Bridging Gaps to Build a More Powerful Union

October 11, 2006

October 11, 2006

Oregon child care provider 
Guadalupe Alvarado
PHOTO CREDIT: Jon Melegrito

Organizing child care providers is a daunting task and doing so while bridging a cultural gap is even more challenging. Oregon child care provider, Guadalupe Alvarado, has been surmounting these challenges while organizing Hispanic providers with Child Care Providers Together/AFSCME Council 75.

Alvarado, a CCPT member since 2004, visited Washington, D.C., recently to speak about her work as a provider during the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute 2006 Public Policy Conference.

“The event gave different community members a chance to let people know about our experiences. The speeches were all very good and informative. Nonetheless, I felt that there was a need for someone to speak from the heart and also talk about the difficulties we faced in order to get to where we are,” Alvarado says.

“One of our biggest challenges in Oregon was organizing providers from countries such as Mexico. They told us: ‘I don’t trust unions because when I lived in Mexico I had bad experiences with them’ and they had this idea that unionizing was not a good choice,” Alvarado explains. “We had to educate people about unions and explain to them that this was a valid way to get more support and gain more power.” 

Organizing a new workforce of independently employed providers, who do not receive standard state employee benefits, proved to be even more complicated as many had doubts as to whether they could even join a union.

“In the case of Hispanic child care providers, probably the most difficult thing was convincing them they had a right to unionize. Many were worried because they or their relatives were applying for residence or citizenship and didn’t want to jeopardize their immigration status. They were a bit scared and thought they might not have the right to be part of a union,” Alvarado adds.

Most of these doubts disappeared once they saw what CCPT was achieving in Oregon, she says. It was only last month that home-based child care providers signed their first contract with the state, exactly one year after Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D) issued an executive order allowing AFSCME to organize them. Providers now enjoy increased subsidy payments and a Bill of Rights that is part of the contract and establishes, among other things, that they should be treated with dignity and respect as well as have a union present during any interaction with state agencies. Oregon is the first state to sign a contract with family child care providers.

“Now that more Hispanic child care providers realize that we have rights and can join the union our confidence is enormous. Those same providers are talking to other providers to attract more members,” says Alvarado.

CCPT represents 4,400 child care providers in Oregon. AFSCME works with over 150,000 providers of all kinds, nationwide, to improve training opportunities, increase pay and expand access to benefits.