Ramsin has a great piece up on the SEIU’s efforts to organize home child care providers. I have some reservations about giving home child care workers too much leverage given the most recent work suggests that stable Center based care is superior, but anyone who understands the industry knows that home child care providers will be around for some time as states rely on them to provide adequate slots.
Roughly 83 percent of the workers chose SEIU Local 880 as their union. Childcare providers were now union workers. We had crossed a threshold ? no going back. Those tens of thousands of providers, dedicated over the last decade, sacrificing time and resources, had helped change the definition of work forever.
SEUI deserves credit for it’s early work on this issue. Providing adqequate and safe child care is essential to getting people off of welfare and providing children the ability to grow up with productive parents. Home child care providers provide a large number of necessary slots for the state to pull off moving welfare recipients to work.
In Illinois, SEIU’s early work paid off for child care providers.
Below is a picture of the difference in the state reimbursement rate for infant care per day (infants cost more to take care of due to being labor intensive). It comes from the Missouri Department of Social Services:
Illinois’ rate of reimbursement is probably high enough to actually cover costs. One of the dirty secrets well known within in the industry is that most states pay such low rates, providers come in and out of existence rapidly. This exacerbates the problem of providing quality care because stability is a big determinant of that. SEIU worked to increase that reimbursement early on and achieved it before even formally representing workers. That is to be commended.
Illinois still has issues in that those with relatively low incomes aren’t covered as much as in other states, creating a gap of coverage for those who work, but can’t afford care.
The American Prospect covered the subject here
The Nation also weighed in on what is considered a resounding success for organized labor.
And because I lost some e-mail, I lost an update from someone else from the SEIU, if they could contact me again, I’d greatly appreciate it.
UPDATE: Okay, found the e-mail which included some more background
SEIU’s United To Win Blog has a home child care provider discussing what the win meant for them. More from them on the general issue
Nathan Newman offers up a big picture take on the issue
Bitch. PhD offers up a personal story I can relate to given I was in a home child care setting through 2nd grade. One setting that was very good–one setting that wasn’t.
For those wondering if it is a good investment, two researchers at the Minneapolis Fed have been doing some very strong research on the subject which is overwhelmingly positive
As a disclaimer, I’ve done some evaluation research that addresses some minor issues of providers in Metro East, though most of it centered in Missouri.
ArchPundit