What next????

I was aghast at this story regarding an ASX listed company trying to palm fines off onto workers, never mind that childcare workers are amongst the lowest paid employees in the community and that this corporation just keep gobbling up centres all over...If a centre is lax, it is the upper echelons who are at fault, not the workers. These are children we are talking about and many child care workers;despite the pay, LOVE their work; but they are forced to cut corners due to cost efficiency measures bought about by the corporate owners. I know centres who run AM shifts with one mothercraft nurse and two teenagers who come in before school, the Level 1, 2 and 3 childcare workers come in after 0900. The system of checking is flawed, the Department of Human Services needs to have carte blanc entry rights to child care centres at ANY time. Surely they realise that correct staff ratios are adhered to when they are in attendance only, the rest is just names written in a book as they have no access to pay details or hours worked for cross referencing.

Now, corporate child care giants want to have the fines for failure to comply with regulations enforced on the employees. Hello, work at the coal face for a while and see how you cope with the work conditions you enforce as POLICY!!! Coporatisation has no place in the care of our children. Bottom line is that a child absconded from a western suburbs centre, question is
How did they get out if child proof locking devices where installed??
And the child was gone for 1/2 hour, fine, a head count was done prior and another not due until a staff change over or movement from indoor to outdoor activity. This is tantamount to saying that truck drivers have to pay for losses in transit, train drivers reimburse commuters for late train arrivals. Seems the onus is on the OWNER not the employee, due diligence in mantaining a fit and proper place for the carrying out of the work for which is was intended. You can buy up the centres so that you own hundreds but the fact remains that the owner is where the buck stops. Give me a owner run and operated creche any day, least the owner is on site working with the staff, not in a highrise office unaware of any staff except the sycophants in the offices about them. Wake up and smell the nappies corporate creches.