Will day-care providers unionize?

With postcard ballots sent out Friday, about 2,200 Maine home-based child-care providers could vote to join a service employees' union to obtain lobbying power in Augusta.

Early this week, in-home day-care providers across Maine will receive cards from the unaffiliated American Arbitration Association asking them if they want to "authorize the Service Employees International Union to be (their) exclusive representative for the purposes of collective bargaining."

"These workers are independent contractors, so legally, they currently don't have the right to bargain with the state over state subsidies or regulating laws," said Mike Sylvester on Friday. Sylvester is director of organization for the Maine State Employees Association-SEIU Local 1989. "The rules for how hot your tap water can be to how many outlets you can have are regulated by the state."

The tally won't be known until Oct. 22 in Augusta, the date and location when ballots are scheduled to be counted. If a strong majority favors unionization, licensed and license-exempt child-care providers who receive state subsidies will join the more than 12,000 other workers represented by Local 1989.

Sylvester said that in most union votes a simple majority rules, but the MSEA is hoping for a more convincing amount of support.

"It's going to be important that the showing be impressive," he said. "(We need) a wide majority to be able to have the groundswell necessary to make the changes the providers want."

Shannon Reno, who runs Little Dipper Day Care on Ridge Road in Bath, plans to be one of those voting "yes." When she heard about the movement to unionize, she wrote in a letter to SEIU Kids First — the group spearheading the organization efforts — that state regulations are forcing some day-care providers into unfavorable working conditions.

"I find myself putting in 11- or 12-hour days during the week and then another three-to-five (hours) getting ready for the upcoming week on the weekends," Reno wrote. "Then on top of that workload, I am fitting in my training hours expected by the state to hold my license. I also find myself without health insurance. I'm one of the lucky ones, though. My husband and children are able to have it through my husband's work.

"I know too many providers whose families all go without," she continued. "It sure would be nice to be able to go to the doctor when I (am) ill and not have to wait until I am 'on my death bed' and have to go to the (emergency room)."

Sylvester said that providers like Reno currently have no efficient way to express their concerns or voice their ideas to lawmakers.

"They're all small business people," he said. "While they're trying to run their business, they have to work through the bureaucracy."

The union support, he said, would allow them to build consensus and propose changes in Augusta. In a nutshell, the independent contractors would be able to have a say in how hot their tap water's allowed to be.

For instance, Sylvester said that one such avenue Local 1989 could explore would be to make the state programs currently providing child-care subsidies more accessible to lower-income families. While some parents avoid entering the work force or struggle to get by with the help of family members, he said, nearby day-care providers are often working at half or three-quarters capacity and have the resources to help.

"There's a lot of families that would take that job if they could afford that child care, and then those empty slots could be filled," he said.

One informational packet that arrived at Reno's house described how a similar effort in Oregon raised the eligibility cutoff for child-care assistance from 150 percent of the federal poverty level to 185 percent, and reduced the parent co-pay by 20 percent.

Full text available at the Times Record