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Union
Presidents Speak Out on Child Care
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Giving
All Children a Quality Start |
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 High-quality
early childhood education programs provide young children with experiences
that promote healthy cognitive and social development and the foundation
for thriving in school. Teachers can attest to the significant percentage
of children starting kindergarten without the necessary skills to
do well in school because of the lack of quality pre-school programs
in the United States. The American Federation of Teachers recently
published a report that provides baseline data about states’
early childhood education programs. The report – At the
Starting Line – is available on our website at: http://www.aft.org.
I have also proposed Kindergarten Plus, an extended-year, full-day
kindergarten for disadvantaged children to aid in their preparation
for school. It enables them to begin kindergarten the summer before
they could ordinarily enter and continue through the next summer,
right before entering first grade.
I applaud the
Working for America Institute for this special issue of Connections
that highlights issues affecting the childcare workforce. As the
recommendations in our report make clear, those engaged in early
childhood education must be afforded opportunities for further training,
ongoing professional development and access to formal studies and/or
certification. Compensation rates also must be increased and the
salary gap between preschool and kindergarten teachers must be eliminated.
To ensure that
no child is left behind,we must ensure that no child starts behind
and that all children have full access to high-quality early childhood
programs. The Center for the Child Care Workforce (CCW) recently
joined the AFT family. The CCW/AFT Educational Foundation works
to improve the quality of childcare services by upgrading the wages,
benefits, training opportunities and working conditions of childcare
teachers and family childcare providers. The education and training
of childcare workers is critical to program quality. We must work
for a national commitment to help all early childhood workers get
access to the training they need – not only to do their jobs,
but also to achieve family-sustaining wages without having to leave
their chosen profession.
–Sandra
Feldman, President, American Federation of Teachers
Time
to Build a National Childcare Movement |
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How will we
raise our children?
As a nation,
there is no more important question, yet it seems our elected leaders
remain at a loss when it comes to solving the crisis in childcare.
Instead of ensuring quality and affordable childcare for everyone,
we remain mired in a system where families cannot afford to pay
and workers cannot afford to stay.
We are in desperate
need of a change and we cannot wait for others to fix a system that
so directly impacts America’s families. It’s up to us
to organize a movement of childcare providers and working families
that will give our children the best chance to succeed. And the
first step to ensuring quality care is to address the low salaries,
high turnover and absence of career opportunities for childcare
workers.
 The
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has built a track record
of fighting for improvements in training and compensation for the
early childhood workforce – a track record that began with
organizing 20,000 workers who provide childcare, preschool and Head
Start services.
In Washington
State, SEIU Local 925 has continued that commitment by partnering
with the Economic Opportunity Institute and Worthy Wages to create
a pilot program that developed a wage and career ladder for the
state’s early childhood workforce. Preliminary studies suggest
that the program has created an incentive for workers to stay in
the child development field, increased the level of professionalism
and improved staff compensation and education levels.
At SEIU, we’re
proud of these strides and the hope they represent, but it’s
clear that we must all do much more. Now is the time to expand these
projects, build alliances with providers, advocates and consumer
groups and make a commitment to build a national movement for change.
–Andrew
L. Stern, President, Service Employees International Union
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Investing
in High Quality Care, Good Jobs |
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This country
does not invest enough in caring for its young children. Employers,
workers and parents must work together to assure that every child
gets quality care and that every childcare worker has a job that
supports his or her family. AFSCME is proud that one of the newest
members of our family – the United Child Care Union (UCCU),
part of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Workers 1199C,
an AFSCME affiliate – is doing just that. Founded in 1998,
the UCCU works collaboratively with employers, workers and parents
to transform the childcare industry and enable it to achieve its
number one priority: raising the standard for workers and improving
the early care and education of children.
 As
part of contract negotiations with their employer – the Allegheny
Child Care Academy – the union surveyed employees to find
out what was most important to them. The contract responded to those
needs, including: guaranteed hours of work; a reduced probationary
period of three months; additional paid holidays and leave time;
17.5 percent guaranteed pay increases over five years; and three
in-service days for on-the-job training. This approach produced
results – in less than a year from the ratification of the
contract, turnover had decreased by 20 percent. After initial resistance
to the union’s organizing drive, Allegheny saw that the positive
effect having a union had on the workforce could be beneficial to
both employer and employee. In fact, UCCU’s partnership with
Allegheny continues despite recent management changes, setting an
example of how a high road workplace should work.
The union and
employer are participating in the Delaware Valley Child Care Partnership
(DVCCP), formed to address the major barriers that confront providers
and workers in the field, such as access to training and education,
low state-reimbursement rates and prohibitive insurance costs. The
DVCCP recently secured funding from the state workforce development
program to start a hands-on early learning center at one of Allegheny’s
sites. Planning is underway to develop the center into the regional
hiring and training center for the childcare industry.
–Gerald
W. McEntee, President, American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees
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