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UFT to Pursue 28,000
Home Day-Care Staff;
The campaign began two years ago and was given a major boost May 11 when Governor Spitzer signed an executive order giving the workers, who in the past had been classified as independent contractors, the right to organize. 'Union Gives Us Power'
"We educate and prepare children for school, we perform first aid, counseling, provide meals and create a second home," said Tammy Miller, a provider who cares for six children in her Brooklyn home. "The importance of what we do often goes unrecognized. We want a union because we all face the same problems, but as individuals we have no power." Previous bills in Albany backed by the UFT would have classified the workers as state employees, but were vetoed by then-Governor Pataki. Mr. Spitzer's action does not designate the home providers as state workers, which would have put them under Taylor Law jurisdiction and given them access to the state pension system. Instead, home day-care providers statewide have been divided into four bargaining units. If the workers elect to have union representation, they will bargain for market rates, regulations and working conditions with the state. Business groups had strongly opposed the legislation granting the day-care employees state-worker status because of the increase in benefit costs. Mayor's Warning Mayor Bloomberg has argued that the Governor's decision to grant unionization rights without increasing state funding for child-care programs could result in a loss of 15,000 child-care slots in the city. The UFT's effort began in earnest in May 2005 after the union and the community group ACORN got the city to give them a list of all subsidized home day-care providers. The two groups began going door to door to unionize the workers. An ACORN canvasser knocked on Ms. Miller's door 19 months ago. "His first question was, 'Are you having any problems with child care?''' she recalled. "And I said, 'Problems? How much time do you have?''' The workers care for children as young as six weeks, and give after-school care to those as old as 12 years. Ms. Miller, like most other day-care workers, said children arrive at her home at 8 a.m. and leave at 6 p.m. She hasn't had a vacation in three years, and last year she made just over $19,000. "Most parents that are utilizing these subsidies are transferring from welfare to work," she said, "and we're the ones who are allowing that program to happen. We shouldn't be making poverty wages ourselves." Out-of-Pocket Expenses Sheree Cromer, who cares for eight children in her home in Brooklyn, noted that the providers must pay $1,000 in liability insurance out of pocket, as well as buy snacks, toys and books for the kids. She said a UFT pilot program gave her a $150 grant last year to pay for developmental items. "I bought my children musical instruments," she said with a smile. "They loved it." Last week, two years after the first house visit, the UFT delivered more than 12,000 petitions signed by day-care workers, collected between September 2006 and February of this year, to the State Employment Relations Board to ask for an election. SERB officials will hold a hearing in June to determine if the valid signatures comprise at least 30 percent of those in the bargaining unit, and if so will set the guidelines for the election. The UFT is requesting a mail ballot and if there are no objections by the state, a date on which ballots will be mailed to the day-care workers will be set at the hearing. Administrative Law Judge Michael Boyajian, who is handling the case, said he expected it to "move with lightning speed" and that a date should be set within a few months of the hearing. At least half the workers must respond for the election to be considered valid. Warm Climate UFT President Randi Weingarten said the union decided to go for a secret ballot election rather than a "card-check," in which a majority of workers sign union representation cards, because there was not a hostile employer. "You use card-check when you have a recalcitrant management," she said. "In this case, the Governor signed the bill and we will be bargaining with the state." Ms. Miller said that she, other providers and UFT and ACORN organizers would soon begin a get-out-the-vote effort, knocking on doors, phone-banking and holding house meetings. CSEA Push Upstate The organizing effort is also in progress in other parts of the state. On May 15 the Civil Service Employees' Association filed for recognition to represent 7,000 licensed home child-care providers outside of the city. Union officials hope to organize a total of 25,000 workers statewide. Unsubsidized providers in the city are in a separate bargaining unit from those caring for subsidized children. UFT officials said they would decide in the future about unionizing private child-care workers. UFT officials said they believed the Office of Children and Families Services would be the body designated to negotiate with the union, but a spokesman in the Governor's Office said that would be determined as the process moved forward.
"This is probably the largest group of workers to stand
up en masse to demand dignity and a union in a generation," AFL-CIO New York
City Central Labor Council Executive Director Ed Ott told a group of day-care
workers at a press conference last week. "This will give courage to thousands of
other workers to stand up. You have shown the way." | ||||||
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