Illinois a morale booster for UFT child care organizing drive

by Michael Hirsch

Feb 16, 2006 12:36 PM

The UFT’s effort to unionize 30,000 home-based family child-care providers in New York City got a morale boost from Illinois, where family child-care providers are blazing the union trail. In February 2005, Gov. Rod Blagovich issued an executive order allowing family child-care workers to bargain collectively. Jump ahead to December, and the 49,000 licensed and license-exempt child-care workers caring for children participating in Illinois’s child-care assistance program for low-income families won a first contract from the state.

That contract increases the per-child stipend by 35 percent over three years — the first increase for Illinois providers in six years — along with providing access to health insurance and incentives for extra training leading to extra pay for providers. The family child-care providers would not receive health coverage through the State Employee Insurance Program but through an insurance program run by SEIU, the union that organized the workers.

Family child-care providers receive government subsidies to watch, care for and educate children from low-income families in preschool and after-school settings. New York State providers cannot unionize without legislative approval because they are considered independent contractors. Now the UFT — along with AFSCME, the union seeking to represent providers outside New York City — is lobbying state legislators to enact legislation giving child-care providers the right to bargain collectively.

National Public Radio, Dec. 14