Valued Workers, Well-Cared-For Kids
By Allison Porter
That's what AFSCME's United Child Care Union is striving to achieve. Ultimately, the dignity and economic well-being of 2.3 million underpaid but dedicated workers are at stake.
PHILADELPHIA & NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
It's Monday morning, and Ursula Jones has a dozen three year olds in her classroom. But her attention is focused on one, William, who seems particularly sad. His mother dropped him off in a rush to get to her job, and he won't come over to the carpet for "circle time." Miss Ursula, as the children call her, tells the others to get out some puzzles while she goes over to comfort William.
For Jones, taking care of inner-city kids from this North Philly neighborhood while their mothers work in low-wage jobs is about a lot more than a paycheck. "It's my calling," she says matter of factly. "If I can make a difference in the life of one child, then what I do is not in vain."
There are 2.3 million child care workers nationwide, and most of them share Jones's passion for her job. But this grandmother of five has something that 95 percent of other child care workers don't have — a union card. That's because she and her co-workers are represented by the United Child Care Union, an AFSCME affiliate.
The UCCU, founded in Philadelphia in 1998, is fighting to increase public investment in quality care for children by improving the jobs of adults who look after them when their parents cannot. Since 1998, the union has grown to over 3,000 members, and has expanded from Philadelphia to Northern California through coalition building, collective bargaining and political action. As one of the founders puts it, the union is building a "child care and family support movement."
OUT OF LOVE, POWER. Members are using their determination and their love for their profession to improve conditions and create a dynamic and powerful union.
Child care is historically a non-union industry spread out in a mosaic of small workplaces. Organizing is an uphill battle, especially since employers tend to behave like management in most non-union companies; that is, they resist unions aggressively. Nevertheless, experience has shown that with creativity and active participation, child care workers can successfully form and sustain unions.
The demand for child care services has never been greater. Cultural changes, welfare reform and economic pressures have propelled into the workforce record numbers of mothers of children under of five years of age. In 1962, only 20 percent of mothers with children under five were working. Today, over 65 percent are employed, and in need of child care.
Struggling to meet the need are 550,000 child care specialists who work in day care centers and pre-schools; 650,000 licensed family providers (who run home-based businesses caring for small groups of children) plus the providers' assistants; and 1.2 million paid relatives and unlicensed caretakers.
Although demand has increased, and federal and state subsidies for child care have grown, conditions on the job have scarcely improved. Child care workers find themselves at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. They earn an average of $8 an hour, with 30 percent making only minimum wage. Almost as bad, in an industry where workers are regularly exposed to infectious diseases, is the fact that fewer than 30 percent have employer-paid health coverage. Even fewer receive a pension.
A defining feature of high-quality child care is experienced, well-trained staff. Studies show conclusively that the presence or absence of consistent, safe and loving care during the critical early years of a child's life has lasting consequences. Improving working conditions for child care workers reduces employee turnover and is therefore essential to providing quality care for children.
THE SOLUTION: ORGANIZING. The UCCU's co-presidents are no strangers to the challenges facing child care workers. Denise Dowell spent 20 years in the child care industry, as a family provider, day care manager and advocate for non-profit organizations, before turning to union organizing as the solution to the problems she saw. "I came to realize that unions are the best mechanism for workers and providers to have a more powerful voice in the workplace and at the policy level."
Co-Pres. Vickie Milhouse was employed for 25 years as a child care worker and teacher-trainer at Temple University's child care center, where she helped lead her union. When Temple closed the center in 1995, Milhouse switched to a non-union facility. "I took a $9,000 cut in pay and lost half my benefits," recalls Milhouse. "I'd always been pro-union, but that was an education about the difference a union could make." When Milhouse got a call asking if she wanted to help build a union of child care workers, she grabbed the opportunity.
After the UCCU's founding, Dowell and Milhouse set out to mobilize child care workers and to convince employers to be neutral on the question of whether or not their employees formed a union. As Dowell notes, "The union and the employer want the same things — high-quality jobs and high-quality care — and we can get them if we work together."
