A Senate committee is again considering the so-called "collective bargaining" bill for child care centers

I start this blog with an event that is currently unfolding in the legislature as this is time sensitive. In doing some research for Washington Parents for Safe Child Care I was surprised that the parent had been put into the union/state of Washington government contract. This was done with out the parent voice. Recent research uncovered some more surprising data. For instance, the small percentage of providers who wanted to go with the union.

Does collective bargaining bill benefit union over kids and child care providers?

Senate bill 6522 died on the floor last Tuesday. However, the House companion bill is still alive and is set to have a public hearing on Monday, February 25, 2008 in the Senate Labor and Commerce committee. The current bill adds child care centers to the most recent RCW 41.56 which covers licensed family home and other “exempt in-home” providers.

Information found on the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) website touts SEIU having 10,000 child care provider members. Another statistic on the website states that 92% of the providers voted to join SEIU.

In doing research for Washington Parents for Safe Child Care and finding these stats; 92% seemed incredibly high. Did SEIU mean 92% out of 10,000 members?

A seven day journey commenced to get stats from a number of agencies and organizations. SEIU representatives Gretchen Donart, Communications Organizer and Early Learning Director, Karen Hart; Department of Early Learning manager Larry Horne and Southwest Service Manager, Josh Verville (who covers Clark County); Clark County Child Care Association, President Judith Peters and Treasurer, Melba Halgren and the American Arbitration Association Vice President for elections Jeffrey Zaino were not forthcoming and provided no stats .

What might these agencies not want the public, parents and other child care providers to know?

The Public Employment Relations Commissions (PERC) when called was immediately forthcoming with the statistics. Out of 10,000 members claimed by SEIU only 2236 (that’s the 92% number) voted for the SEIU. Only 22% of about 10,000 members (PERC had the total at 9842). How many providers voted for the 2007 SEIU contract? SEIU touts 99%. 99% of how many who voted?

An additional confusion: will all child care providers (some 5000 licensed providers) be required to pay, however it may be described in the small fine cramped print on the SEIU membership application cards? It describes three types of payees: dues, fair share fee payer and objector fee. No category was found that said a provider does not have to pay. Payment can be more than $50.00 a month.

No information was found that any meetings of “exempt in-home providers” ever occurred. This represents approximately another 5000 claimed by SEIU as members. How many of that group voted?

As reported by the Washington Policy Center (WPC): “SEIU Local 925 represents more than 46,000 public sector employees, including service employees at public schools and University of Washington. For most of these workers, membership in Local 925 is a mandatory condition of their employment, and failure to pay union dues in full and on time is cause for dismissal.”

The collective bargaining bill “won” by the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) had that union threatening 800 state employees with being fired for not signing up to have money deducted from their paychecks. How will SEIU handle the independent small business child care providers who do not want to be in SEIU?

The current bill states as fact that the quality of family home care improved as a result of the collective bargaining bill passed in 2006. As reported by the WPC: “To the contrary, only eight FCH providers achieved National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC) accreditation in 2007. This is an increase of only one over the seven providers accredited in 2006, out of a field of 5,387 FCH providers.” The Department of Early Learning has released no reports showing an improvement in quality in licensed family home child care as a result of the SEIU contract.

Has Pandora’s box been opened? The bill says it’s an emergency. What’s the rush?