Child CarePhilanthropy to Feminism and Beyond, pp. 119 - 140Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998