Day-Care Drive a Tough Go

Organizing Home-Based Staff
Day-Care Drive a Tough Go

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

It took a union campaign for Lourdes Lebron, a day-care provider and a grandmother, to be accused of hooliganism.

The Chief-Leader/Michael O'Kane A BID FOR RESPECT: Lourdes Lebron has been a day-care provider in Brooklyn for 26 years, and she has been visiting her fellow providers and making calls from her home to help with the union's get-out-the-vote campaign. 'We need better pay and we need benefits,' she said. 'But it's also about respect.' "They called me a thug and tried to kick me out," said Ms. Lebron, a Brooklyn-based provider who has been knocking on doors to convince others in her position to vote union. "I'm trying to get into a building. I'm a 61-year-old lady. Now, do I look like a thug?"

A Grass-Roots Effort

Ms. Lebron is one among hundreds of providers and dozens of community organizers who hit the streets and worked the phones in the last several weeks, trying to make sure that a two-year campaign to organize the city's 28,000 home-day-care providers ends in victory.

Working off a list procured from the Administration for Children's Services, Ms. Lebron has spoken to at least 100 of her fellow providers. She has dodged unleashed dogs (she's petrified of them), tromped up several sets of stairs in the mid-day summer heat, and slipped by people who called her names. "I got into that building," she said, referring to the time she was called a thug by some of the residents. "I just waited them out."

The Chief-Leader/Michel Friang POUNDING THE PAVEMENT: ACORN organizer Shayla Austin has knocked on hundreds of doors in the past few weeks as the group works with the United Federation of Teachers to convince home day-care providers to vote in favor of unionization. The campaign to get the providers to join the United Federation of Teachers is in its final days, with the ballots that were mailed out in early September due to be counted on Oct. 23. Dozens of canvassers hired by the community group ACORN, which has partnered with the UFT during the two-year campaign, have knocked on 13,000 doors in the past two weeks. The organizers are optimistic, but they are taking few chances, with phone-banks buzzing at UFT and ACORN headquarters, over 700 providers contacting their co-workers, and UFT-produced weekly mailings in Spanish, Russian and Chinese to remind providers to mail in their ballots and vote union.

A Wary Customer

Last week, in a final round of home visits, 27-year-old ACORN organizer Shayla Austin, who struggles to find child-care for her own six-year-old son, was pounding the pavement in the Ditmas Park section of Brooklyn.

She knocked on the door of a massive building on Ocean Ave. Someone was home but wouldn't open the door. "Hi, my name's Shayla. I work for ACORN and I'm here on behalf of the Teachers' union," she shouted. "I'm here to speak to Mary Lee Kennedy." After several exchanges through the closed door, and more explanations of why she was there, the door opened slowly and an elderly woman peeked out. Ms. Austin asked her if she had received the union ballot and mailed it back. The older woman said she had and agreed to sign a petition stating she had done so.

Ms. Kennedy, who takes care of two of her great-grandchildren, said she had voted yes. Money was an issue. "I'm retired, but I've got to help out my daughter," she said.

Ms. Austin said it usually took about 50 doors to reach the daily goal of 12 signatures during her six-hour tour. "When we first started, there was a lot of suspicion," said Ms. Austin. "There's lots of people coming to the door, health inspectors; they see a clipboard and they think it's someone from the city. Other people thought it was a scam; that we might use their name and address to steal their identity."

Beware of the Dogs

Two wrong addresses later, Ms. Austin hit five more doors in three buildings with no answer. She pulled trilingual flyers out of her faded pink Hello Kitty bag and left them crammed between the doorknob and the wall. A dog began barking menacingly as she waited for the creaking elevator to take her back to the street. "It's usually not as bad in Brooklyn," she said, "but everybody in The Bronx has dogs, loose dogs, big dogs, like pitbulls and Rottweilers." She had so far avoided any injurious run-ins.

The relationship between ACORN, the UFT and the providers has been a mutually beneficial one. Providers who paid $10 and committed to become active members of the organizing committee were given access to reduced prescription drugs and dental care through the UFT Welfare Fund. They also were entitled to attend free monthly professional development classes at UFT offices, which could count towards licensing requirements.

