‘Pay bump’: province, feds seek to build child care wage grid

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This article was published 27/06/2022 (1207 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A long-promised wage scale for underpaid child care sector employees in Manitoba kicks in Canada Day, following a federal-provincial announcement of $34.7 million for non-profit centres to establish a “consistent and competitive” salary grid.

“Bring people back, encourage new people to get on board” is the intent of the announcement, federal Minister of Families, Children and Social Development Karina Gould said at a news conference Monday in Winnipeg, along with Manitoba Education and Early Childhood Learning Minister Wayne Ewasko.

The $34.7 million is part of the five-year, $1.2-billion Canada-Manitoba early learning and child care agreement signed in August 2021. It will be allocated to existing operating grants through an additional “wage grid supplement” for early learning and sector staff who care for children under the age of seven.

Another $2.3 million is being allocated to ensure staff working in school-age child care programs are fairly compensated.

The sweeping, five-year plan includes the creation of 23,000 child care spaces in Manitoba.

In order to do that, the sector needs to attract and retain more early childhood educators — many of whom have left the field for better-paying jobs elsewhere, Gould said at the YMCA-YWCA south branch child care centre.

The Manitoba wage grid sets out hourly wages ranging from $16.05/hour as a starting point for the lowest-paid child care assistant to a maximum target of $36.84/hr for the most highly-trained early childhood educator directing a facility with 150 to 200 spaces.

“Effective Canada Day, workers will get a pay bump,” said Kent Paterson, president and chief executive officer of Winnipeg YMCA-YWCA, as preschoolers went about their learning in the background.

“It will take some time to work this through.”

The feds and Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative government also announced Monday the allocation of $8.1 million in new, ongoing operating grants that will fund more than 3,100 new early learning and child care expansion spaces at 177 facilities across the province.

“Access to quality care helps children thrive,” Ewasko said.

Investing in a stable child care system gives families peace of mind and helps Manitoba thrive by addressing labour market shortages, said the minister. For more than 20 years, advocates have called for accessible, affordable, quality child care — now they’re getting it, Ewasko added.

“Today, your PC government, partnering with the federal government, is proud to make these two very, very important announcements.”

The $8.1 million includes $4.8 million in new, ongoing operating grants for 2,294 school-age care spaces for children ages seven to 12, and ensure low- and middle-income parents can access affordable, regulated care. Another $3.3 million will fund 815 care slots for infants and children under age seven, including 68 infant spaces, 549 preschool spaces and 198 nursery-age spaces.

“It’s very welcome news” and “a start,” said Manitoba Child Care Association president Lynda Raible. She noted the five-year goal of the bilateral child care deal is to create 23,000 new spaces.

“That’s going to take another 3,000 trained ECEs (early childhood educators),” Raible said following the announcement at the Winnipeg daycare. “I can’t bring those trained ECEs in if I don’t have the money to recruit and retain them. We know recruitment and retention is everything.”

She applauded the increase in operating grants but said some of that increase will be absorbed by inflation — which in Manitoba was 8.7 per cent in May, year over year, Statistics Canada reported last week.

“We haven’t had an increase in our operating grants since 2016,” said Raible.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca