Child-care bills alarm operators

 

By Pat Ratliff
The Beacon

 

In a vote with potentially significant consequences for child-care facility owners and the children’s families, Washington state legislators have passed House bill 2449 and Senate bill 6522.

A House bill analysis describes the bill as “providing collective bargaining for child-care center directors and workers.”

Yet the bill describes itself as “an act relating to improving quality, access, and stability of child care through providing collective bargaining for child-care center directors and workers.”

Calls to local legislators Rep. Marko Liias, Rep. Mary Helen Roberts and Sen. Paull Shinn had not been returned by press time.

According to opponents, ranging from owners of single child-care centers to large non-profit facilities that incorporate child care as part of their services, passage of this bill will do the opposite.

Child-care employees will be required to join a union (whether or not they want to), and some of the money allocated by the state for children to attend those facilities will be paid to members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).  The state selected the SEIU, which represents 1.7 million hospital and hotel workers across the nation, to represent the employees.

In a letter to operators of child-care facilities and parents who use the facilities, one facility owner in Tacoma cited his objections to the bill:

“Every employee will be forced to join SEIU and pay union dues if the owner of the child-care center chooses to allow even one DSHS-paid (state-paid) child into care at the center.

 “No employee of any child-care business will have the opportunity to vote on whether he or she wants to be in the union or pay dues.  Always before in America, unions have needed to have the consent of the majority of workers in a business before any worker has to join and pay dues; this may not be the case here.”

The issue isn’t just a matter of spreading some of the money around, but whether there is enough money to begin with.

Child-care centers often lose money or break even with DSHS-sponsored children. Passage of the bill insures that many of these children and their families, who most need the help, will not be accepted into child-care facilities, according to critics.

“At this time DSHS pays the centers only a fraction of the going rate – the rate that cash-paying parents pay,” says the Tacoma facility operator.  “DSHS pays less than half the cash rate for school-age children.  Many centers do not accept DSHS-paid children, and many limit DSHS-paid children to a certain percentage of the total number of children.

“Forced to pay the union a percentage of all DSHS money paid to the center would make it even more financially difficult for centers to accept DSHS-paid children.  Centers cannot operate at a loss and stay in business; the money must come from somewhere.”

Another child-care center owner, Gayle Mcginnis, says:  “About 25 percent of my business is caring for state-assisted children.  Mandated unionization for child-care centers will hurt our business. These bills will prevent child-care centers like mine from accepting low-income, high-risk children.  These bills are a NO-WIN situation, except for SEIU.” 

Director Stu Jacobson of Parents For Safe Child Care in Washington, who served on the White House Child-Care Conference team in 1997, says flatly:

“This is not a vote for children.  Our mission, by example, is to promote the knowledge of empirical data and offer good public policy to ensure our state delivers the paramount promise of safe, quality care.  There are compelling truths about SB 6522 that betray the promise of quality.”

He lists his objections:

•            Unions do not protect consumers. Unions protect the rights of workers.

•            Government should fill the safety and health gaps to protect our vulnerable children.

Colleen Hill, another facility owner, asks:  “Why should taxpayers' money go to a union?  If we have that much money available, shouldn't it go to raise the subsidy rate without having to go through collective bargaining?

“Millions of dollars have been spent to `study’ how to improve quality in child care.  The results show that subsidy rates need to be brought up to at least the 75th percentile.”

Candida Doran, a local child-care facility owner, also implored legislators to vote no.

“As legislators, we think you should consider children and parents over unions,” she says.  “Many child-care providers limit state-subsidized children because of below market rates paid by the state.  Low income, high risk children will have fewer and fewer child-care options because child care providers will not accept the conditions of HB 2449.”

As for the SEIU, she adds,  “The SEIU is a credible union for service workers.  It's not a good fit for the child-care industry which is, specifically, an education-based work force.  We strive to guarantee the safety of children.  SEIU strives to guarantee the safety of service workers.”

Large non-profit providers of child care also express concern about the bill’s implications.

Jerry Beavers, president of the Snohomish County YMCA, says:  “The YMCA, as well as other large non-profit and a few larger for-profits, have been exempted from this bill.  Even so, we think the impact of this bill will be so negative we must respond. There is no evidence this bill will do any good at all.”

The YMCA statewide provides childcare services for about 7,700 children per week.  Of those, 4,000 receive DSHS funding.

Discussion in the state House of Representatives also touched on the bill’s legality, but the main emphasis was on the welfare of the children.  Nearly all the speakers concede that the state subsidies for child care need to be increased.

One critic observed, “Passing these bills seems to be saying, `We don’t have the guts to increase fees, but we’ll put you in a union and hope collective bargaining will force us to pay you more.”