‘Groundbreaking’ gains for child-care workers

WINNIPEG — Early childhood educators are getting historic raises that amount to as much as $5 more per hour.

The Manitoba and federal governments announced a new wage grid for the local early learning and child-care sector Friday.

It sets out hourly targets for various front-line positions, including child-care assistants, front-line ECEs and facility directors, based on certification level and the size of their licensed facility.

Baseline ECE II rates will jump to $27.56 from $22.90. The changes are retroactive to April 1.

The president and CEO of Brandon’s YMCA, which runs Early Learning and Before and After School programs that bring in around 100 children daily, said he is happy to see the profession recognized.

“If we have good quality people and we pay them accordingly, the kids benefit and the community benefits,” said Lon Cullen.

While the extra money may help with recruitment and retention, it won’t be an immediate fix to the larger issue of not having enough trained and certified ECEs.

“As we open more spaces, we still can’t train enough people to get into jobs in a year or two,” he said. “There just aren’t enough bodies out there currently to fill the spaces.”

Overall, he said it’s an exciting day for child care, and he hopes it makes the ECEs feel valued for the work they do.

Brittany Aube, who is the president of CUPE Local 3060 and an early child educator in Brandon, said she commends the government for this announcement.

She said it has been a long time in the making and that child-care workers are a vital pillar in keeping the province’s economy running.

“This monumental announcement will provide wages that can reflect the education obtained, invaluable quality of care and patience that child-care workers provide to children across the province every single day,” said Aube.

Trained CCAs will make $1.76 more an hour. If they are training to become an ECE II, their hourly pay is being topped up by almost $1.

“It feels surreal — this is something that we’ve advocated for, for so many years,” said Jodie Kehl, executive director of the Manitoba Child Care Association.

The association hired consultants at People First HR Services in 2007 to create a “market competitive wage scale” to help the sector attract more workers.

That aspirational scale has been indexed annually, based on the average wage increases in Manitoba, over the last 18 years.

Kehl burst into tears when she was given a heads-up that the province was aligning itself with the current iteration. The changes will not result in increases to parent fees at licensed sites, she noted.

“This is the key to really being able to expand access to affordable, high-quality child care here in Manitoba,” Education and Early Childhood Learning Minister Tracy Schmidt told reporters.

Schmidt noted she frequently hears from parents who are on daycare waitlists. At the same time, new facilities are opening with capacity for more children than they can accommodate due to workforce shortages, she said.

Her office is drafting a workforce strategy to tackle the issue. It is slated to be released before the end of the year.

“We have a lot of work to do, but Manitoba is a leader and today we are taking another step in that leadership in partnership with our partners at the federal government,” she said, noting the new wage adjustments aim to improve retention and recruitment.

Schmidt was joined Friday by Liberal MP Doug Eyolfson, an emergency room doctor who was recently elected to represent Winnipeg West on Parliament Hill.

Ottawa is providing $56.2 million for the initiative, while Manitoba is earmarking $4.2 million.

The provincial government is increasing base operating grants for licensed and funded centres by two per cent, or about $4.6 million overall.

“It’s one thing for parents to be like, ‘You mean the world to us, you help us go to work and you take care of a little piece of our souls’ — but to be paid as a professional, it’s groundbreaking,” said Tara Mills, an instructor who trains early childhood educators at Assiniboine College.

“It’s really going to legitimize early learning and child care not only in Manitoba, but across the country.”

The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents about 1,000 ECEs, endorsed the changes. CUPE said in a news release that the injection of cash will help advance career paths in the sector as wages are being bumped up between 10 per cent and 20 per cent.

» Winnipeg Free Press, with files from Skye Anderson