Childcare providers wearing blue T-shirts with the slogan “kids count on me” filled the hallways of the Statehouse Tuesday in support of a bill that would give them limited collective bargaining rights with the state.
The primary focus of the lobby day was H.97, a bill that passed the house last session and has yet to see any discussion this year.
The bill would allow child care providers to band together and bargain with the state on childcare subsidy payments and professional development and training.
Cathi Ste. Marie, a registered home provider from North Troy who has become a spokeswoman of sorts for the organizing effort, said the goal is to “change the law so we can have collective bargaining rights to be able to make those decisions that directly affect our program, our children and our profession as a whole.”
Ste. Marie is working with the Vermont Early Educators United, a member union of the United Professions of Vermont, which is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers. The early educators union represents child-care providers who prepare children for kindergarten.
The problem for many early educators, Ste. Marie said, is limited funding for subsidies that allow low-income families to pay for child care while the parents work. The ability to bargain, Ste. Marie says, will encourage a better program all around.
“It helps everyone because there’s a certain quality that needs to be maintained in a program to help a child be ready for kindergarten,” she said. “Quality costs money, and it needs support and it needs professional development support.”
Child-care workers received welcome encouragement from Gov. Peter Shumlin, who recounted his personal story of overcoming dyslexia and learning to read.
Shumlin said the bill was a “beginning in ensuring you have a seat at table in building a system where all educators are paid equally.”
“That should be our goal,” he said.
The bill also received support from Sens. Tim Ashe and Anthony Pollina, Rep. Chris Pearson, and Phil Fiermonte, outreach director for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ office.
The bill that passed the House last year was the subject of fierce criticism from some child-care providers who say they do not want a union to represent them. Large child-care centers also lobbied successfully to have their employees removed from the bill.
Currently, H.97 is sitting on the wall in the Senate Rules Committee. Senate Pro Tem John Campbell, who chairs the committee, said there is little chance of it coming off the shelf.
Campbell told VTDigger.org last week one of the primary issues for not taking up the bill are the aggressive tactics used by members of the union to pressure child-care providers and himself to support the legislation.
Campbell was not available for comment Tuesday.
In his remarks, Shumlin said, “I am putting as much pressure as I know how on the Senate to pass the bill this year.”
Amie Matton, stood in the hall with her 12-week-old daughter Scarlet in between events.
Matton, who works at Little Ones University in Essex Junction, said she came to the state capital to educate people about the early education field and the work she does.
“If we don’t get out and talk to other people about the work we do, people in general don’t understand why we might need things like the subsidy,” she said. “Without the opportunity to get out and educate others, people making decisions on our behalf are not doing so with info they need.”
Matton said her field sees a high turnover rate in part because of the long hours and low wages.
“You’re expecting people to work long hours under really hard conditions with excessively high expectations and you’re not willing to pay them,” she said.
Despite the outpouring of support for collective bargaining Tuesday, opponents of the bill, many of whom are childcare providers, fear it will unleash a parade of horribles.
Elsa Bosma, a child-care provider who is informally leading a counter-effort against the bill, told VTDigger it will cut off the direct line of communication she has with the state by requiring exclusive representation, likely from the union.
Bosma and other providers say they too have experienced pushy tactics from the union pressuring them to support the bill.
