$3 Per Hour to Take Care of Our Kids. Now, Hope Is at Hand

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/05/17/3-per-hour-to-take-care-of-our-kids-now-hope-is-at-hand/

$3 Per Hour to Take Care of Our Kids. Now, Hope Is at Hand
By: Tula Connell

Home day care providers and union organizers celebrate Gov. Spitzer's announcement that he has granted union rights to providers.


The public-sector union AFSCME and AFT, which represents teachers across the nation, won a big victory late last week when New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer signed an executive law that gives bargaining rights to the city’s 28,000 home child care providers and the more than 20,000 home care workers outside of New York City. Lots of people think workers don’t join unions because they don’t want to. The nation’s flawed federal labor laws are a big reason standing in workers’ way. But this example illustrates yet another reason why U.S. workers are hampered from easily forming unions. New York’s day care workers, like home care workers in California and Illinois, and others across the nation, can’t just automatically form unions.


Home day care providers and union organizers celebrate Gov. Spitzer's announcement that he has granted union rights to providers.

The day care workers, who, on average, are paid less than $19,000 a year and have no pensions, health insurance or paid sick days, first needed a law that gave them an employer—in this case the state’s Office of Children and Family Services—before they could join a union and negotiate a contract. The New York United Federation of Teachers/AFT (UFT/AFT) will work with the day care workers, and AFSCME’s Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) will reach out to the home care workers.

UFT/AFT Vice President Michelle Bodden has worked on securing this victory, and she’s guest blogging for me today to share why this law is so important.

…………………………………………………………..

On May 11, Gov. Spitzer came to New York City for a press conference on Labor History Month. He talked about the state’s grand past in the union movement, and at the end of his remarks, almost as an afterthought, he told the assembled group that he had signed an executive order giving home child care providers the right to unionize. The room erupted with cheering and clapping—we were witnessing a moment in the history of the labor movement in New York.

Why is this so important? For the day care providers first: In New York City as a group, they are overwhelmingly women, largely African American and Latina (40 percent speak Spanish as their first language) and grossly undervalued. The providers care for the children of families transitioning from welfare to work, and many times their own situations are as difficult as the families they serve. The subsidies they are paid are based on the age of the child, $150 per week for a toddler, divided over a five-day week with hours from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., which equals $3 per hour (of course, if a parent is late, the hours are longer).

Very limited funds are available for food, so providers often use money from their own pockets for food along with diapers, toys and educational materials. The bureaucracies involved in licensing and payments are immense and difficult to navigate—we’ve heard many horror stories. And to top it off, payments are often made late or not at all for a wide variety of bureaucratic reasons. Even before the executive order, we won more than $150,000 in back pay owed to providers for up to two years. That these women continue to do this work with all of these hurdles is a testament to their dedication and love of children.

FULL story at link.

[IndyOp]

1. Fantastic! Next: goverment support for daycare - the same as for public education.

Yeah Daycare Workers Union!

Next: Goverment support for daycare - the same as for public education.

Have you run the numbers lately? One year of work (40 hours per week, 50 weeks a year) at minimum wage will earn you $10,300.

Here are rates for a daycare center in Bloomington, Indiana:
* Infants until time of walking: $939 per month -> $11,268 per year
* Walking until 2 years old: $911 per month -> $10,932 per year
* 2 years old until 3 years old: $832 per month -> $9,984 per year
* 3 years old and older, not potty trained: $726 per month -> $8,712 per year
* 3 years old and older, potty trained: $674 per month -> $8,088
* Cubs Kindergarten: $626 per month -> $7,512 per year

I worked in a daycare center for two summers in college and I worked in a nursing home another two summers. I learned a lot. My co-workers at the nursing home (mostly nursing assistants - techs) could not afford to send their kids to even the very average daycare center I had worked at. Their kids were shifted from one babysitter to another - to family members as often as they were available. People who make anywhere near minimum wage can't afford daycare for their children. We should publicly fund daycare the same way we publicly fund elementary-high school education (and even public universities).