CHILDREN as young as three have been recruited to a union campaign run through a Sydney childcare centre demanding better wages for poorly paid early childhood teachers.
Despite not being old enough to read or write, about 40 children have been used by teachers at Summer Hill Children's Centre to sign and post a letter to Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, seeking a pay rise for their minders.
The letters, written as if in the first person voice of the toddlers - aged between three and five - claim that if their teachers were not paid more, they would be forced to work at Kmart or McDonald's where they would be paid more.
Many of the children's signatures appeared as drawings or scribbles.
The text of the letters was produced on the stationary of the national union, United Voice, and sent to both leaders three weeks ago.
The day care centre is run by the Uniting Care group.
"Our teachers have been at the Centre for many years now and we don't want them to leave us," the letters say.
"Because they have been here for so long they know how to make us safe and happy and we don't want them to leave here and go to another job, like Kmart and McDonald's which pays more money.
"Our teachers have worked and studied so hard to make our learning environment stimulating and educational so you need to help them by supporting their professional industry. You have the power to make a difference and by helping us, you are helping future children of Australia."
The Summer Hill Children's Centre director Roberta de Souza was unapologetic, claiming her charges were very politically aware.
"They are very political kids, because their parents talk about it with them," Ms de Souza said.
"We discussed it with the kids and they understood it. The kids understood what they were signing. We weren't really using the kids. Most of them know who Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott are.
"We only use the kids in issues which affect them, we wouldn't use them in government propaganda. They are very critical thinkers."
The toddlers are also being taught about the politics of asylum seekers, the stolen generation and previous classes of children had even participated in a protest march against a Telstra mobile tower in 2011.
She said she had sought permission from parents for the kids to sign the letters, which she claimed the children posted themselves.
"We are hoping one day they will become young activists," Ms de Souza said.
Neither the PM nor the Opposition leader has responded to the letter from the Summer Hill Children's Centre.
Ms Gillard recently offered a two-year pay rise for childcare workers under a deal which forces childcare centres to pay their teachers and minders more to win two-year funding grants linked to higher standards demanded under its childcare reforms.But Ms de Souza said the pay rise was a hollow one, as it would run out in two years' time, when wages would return to what they were before unless the next federal government agreed to continue them.
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