At Bronx network, providers keep their subsidized children with UFT's help

In addition to fighting for a contract and a higher market rate for all providers, the UFT’s Family Child Care Providers Chapter also goes to bat on behalf of individual providers and small groups of providers, often taking on the abusive or unfair child care networks to which many providers belong.

At the Highbridge Advisory Council in the Bronx, for example, UFT representatives recently stepped into the breach when, because of a miscommunication with ACS, all 30 of the network’s family child care providers were told, without warning, that in two days they would lose all the children in their care due to budget cuts.

On the morning of July 7, administrators at Highbridge told providers that July 8 would be the last day of subsidized child care for the children then in their care. Fortunately, one panicked provider, who cannot be named for fear of retaliation from the network, called the union for help.

“She was distraught and in tears, as anyone would be, learning that they were about to lose their entire livelihood,” said Patricia Gbayor-Johnson, the chapter’s treasurer, who fielded the alarming call.

Without delay, Johnson contacted the network, where she spoke to an assistant director and the network’s director, James Nathaniel, whom she described as “profoundly unhelpful.”

“He insisted that he was just doing what ACS had instructed: cutting slots,” Johnson said. “There was no reasoning with him.”

That’s when Johnson contacted a senior official at ACS, and Chapter Chair Tammie Miller reached out to Robert Finch, the agency’s assistant commissioner. A quick call from Finch to Nathaniel and the network was brought back into line.

“How can you tell people so suddenly that their income is gone?” Johnson asked. “It’s not right, but that’s why we formed a union. Now there’s someone here to help.”