'Kids babysitting are making more money than we are', says Cork Montessori teacher

SIPTU will host its first-ever conference for workers in the early years sector today in Dublin, with people working in the early years sector to travel from all over Ireland to attend.

It comes as a survey of those working in the sector revealed that over 84% of them will not stay working there if nothing changes in the next year.

Delegates will be addressed by speakers including Minister for Children, Roderic O'Gorman, and there will be panel discussions and motions discussed around the issues in the sector.

SIPTU Sector Organiser, Pat McCabe, told The Echo that there will be four main motions up for debate, the first being how to achieve a minimum baseline pay rate of €15 per hour, through increased Government funding.

They will also be discussing how to ring fence funding to ensure future increases to pay and core funding to coincide with cost of living increases, and tackling stress and burnout of those working in the sector.

'Low pay is biggest issue'

The results of a national survey of Early Years Educators and Managers on their workplace conditions will be released at the conference, with more than 1,300 SIPTU members and non-members working in all levels of the sector surveyed.

Almost 70% said that stress and burnout was their biggest work issue, and the main causes of this were staff shortages (31%), the intensity of the job (27%), financial pressures and low pay (22%).

Mr McCabe added, “We asked ‘if things stay the same, will you still be working in early years in 12 months time?’ and less than 16% of respondents said yes.” 

Timms Crotty Quinlan, a teacher in a montessori preschool in Cork who sat on the Joint Labour Committee (JLC) for the Early Years’ Service sector, said that low pay is the biggest issue.

She has worked in the sector for 22 years, and said that her employer pays a decent wage, so their staff turnover rate is low, “but where I work is very different to other places,” she said.

“People with level seven or level 8 degrees are being paid €13 an hour – kids babysitting are making more money than we are - there needs to be more investment and it needs to be ringfenced for pay.

“I have 11 kids on my own from under three to going on six - my kids are gorgeous and the school I work in is amazing, but that is hard work – and you’re being regulated by all these different bodies.” 

'A women's rights issue'

Julie O’Regan Lynch, who works in an after-school service in Cork, said “the sector is 98% women, and because it’s a caring profession, there’s this idea that it should come without pay, that it is a woman’s role in society.

“That’s why it has never gotten the recognition and the financial backing that it deserves - it’s a women’s rights issue.” 

Qualified people are leaving the sector over the low pay, forcing services to hire those without the qualifications, she said, adding “there’s a lot child psychology involved, this notion that we are just caring for the children and playing is a very antiquated idea, everything we do is a deeper process of working.” 

It’s typically a 38-week contract, leaving workers applying for unemployment benefits during the school holidays as they are not paid for this time, she said.

“Everybody is propping it up – you have to have a husband earning a good wage or be a younger person living at home with your parents still, but if these services weren’t there, society would ground to a halt.” 

Ms O’Regan Lynch said that it was great that the conference was being held, and that the Minister would be speaking at it, explaining “it affirms our professional status.

“INTO and the ASTI have had conferences for years, so we are behind other teacher’s unions, but it is a young sector – it only really began when women started going into the workforce in the 70s," she said.

“We are laying down the foundations for a child’s education and their life, and society in the future – if the people educating the children are not getting respect, how are the children to learn respect?

“People devote their lives to this sector, I have a masters in early years that I paid for out of my own pocket, because I saw what I could do for the future and for my country by teaching these children.”