by James Parks, Oct 24, 2007

Today, some 28,280 home child care providers have a voice on the job after voting almost unanimously for the United Federation of Teachers (UFT)/AFT in the largest successful organizing drive in New York City in nearly 50 years.

UFT President Randi Weingarten says by joining the union, the workers, who care for 100,000 of the city’s poorest children, will receive training that will help them play a pivotal role in teaching and providing better care for the next generation.

We want to help these providers help children make the transition to pre-kindergarten and kindergarten by ramping up what we started, giving the providers opportunities for professional development as well as access to curricula and training. The unionization and professionalizing of providers will give thousands of children who will enter our public school system the head start they need. 

Bertha Lewis, executive director of the New York chapter of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which worked hand in hand with the UFT on a two-year grass-roots campaign to help the providers, says: 

They might currently be among the lowest-paid workers in the state but now that they have a union like the UFT behind them, they are well on their way to becoming part of the middle-class like other working New Yorkers. This partnership between ACORN and the UFT shows that great things can be accomplished when progressive labor groups and community organizations work together. 

A 2006 ACORN study showed that the average annual wage for family and group family providers in New York City is $19,933. The federal poverty line for a family of four in 2004 was $18,850. The providers have no health benefits, pension plan or paid vacations.

 Luz Alvarez, 53, who provides care for children in her Manhattan home, says: 

Thank Heaven, we finally have a union. I’ve been a provider for eight years and in that time I’ve had one vacation, which was to attend my daughter’s wedding. The union can help us go in and negotiate a salary and other benefits so we can take a vacation once a year or take a sick day without losing pay. 

AFT Secretary-Treasurer Nat LaCour, who attended the announcement of the vote, says: 

There is an old saying in early childhood education: “Parents can’t afford to pay, workers can’t afford to stay, there’s got to be a better way.” Today I believe that the UFT and ACORN have created that elusive better way. Together they have blazed a trail for a new form of community-focused union organizing that recognizes child care workers’ right to fair wages, children’s right to the best early learning experiences possible, and parents’ right to affordable and readily available, high-quality care.

 Ed at AFT writes in Letsgetitright.org that the key to the victory was the union’s ability to form partnerships.   

[The campaign] underlines the importance of building partnerships, in this case working with ACORN to build support within communities and working with elected officials. The people who do this work want what is best for the children they serve. This victory creates an opportunity for them to speak out on how to improve the quality of the care they give. It creates the opportunity for UFT to advocate for better training and support from the state and to provide some professional services directly as well. Today is a good day.  

The importance of political strength was evident in May when Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D), who was elected with strong union support, signed an executive order allowing 60,000 home-based providers to join a union. That order covers providers who care for the children of low-income workers whose day care is subsidized by the federal and state governments. 

Soon after the exective order was signed, the union presented 17,000 cards signed by these workers in order to request a union election, nearly twice the number needed.              

New York is the eighth state to let home-based providers join unions. They receive government subsidies to watch, care for and educate children from low-income families in pre-school and after-school settings. They provide meals and snacks, help children with reading, learning colors and numbers, help with homework, direct safe play and change diapers. 

While the UFT is helping child care workers in New York City, the Civil Service Employees Association/AFSCME is assisting child care providers in the suburbs and upstate New York who want to form unions.

Following the vote count, Tammie Miller, a 40-year-old mother of two who cares for children in her home in Brooklyn, summed up what the victory really means:

We are the children’s first teachers, so we represent hope in their lives just as the UFT represents hope in our lives. Without a union, without all this hard work, there was no hope for us.

We always teach our children that if they work really hard they can be whatever they want. And that’s what we’ve been doing, working hard for two years now for what we want. We are living examples of that. Being in a union was just a dream at one point and now it’s here. 

For more information on the child care workers’ victory, click here,  here, here and here. Lean more about Gov. Spitzer’s executive order by clicking here and here. 

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