Invisible No More!
By Jon Melegrito
Family child care providers across the country are asserting their right to be heard and getting the respect they deserve.
Mina Junio of San Mateo, Calif., taught pre-kindergarten at a Montessori school for 20 years. When she decided do something different, the 49-year-old mother, who has a college degree and years of experience, could have lined up a better-paying job than the one she chose: family child care provider.
"But I'm not in it for the money," said Junio recently during a break in her hectic day care schedule. "I love children, and it thrills me to see them bloom."
Relying on the Internet and contacts from her last job, she put together a licensed day care operation in short order. Now she oversees seven youngsters, ages 2 to 4. Each of course has individual needs and moods, and together they constitute an interesting ethnic diversity: Three are Caucasians, while four are Asians — two Filipinos, a Korean and a Chinese.
Junio, an immigrant from the Philippines, is delighted with the racial mix. "By exposing children to other cultures, we help them learn to respect differences and accept people as they are," she notes. "My role, after all, is to prepare them for school and help them become constructive members of society."
Instructing her young "clients" is less demanding than the tasks involved in running her own business, Junio has discovered. "I'm not used to keeping track of payments or making sure that parents abide by the terms of their contract." But she recognizes those chores as essential to keeping the enterprise going. "I am a teacher at heart, and I love what I do."
UNION ON THE MOVE. Nationwide, there are more than 2.3 million child care providers — self-employed individuals who provide care in their own homes for others' children. But only a small percentage have union cards. Mina Junio is one of them. Last year, she signed up to join the United Child Care Union (UCCU), based in California and Pennsylvania, and part of the AFSCME affiliate National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees. Along with the UCCU, AFSCME is also organizing family child care providers in several other states under the umbrella of Child Care Providers Together (CCPT)/AFSCME. And in Ohio, the effort has been mounted by Council 8, which is conducting a blitz. All told, AFSCME now represents more than 150,000 child care providers across the country — more than any other union. They include child care and early-childhood providers in centers, school systems and Head Start.
Junio finds her UCCU affiliation to be a major source of support for her as a small business woman. The experience has given her confidence as well as knowledge. "It's great to meet other providers and share experiences," she says. "I've learned to speak for myself. And with all of us speaking with one voice, we become stronger advocates for better-quality child care."
A major issue for providers is the low reimbursement rates for the subsidy program the state maintains for low-income families. In addition, because the providers are paid as private contractors, they do not receive health insurance, retirement or other benefits.
In Pennsylvania and elsewhere, some providers only take care of "subsidized" children, while others care for both them and "private-pay" kids. Pennsylvania's Department of Public Welfare determines family eligibility for subsidies and pays providers to care for the children of low-income working families. Participants in this program receive the maximum rate per child of $25 a day, which doesn't cover expenses like extra meals and diapers.
CLOUT LEADS TO CHANGE. Says Regis Frazier, a family child care provider in Pittsburgh, "We need unity to get the state to put more money in the child care budget." As a former steel worker and longtime union member, Frazier knows the power of political clout to change an unfair system.
"Our goal is to get more resources into the child care system," says Vickie Milhouse, the UCCU president. "The union will work hard to increase state subsidies, speed reimbursements from the state and find more resources for training."
The majority of family child care providers remain unorganized and feel invisible. Most are women who earn an average of $15,000 annually, according to the Center for the Child Care Workforce. Pet sitters often earn more. That's why private child care providers need what a union can provide. During last November's election, AFSCME stepped up its organizing activity in several states by registering family child care providers in low-turnout areas and educating them on the track record of candidates. More than 200,000 providers in 12 states were contacted via home visits, telephone and mail through CCPT's non-partisan registration and get-out-the-vote effort.
GETTING ACTIVE. In Oregon, which has 5,000 licensed child care providers, volunteer organizers visited a significant number last October. Council 75, under the banner of CCPT, followed up the initial visits with a weeklong statewide blitz in December and ongoing "house parties" hosted by family providers for their colleagues. Amy Sayre, a provider in Portland for eight years, welcomed a visit from an AFSCME/CCPT representative six months ago. "We are-so spread out that we need a union to bring us together so our voice can be heard," she says. "It concerns me that we don't have access to affordable health insurance."
In New York, CSEA's statewide child care campaign, VOICE (Voice of Organized Independent Childcare Educators), continues to build momentum. (CSEA is the Civil Service Employees Association/AFSCME Local 1000.) The organizing effort that started last year has contacted 15,000 family providers. A large number have signed on as associate members of CSEA, and have access to some group benefits and discounts for goods and services that CSEA has made available to its members.
Through an effective grassroots e-mail campaign launched in January 2004, SEA's VOICE successfully pressured the state legislature and Gov. George Pataki (R) to pass legislation to postpone implementation of a new law that would hurt the 20,000 providers and the families they serve. One provision would require publication of providers' home addresses online, instilling a sense of vulnerability among providers who work alone at home during the day with small children. CSEA is coordinating its activity with AFSCME District Council 1707, the union for New York City's child care workers.
CALIFORNIA STYLE. In California, where there are 40,000 licensed family child care providers, the UCCU has worked collaboratively with many local family-provider associations, adding resources and power to their efforts. For example, in Santa Cruz, the UCCU and the local association teamed up to stop an ordinance that would have added $1,000 to a provider's cost of doing business.
The UCCU held two Lobby Days in Sacramento in 2004, bringing more than 150 family providers from all parts of the state to meet with 30 legislators and their staffs; the union followed up by inviting legislators to visit day care pro-grams back home and observe their quality first hand. For the Spanish-speaking volunteer lobbyists, that event provided an excellent opportunity to speak to members of the legislature's Latino caucus and others in the capitol.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) had pro-posed hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts in the budgets of child care programs. Providers and the kids they care for sent art projects and hand-made collages directly to the governor. Their message: Improve conditions for providers, don't make them worse. Working together with parents and other advocates, the UCCU members halted the budget cuts and made sure providers were paid during the recent budget crisis.
As Dahlia Garcia, a UCCU member, told AFSCME's Special Organizing Conference last June, "Stopping budget cuts to our programs is only the beginning. We are going to make the state respect the work we do and allow us a voice in our lives. So, watch out, government, 'cause the UCCU isn't just opening doors for child care workers — we're kicking them off the hinges! The day is coming when we will no longer be the invisible workers."
At press time, Illinois Council 31 had just filed for an election among 50,000 in-home family child care providers. The ballots went out on March 16 and are due back by April 7. Stay tuned!
