Former staff members of a Newcastle childcare found to be insolvent have recounted months of pay disputes and alleged missed superannuation payments during their employment.
The Little Unicorn on Honeysuckle and The Little Unicorn Charlestown were ordered to wind up their operations on the grounds of insolvency by the Supreme Court of Victoria on September 17.
The Newcastle Herald has heard from past employees who said they had to fight to get their pay entitlements.
Cas Martin worked at the Charlestown location from February 2024 to June 2025 as a preschool teacher.
After a workplace injury in October 2024, it took about 10 months to chase up payments from the centre for workers compensation insurance, Ms Martin said.
She was never paid back petty cash she spent on her classes and believed she was missing at least $3000 in superannuation.
Jorja Mcutchen was 16 when she started her "first proper job" as a trainee at Charlestown in March 2024.
She believed she was being paid about $2 an hour less than the award wage, and she thought she was owed up to $700 in superannuation.
"It was just not a good environment for me," Ms Mcutchen said.
She said when she followed up her pay issues with management, she was told it would be rectified, but she believed it never was.
Another former Charlestown employee said she was still owed about $1400 in superannuation after she left in early 2025.
"It was stressful, it made me not want to work there, but I stayed because I needed the money," the childcare worker said.
"It turned me against it [childcare] ... I had absolutely loved it but now I'm back looking for work and I'm back at retail where I don't want to be," she said.
One former centre director said staff came to her almost weekly about incorrect pay.
"I felt so defeated trying to get it all done properly and not getting anywhere," she said.
"I was frontline copping it left, right and centre because I was the person that they saw and had to deal with most of the time."
The employees who spoke to the Herald either never went to the Australian Taxation Office or never heard back about their superannuation claims.
Former employees at Charlestown and Honeysuckle also spoke of an allegedly difficult work environment where they felt behavioural complaints concerning staff or children were not adequately addressed.
"I felt like it was my passion and I felt I was so let down that I couldn't pursue that career," one former Charlestown employee said.
The Little Unicorn on Honeysuckle was also found to have unjustly, harshly and unreasonably dismissed an employee in a Fair Work Commission hearing in August this year.
The commission found there was no valid reason for the staff member's dismissal and that she had suffered financial loss due to losing her job.
The Honeysuckle company was ordered to pay more than $6000 to the former employee as compensation.
Financial issues plaguing the two centres surfaced after the companies told families they would not open their doors with less than a day's notice on September 8.
The Newcastle Herald understands the NSW Early Learning Commission was notified of the closure of the Honeysuckle site by the approved provider and it had received a temporary closure notification for the Charlestown location.
The Newcastle Herald has contacted the former general manager of The Little Unicorn for comment.