In July 2000, workers at Allegheny Child Care Academy, a for-profit chain in Pennsylvania, met to form an organizing committee. Management launched a "carrot and stick" campaign, contributing an extra $100 per month to company-paid health insurance premiums while holding mandatory anti-union meetings.
In spite of that, a majority of Allegheny workers voted in favor of the union. Preparing for negotiations, UCCU activists reached out to management with a proposal to work together toward common goals. Management agreed, leading to a strategic partnership between Allegheny and the UCCU.
Not all employers embrace the union's call for collaboration, but that doesn't stop the UCCU. "We support everyone who wants a union, regardless of the employer's opposition," Dowell declares.
TOP PRIORITY: THE KIDS. Bargaining lasted eight months and brought significant results: a wage increase, guaranteed hours of work, increased leave time, paid in-service days, a labor/management committee and card-check recognition at new sites. As Dowell sums up the positive and productive atmosphere that surrounded the negotiations: "Both sides were talking about what's good for the kids."
Two years later, union-negotiated in-service days and additional teacher-trainer positions have improved job performance and contributed to a 20 percent increase in staff retention. Last fall, with funds from a federal Critical Jobs Training Grant, the two parties opened a joint learning and support center onsite at Allegheny.
"The partnership is great," says Ana Roman, a union delegate and a teacher in the infant and toddler room at Allegheny. "Now the director comes to me, asking what I think of this or that. I carry my union book around with me — highlighted — and we talk about what needs to happen."
CARE IN THE HOME. Family providers who take care of children in their homes work longer hours with even lower pay and even fewer benefits than their counterparts employed in centers. Because they are considered self-employed, they are not covered by the National Labor Relations Act. Despite the UCCU's commitment to representing all child care workers, it initially struggled with how to organize home-based providers.
In 2000, leaders from family provider associations in California's Bay Area concluded that they needed to join forces with a national union in order to have a voice in their industry. "We were impressed that the UCCU was run by child care workers and that they had a track record of making concrete improvements in conditions," notes Rosie Kennedy, president of the Family Child Care Association of San Francisco.
Two hundred members of the association voted to affiliate with the UCCU, and within months, five other associations and two small Spanish-speaking peer groups in Northern California also came aboard. As part of the agreement, association members pay a UCCU fee in addition to their association dues. "What we're doing is truly ground breaking," says Kennedy proudly. "We are empowering child care workers to create a unified voice for top-quality care."
POWER OVER CONSEQUENCES. Melanie Rincon, family provider and president of the Sonoma County Child Care Association, knows from personal experience that caretakers need to have a stronger voice in child care policies: "We need to be part of the decision-making process — because we live with the consequences."
Last fall, for the first time, family providers joined hundreds of AFSCME members for a day of legislative activism in Sacramento. Rincon spoke on the steps of the capitol, urging the politicians not to balance the budget "on the backs of children and the people who care for them."
When she and other family providers visited key legislators to talk about child care issues, she was surprised to find them in their offices and eager to meet. "Before, the legislators were often out or unavailable. Now that we have our union and belong to AFSCME, they are not only more apt to be there, they actually listen to what we have to say. It gives you a feeling of power."
The movement for high-quality jobs and care is picking up speed. Recently, the UCCU launched a Web site, lobbied to prevent child care funding cuts, participated in joint leadership training with management and kicked off a new organizing campaign. While child care workers fight for a decent standard of living and treatment as professionals, they recognize that the rewards for their work come in small packages.
"It's a good feeling to come in the morning and see the children," says Ana Roman. "Nothing can beat those smiles."
Back in Allegheny Child Care Academy's classroom number five, Miss Ursula has cheered up little William. As the children quiet down, she begins to read The Rainbow Fish. William's eyes light up as he follows the tale of the brightly colored fish that needs to learn how to share. Miss Ursula smiles to herself. For at least one child and one day, she has made a real difference.
Allison Porter is the Wurf Fellow in the Harvard Law School's Labor & Worklife Program.