The UFT's powerful political connections, combined with ACORN's grassroots operation and its own lobbying efforts, also resulted in a 2006 bill passed by the City Council that created a pilot "Providers' Choice" program. It allocated $500,000 to give providers funds to purchase supplies and other items used in the care and education of the children they serve. The UFT also helped providers to get back-pay owed to them by the city, a total of $130,000 for 60 providers to date.

A Boon for ACORN

The UFT's potentially bolstered membership is an obvious benefit, but ACORN has also seen its ranks grow throughout the campaign. In the early door-knocking days to gather signatures to allow the vote to take place, ACORN organizers talked about the benefits of joining ACORN as well as fighting for a union. The group advocates for and provides immigration, tax preparation and housing services.

In the final weeks of the campaign, the focus has been solely on the union, but the canvassing has allowed ACORN to make contact with many more people, and most of the financial cost of paying canvassers and running the campaign has been borne by the UFT.

"We've been working with the UFT for a decade now on education," said ACORN's day-care campaign coordinator America Cannas. "It's been a good marriage, and we've survived the seven-year itch." The day-care providers and some members of ACORN marched in the UFT contingent in last year's Labor Day Parade.

'Only Way to Get Respect'

Jenny Rivera, 38, became a team leader for the campaign in Manhattan after she met an ACORN organizer. Last year she cared for three children and made about $11,000. She has gone door-knocking seven or eight times in the past few weeks after 6:30 p.m., when she finishes taking care of four children who range from three months to six years. "I'm working for about 18 years and I never had benefits," she said. "Some people are scared they will lose their contracts if they vote union, but I tell them that it's the only way we will get any respect." As Ms. Austin continued down Ocean Ave. last Tuesday, she tried three apartments in one complex where no one was home. At the fourth door, Sandra McCullers answered with a roll of toilet paper in one hand and welcomed Ms. Austin into her apartment. The two-bedroom space was tidy, with a giant Tupperware-like container full of toys and an easel at the entrance to the living room. Ms. McCullers said she had voted for the union. She wanted to earn more money, but she couldn't imagine taking care of more than the two children in her care. "I love them," she said, "but they are a lot of work."

Reasons to Go Union

Turned back from a building where the buzzer didn't work, Ms. Austin tried two more apartments before finding Mary Mason in a sixth-floor apartment of a building with a lobby that could have housed two apartments. Ms. Mason could not say if she had received the ballot, as her mother was ill and she had been tending to her. She also had custody of a gleeful four-year old - her great granddaughter, who was wrapped around her leg at that moment - in addition to the six- and two-year-olds she was paid to look after. She said she planned to vote for the union, explaining that health and dental benefits were badly needed. "And I'm sure a raise wouldn't hurt," she added.

Ms. Austin said she had spoken with some male providers, but that they were "few and far between." Most providers are women of color or immigrants or both. They earn on average about $19,000 per year and do not have access to health care unless they purchase their own insurance plan, which is often prohibitively expensive. The highest concentrations are in public housing developments, although they are spread throughout the city. ACORN has canvassed every borough, dividing up the city in blocks of 90 to 120 providers per zip code for canvassers to cover.

A Labor of Love

Ms. Lebron takes care of six children ages six weeks to 9 years old, including a three-year-old who she says "has a mouth from the South." She has spent her 26 years as a provider in south Williamsburg and says there is no job she'd rather do. Although the neighborhood has changed and many of her children have moved away, she still sees some of them, including a severely retarded boy who is now 20 years old. "He passes by and he hollers my name, and calls up 'Tiene comida?''' she said. "He always wants food. I hug him and I kiss him and I feed him."

She has health-care coverage from her husband's job, but she says she joined the union campaign as much to get recognition for the work she does as for the increase in pay. She said the last rally, which was studded with city politicians, gave her a sense that they might actually win. "I save every paper, every article," she said. "When we're a union, I'm going to do a scrapbook, so we can remember what we did and how we did it."