Childcare workers at the City of Sydney Council have missed out on a $160 a week pay bump because the Council refused to fill in paperwork for a federal government grant.
The 50 childcare workers who run the Council's 10 centres across the city in suburbs like Redfern, The Rocks, Woolloomooloo, Eveleigh, and Pyrmont are gobsmacked by the decision by Council to turn down the federal funds.
Some will miss out on more than $17,000.
Childcare workers at 51 councils across the state are eligible to receive a $160 a week pay bump after the Albanese Government awarded them a special two year 15% pay increase to stop chronic recruitment and retention issues in the sector.
The only councils not to apply for the grant are the City of Sydney, Ku-ring-gai and Bayside.
The money has been flowing to childcare workers across the country since December 2024.
Childcare workers at the City of Sydney Council, who are represented by the United Services Union (USU), organised a petition pleading with the City to hear them, and even wrote an open letter when they received no response.
"How dare City of Sydney bureaucrats make a decision to refuse money for hard working Early Childhood Educators, it's just outrageous," said Mr Steve Donley, USU Metropolitan Manager.
"Our members look after kids, consent is everything to them, so have the decency to treat them with the same respect and ask what they think about pay proposals before them."
"City of Sydney Council runs four childcare centres, and six outside of school hours care centres, these places are vital for community functioning, these are essential services, we need to be paying the Early Childhood Educators there as much we can.
"The City of Sydney Council say because 15 childcare workers out of 50 aren't eligible for the payment they are going to deny it to all of them, that's just outrageous, especially to top up the pay for those 15 workers would be peanuts as the council ran at a $115 million surplus last year.
"Nine of out 10 of these Early Childhood Educators are women, and most are working mums, so to deny these low paid workers looking after our kids a pay rise is just criminal.
"These Early Childhood Educators are amongst the lowest paid at City of Sydney Council, they just can't believe it."
