[Fight for a national plan for under-fives services…]

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Fight for a national plan for under-fives services.

Fight for a massive expansion of education and day e * Fight for an end to low pay in the nursery service. * Fight to restore the cuts in nursery building.

* Fight to base the expansion of services on nursery centres.

Fight to abolish the NNEB and create an integrated training scheme for all under-fives workers.

Fight to provide pre-school facilities with flexible hours Fight for local councils to draw up a development plan * Fight to change the law on childminding and registration. * Fight for one Government department to have responsibifity A CHILDMINDER may net under £16 for a 42 hour week. If she raises her rates she may lose the children in her care to someone charging less. There is no standard rate, and no minimum rate.

woman with two under-5s may pay over half her wages to a childminder. If the rates go up it becomes hardly worth her while to work.

Reduced

Local social services departments benefit. They provide too few nursery or othel places, catering for prioritv' children and ignoring other need. So they use childminders extensively, often paying reduced rates, or expecting the parents to pay part.

The power to grant or withhold registration for childminders rests with these departments. With registration they can (and do) limit the number of children to as few as three, including the minder's own, and demand certain health and salety measures, feeding arrangements, etc.

Lothian

Lothian is one of the few which also uses its powers to provide training, insurance, equipment and support for the childminders in its area. Most departments use their power only for 'policing' childminders, a disincentive to registering since a limit on the number of children also limits income.

Most childminders do the No sick pay, no breaks, ni job because they have dependent children or others at home, because they want company for their own children and enjoy working with them, and because they need the money.

Out of that money, they must provide some or all of these: food, heating, fares and entertainment, toys, clothes, equipment (such as prams, pushchairs, etc.), cleaning materials and repl acements for damage, wear and tear.

That can add up to £20 a week. alidays...

There is no sick or holiday pay for childminders, no breaks during a working day averaging over 8 hours, and no negotiation structure.

Many reduce their rates for poor parents, and many have less work (and less money) during school holidays.

Angela Coulter's pamphlet looks at childminders as workers. Previous (academic) studies have judged by the yardstick of ideal mother/ teacher, and blamed childminders for the poor conditions in which they often work.

And the Victorian anti"baby farming" sentiments still linger: that good childcare and reasonable reward for it are incompatible.

The Low Pay Unit sent questionnaires to members of the National Childminders Association (NCMA), and received replies from over 800, probably the most organised of registered childminders. It is from these that the average pay and expenses were calculated.

The NCMA, though increasingly providing support locally for childminders does no more than recommend a standard rate and contract (with parents).

It avoids the demand for local authority salaried childminders, recommended in 1975 in the Childminders Charter by a childminders' group affiliated to NUPE, and endorsed by TUC and Labour Party working parties, the Equal Opportunities Commission, and by the recently formed National Child Care Campaign.

The most recent (1981)

to be available on demand, free of charge.

to meet the needs of working parents.

for all under-fives services.

for under-fives services.

NUPE - strong on posters, estimate of the number of registered minders is 43,000, caring for 106,000 children.

This is almost definitely an underestimate. In addition, it is anyone's guess how many hundreds of thousands of children are cared for by unregistered minders or informal arrangements with friends, neighbours and relatives.

'Home-like' This "comm inity care" and Penelope L sach popular author of bool is on Susan weak on action childcare, and scourge of the working mother, recomends minimal local authorit! intervention, since this disrupts the 'home-like' qualities of childminding.

Mothers

Coulter ends on the note that "the childminders are being exploited because oI society's ambivalent attitude towards women's employment" (legislating for equal opportunities while destroys women's jobs). The pamphlet makes a good case for salaried, trained and sup ported childminders and fo: unionisation.

Unfortunately she fails 1o mention the other majo: reason for their exploitation: society's ambivalent attitude towards women's domestic labour and hence towari childcare. There is a continuum from the registered minder through the unregis tered minder and the helpful neighbour, to the mother at home who is just a domestic slave.

Childminders won't get a fair deal until mothers get a better one.

*Who Minds About the Minders? from Low Pa: Unit, 9 Poland Stree:. London WIV 3DG. Price £I.

National Child Care Car.paign, 17 Victoria Park Sq.. London E2 (981 1221).

lers But in Oxfordshire like almost every other area NUPE officials and branch officers have stood back ar allowed the school meak service to be decimated.

Women in public secis:

unions are up against the bankruptcy of both ther own officials and Labou councillors, who see ther role as simply beseeching ine Tories to be more lenient.

Keeping an eye on i* pitiful proceedings in the council chamber is part 37 parcel of the fight we mus wage for a new kind e:

leadership to defend our jot.

and services.

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Fight for Fight for under -fives facilities