President's Perspective
Welcome to the UFT
Nov 1, 2007 1:41 PM
It always irks me when I hear critics of unions proclaim with glee that the labor movement in America is on the decline and that unions are becoming more and more irrelevant to everyday working people.
Those of us who fight for the rights of workers on a daily basis know better. We know that more and more people are struggling to make ends meet as good-paying jobs, job and retirement security, health care and child care are growing scarce and as corporate America, in the name of “global competition,” cuts wages, reneges on promised pensions and benefits, and outsources jobs overseas. The need to fight for security and prosperity for working people and their families will always be there, meaning unions will always be needed.
That’s why it is particularly poignant for the United Federation of Teachers to welcome 28,000 new members into the union now that New York City’s home-based child care providers have voted overwhelmingly to join the UFT, and our parent unions, the New York State United Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers.
Consider the implications of this historic action. By voting 8,382 to 96 to form a union, the providers took a bold step toward self-empowerment. They also resoundingly refuted the anti-union naysayers in the largest successful labor organizing drive in New York City since teachers formed the UFT in 1960. They now represent the largest addition of workers unaffiliated with any other organization in the AFT’s history, and that is no small feat.
Our partnership is a natural one because the providers share a bond with teachers in that they help educate and care for thousands of our city’s youngest children. They receive government subsidies to watch, care for and educate children from low-income families in preschool and after-school settings. In addition to providing meals and snacks, they help children with reading, learning colors and numbers, help with homework and direct safe play.
Having the providers join our ranks makes this a truly exciting and heady moment for the labor movement in New York City in general. But on a more personal note, it is thrilling to see the UFT promoting in such a big way our core mission of organizing working people to collectively fight for a better life, not only for themselves but for the children of needy families they serve.
The vote caps a two-year drive to secure an economic and political voice for the providers who came to the UFT looking for the needed muscle to negotiate on their behalf and seek the economic dignity and professional opportunities and respect they so deeply deserve but currently lack.
You’ve often heard me say the union is more than the president, and although I wish I had a magic wand, everything takes hard work. This organizing campaign is a case in point. Hundreds of people devoted time over the past two years to enlist the support of their colleagues, getting cards signed, holding house meetings, door knocking, attending rallies, writing letters, lobbying elected officials and making phone calls. But for that effort this would not have happened.
Another exciting aspect of the providers campaign was the unique and innovative partnership with the New York Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. We — ACORN and the UFT — worked hand in hand for the entire two-year campaign to organize the providers.
We announced the results of the providers’ vote count on Oct. 25, the day after the State Employment Relations Board counted. Bertha Lewis, executive director of NY ACORN, AFT Secretary-Treasurer Nat LaCour, NYSUT President Dick Iannuzzi, City Council Speaker Chris Quinn and many other trade unionists, legislators, religious leaders, and child care advocates were on hand celebrating with dozens of cheering providers giddy with victory.
Bertha noted that this is one of the first genuine collaborations between a community organization and a major labor union, adding that the result is important for both. She’s right. Partnerships between unions and community organizations can accomplish great things because they can reach people in many different ways with the union.
Even before the vote, the UFT and ACORN had helped providers by successfully lobbying the city and the state over the summer to pay some of them $160,000 in back pay. The UFT Teacher Center also sponsored free classes in child development, early preparation for literacy and other subjects for about 3,500 providers.
I know I speak for my colleagues at NYSUT and the AFT when I say we are grateful for the providers’ vote of confidence, and we intend to continue to help them help children make the transition to pre-kindergarten and kindergarten by ramping up what we started. That means giving the providers opportunities for professional development as well as access to curricula and training. The unionization and professionalizing of providers will give thousands of children who will enter our public school system the head start they need to go beyond catching up and actually start school with an advantage.
Even though no one would begrudge the providers and the rest of the union from pausing for a moment to bask in this glow of celebration, we have a lot of hard work ahead of us if we are going to succeed in addressing the providers’ concerns and meeting their needs. The providers are among the lowest-paid workers in the region. 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 meager or no health benefits, and no pension plan or paid vacations.
Anything the UFT can do to improve the providers’ economic status, working conditions and skills will result in huge, long-term benefits for the children they care for and society in general. Children who have access to early education generally have increased cognitive skills and higher academic achievement, improved graduation rates, better college preparedness and higher enrollments and greater rates of employment. The research on this yield on investment is clear. Forget for a second how much an increase in pay or access to health care will help the 28,000 providers and their families. Think about the children they serve. In fact, the studies estimate that every $1 invested in quality early childhood education results in savings of $7 to $17 through reduced special education needs, lower incarceration rates and reduced welfare and unemployment costs. That’s a return on investment that even Wall Street can’t quarrel with!
The next step in our campaign will involve surveying the providers to determine their contract priorities, goals and professional needs before seeking to begin talks with the New York State Office of Children and Family Services.
Throughout these two years, when people asked why the UFT would take on a totally new challenge, one that may change in many respects the face of our union, I would respond: Have you ever spoken to a family day care provider? Have you ever had the opportunity to provide a group of workers — mostly women, mostly minority, mostly poor — a path out of poverty, and at the same time help give our next generation of children a head start in school? What better way to help people not simply dream their dreams, but achieve them?
This, my friends, is what the labor movement is about. It’s why Shanker, Feldman, Chavez, Reuther, Gompers, Van Arsdale, Randolph and our other forefathers and foremothers did what they did. I hope you are as thrilled as I am to embrace our new colleagues and collectively fight to secure for them the economic security, educational expertise and political voice they deserve.
And to our new colleagues: Welcome to the UFT!
