20,000 More Pennsylvania Child Care Providers Now Have a Union

May 16, 2008

DAY OF VICTORY – Pennsylvania child care providers Ethel Soloman (left) and Sherrie Richardson (holding shirt) celebrate in April after some 20,000 home-based providers joined with Child Care Providers UNITED.

Photo Credit: Vanessa Clifford

An additional 20,000 home-based child care providers throughout Pennsylvania have joined with 3,700 state-registered and licensed providers to form their own union, Child Care Providers UNITED (CCP UNITED).

An overwhelming majority of the home-based providers who cast ballots in April voted to join CCP UNITED, which is jointly affiliated with AFSCME and the Service Employees International Union. These providers receive a state reimbursement, but are exempt from state certification because they are only allowed to care for up to three children.

State-registered and licensed providers, who can care for up to six children, voted last October to join CCP UNITED.

“This is an exciting day for family child care providers and the working parents who depend on us,” says Philadelphia provider Sherrie Richardson. “Now we have one strong voice and can work with the state to improve regulations, increase training opportunities, and win other changes that will raise the quality of child care in Pennsylvania.”

Clearfield County child care provider Bonnie Caldwell, who is also executive director of CCP UNITED, says the union is transforming child care in Pennsylvania:

“Studies have linked quality child care in the early years with better academic performance and less problematic behavior among schoolchildren. With our new, unified voice we’ll be able to raise child care standards across the entire state.”

Publicly funded family child care providers have won the right to form a union in 10 states since 2005. The Pennsylvania providers’ victory is part of a national movement to gain dignity and strength by joining with AFSCME, which now represents about 188,000 family child care providers, plus more than 15,000 day care and Head Start workers, in California, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Learn more about how the Pennsylvania providers gained collective bargaining rights. Also, thanks to Labor Union Blog for highlighting the providers’ success.