The IEU welcomes the strong support for gender equality shown by shareholders of G8 Education. Almost 30 per cent of shareholders voted at G8’s annual general meeting on April 29 for a resolution to fund paid parental leave for staff.
G8 is Australia’s largest sharemarket-listed childcare provider. It employs about 10,000 people – mainly women – at more than 400 childcare centres around Australia. The resolution asked G8 to follow Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s best practice process for creating a paid parental leave policy. Yet the G8 board recommended a vote against the resolution to fund paid parental leave to staff.
Fighting for better outcomes
The IEU represents university-qualified teachers in long day care centres and non-government preschools in NSW and the ACT.
IEUA NSW/ACT Branch Secretary Carol Matthews said childcare providers such as G8 should fund paid parental leave to address the sector’s staff shortages and high turnover rates.
“A lack of employer-paid parental leave contributes to women’s economic inequality,” Matthews said. “This is why we will continue to fight for better outcomes for teachers in the sector.”
The union backed the campaign by shareholder lobby group Sustainable Investment Exchange (SIX) to pressure G8 to show it valued early childhood educators through paid parental leave. The IEU’s petition calling for paid parental leave was handed to G8’s executive at the AGM by SIX Campaigns Manager Phoebe Rountree.
Rountree said the shareholder activist group was hopeful the high vote result will prompt G8’s board to take action.
“Women taking unpaid time to care for newborns and young families is a big contributor to the gender pay gap,” she said. “The vast majority of G8 Education’s employees are women. Offering paid parental leave is a practical step towards gender equality.”
Soaring Salary for CEO
G8 Education chief executive Pejman Okhovat’s salary package is reportedly worth $3 million a year. Yet university-qualified teachers at long-day care centres operated by his company earn only a fraction of this salary and have no access to employer-paid parental leave.
G8 is also embroiled in the growing scandal over serious safety breaches at childcare centres, which is now the subject of a NSW parliamentary inquiry.
Matthews said the union was disappointed by the outcome of the vote but heartened by the support shown by one-in three shareholders for paid parental leave.
“These shareholders know it makes economic sense for G8 to fund paid parental leave for its staff,” she said. “Improving pay and conditions for teachers and educators in this sector means better learning outcomes for children.”