Groups push to unionize day care

OLYMPIA – When Spokane’s Christine Halbert took her first child care job a decade ago, her training consisted of being shown the room and left alone with the kids.

The pay? Minimum wage.

Today, Halbert, 30, still works at a preschool. But she also works part time as a labor organizer for the American Federation of Teachers, trying to build support for unionizing 12,000 day-care center workers who are partly paid by state subsidies for low-income children.

“The parents can’t pay, the teachers can’t stay. There has to be a better way,” she says, a phrase she uses often. “And our answer is to organize.”

The controversial move is part of a growing push by labor groups to unionize people who are not state workers but whose pay comes at least partly from the state budget.

“Union membership is at historic lows across America,” said Paul Guppy, research director for the conservative Washington Policy Center. “The only area where union power is growing is in the public sector. … So they’re opening up new fields by redefining who is a state worker.”

In recent years, state-paid long-term-care workers, in-home health aides and others have unionized to collectively bargain with the state for better pay, training and benefits. This year, in addition to day-care center employees, lawmakers are floating the idea of unionizing some foster parents.

“People are very scared of the word ‘union,’ but this isn’t a traditional union,” said Marci Noel, who owns Primary Beginnings Early Learning in Spokane Valley. “All we’re really fighting for is the right to bargain, to group together for a voice.”

Care for some 96 percent of the kids at her center is subsidized by the state. By joining forces with the workers, Noel said, she hopes to boost the state payments. In Spokane, she said, child care jobs tend to pay minimum wage and have a high turnover. She hopes unionization will bring more money, training and opportunities for workers to get early childhood education. Eventually, she hopes, it will include health insurance for the workers.

“We have a lot of day-care centers that are just fighting for their life here,” she said. According to the Service Employees International Union, which is also organizing some of the workers, the average child care worker in Washington earns less than $20,000 a year.

The proposal would declare the workers public employees, solely for the purpose of collective bargaining. It exempts some child care centers, including those run by large chains. The centers’ rights to hire, assign and fire workers would not be affected. The bill does not grant workers the right to strike.

If the bill passes, workers at each center with at least one state-subsidized child would vote on whether they want union representation. They would vote on contracts. They could become union members and pay more than the representation fee, but wouldn’t have to.

When the state House of Representatives debated the proposal recently, Rep. Eric Pettigrew said his HB 2449 has stirred a lot of angst, but it will boost the quality of child care.

“To me, fear is a flash before greatness,” said Pettigrew, D-Seattle. “… This is not about the unions. This is not about the budget. This is about the children.”

Republicans, outnumbered in both the House and the Senate, are particularly uneasy with an unusual provision requiring the state to deduct a union representation fee from the monthly subsidies paid to child care centers. The state would send the money directly to the unions representing the workers. Based on a similar arrangement last year for workers who care for children in their own homes, Guppy’s group estimates that the state would pay more than $6 million a year directly to the unions. Noel and Halbert say the amount hasn’t been worked out yet.

Some Republicans say the state should simply pay the day-care centers more.

“I don’t understand why we have to unionize these folks, a lot of whom don’t want to unionize,” said Rep. Cary Condotta, R-East Wenatchee.

“We’re telling child care workers to hire somebody to put a gun to our heads so we can say we had no choice,” said Rep. Bruce Chandler, R-Granger. He maintains that the direct payment to the unions is illegal.

But Rep. Maureen Walsh, R-Walla Walla, crossed party lines to vote for the bill, saying that the state paid too little for so long. Collective bargaining, she hopes, will change that.

“Frankly, folks, we’re to blame,” she said. “We have not stepped up and done right by these people.”

House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, said the workers deserve a voice. Decent wages, he said, will keep workers on the job longer and improve care.

“As part of that, they sometimes need a stronger voice for their points of view,” he said.

Why not just raise rates?

“What’s wrong with having unions?” he said.

Some critics also worry that the proposal will backfire and that child care center owners who don’t want unionized workers will simply not accept state-subsidized kids.

That’s unlikely, Noel said. Most Spokane-area centers, she said, don’t turn away kids, even those paid at relatively low state rates.