Child care industry seeks to unite

12,000 would be eligible to negotiate for compensation

By Adam Wilson | The Olympian • Published January 25, 2008

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A legislative proposal discussed Friday would give a swath of the child-care industry the power to unite to negotiate with the governor over compensation.

The controversial idea is the first of its kind in the state, allowing not just workers but their managers to unionize as long as the state helps pay for one or more children enrolled at their center.

Several workers and center owners told legislators they don't want to battle one another over scarce income. They want to come to terms with the state, which pays too little and forces low wages, they said.

Others, including major child-care companies, say that if the Legislature wants to improve child care, it should increase its payment rates, not bring in a union.

Three years ago, Service Employees International Union Local 925 won the power to bargain for more than 10,000 state-paid family child-care providers, people who care for a maximum of 12 children in a home.

The union estimates that 12,000 people, including managers, would be included in the new category of child-care centers — operations with more children and commercial facilities.

"They don't necessarily want a union to bargain traditional workplace issues. Instead, they want representation that would raise all boats," union president Kim Cook said.

Jim Greenman, a senior vice president with Bright Horizons, a company with 17 centers in the state, said more child-care funding is needed, not the proposed law.

"I think it's a collective-­bargaining bill. It's not a rate bill, it's not a training bill, it's not a quality bill," he said.

The unionization measures are House Bill 2449 and Senate Bill 6522.

Supporters of the bills say they are willing to exempt large companies and organizations such as the YMCA.

But the bill raises questions beyond which centers would be included. The executive director of the state's union-relations commission said law states that supervisors are not allowed to be in the same bargaining groups as their workers.

Unionized employees of private companies also have the right to strike under federal law, but the proposed bill would stipulate that child-care workers could not strike, said Cathleen Callahan, director of the Public Employment Relations Commission.

"Is it collective bargaining? I don't think so," she said of the bill. "And saying that it is doesn't make it so."

Adam Wilson covers state workers and politics for The Olympian. He can be reached at 360-753-1688 or awilson@theolympian.com.