State certifies NYC home-based child care providers’ right to vote to join a union
Jul 27, 2007 3:55 PM
On May 17, UFT Vice President Michelle Bodden led the way as more than 12,000 cards signed by home-based child-care providers were delivered to the State Employment Relations Board, which last week certified the cards.
Thousands of New York City home-based child-care providers are one giant step closer to joining the UFT family!
After counting cards it received from more than 12,000 home child-care workers in May, the New York State Employment Relations Board (SERB) has certified that the UFT and the community group ACORN have surpassed the margin required for the workers to hold an election to join a union.
“This is a critical milestone in the journey to get New York City’s 28,000 home day care providers the respect and wages they need and give the children in their watch the care they deserve,” said UFT President Randi Weingarten, adding, “Now the teachers’ union will move to the next phase of our campaign to become the New York City providers’ elected labor representative and build the organization necessary for effective representation.”
“We are eager to take this monumental next step with an election that will allow day care providers to join a union so they can get the living wage they deserve for the important work they do with children,” said Bertha Lewis, executive director of NY ACORN. She added, “These providers are professionals and should be treated accordingly, and having a union to fight for them will help ensure it.”
“The next step is working out a representation election calendar, which will take place under SERB’s auspices,” said UFT Vice President Michelle Bodden.
As a result of the verification, SERB will schedule an election, tally the mailed in ballots and declare the results. The UFT and ACORN hope to embark upon a get-out-the-vote effort involving advertisements in local newspapers, rallies and door-to-door campaigning by the end of August.
The cards were filed on May 17, less than a week after Governor Eliot Spitzer signed an executive order allowing the providers, who are among the lowest-paid workers in the region, to form a union. The UFT wants to represent the 28,000 providers in New York City, and signatures from 30 percent of the total group – fewer than 9,000 – were needed to trigger an election. The Civil Service Employees Association will organize day care providers in the rest of the state.
This was the scene last May when home-base child-care providers celebrated that they had won the right to join a union.
The UFT and ACORN
have been working to unionize the providers for about two years in what has
been the largest organizing drive in New York in decades. Gov. Spitzer’s order
allows the more than 50,000 providers across the state to organize.
New York is the
eighth state to let home-based providers unionize. They receive government
subsidies to watch, care for and educate children from low-income families in
pre-school and after-school settings. They provide meals and snacks, help
children with reading, learning colors and numbers, help with homework, direct
safe play and change diapers. A 2006 ACORN study
showed that the average annual wage for family and group family providers in
New York City is $19,933. The federal poverty line for a family of four in 2004
was $18,850. The providers have no health benefits, pension plan or paid
vacations.
