Editor’s note: This commentary is by Elsa Bosma who organized the group, Vermonters for the Independence of Child Care Professionals, and owns a day-care facility in Shelburne.
Home child care providers are an integral part of the Vermont landscape. We place children at the forefront of our businesses. We provide loving social and educational experiences to children and valuable and trusted care while parents work and attend school. We take advantage of the multitude of available continuing education opportunities across the state to better ourselves and our understanding of child development, and use creativity to keep children learning and engaged on a daily basis.
Vermonters for the Independence of Child Care Professionals is a coalition of over 250 registered home providers across the state who oppose the unionization of child care providers. We believe that S.316 would undermine our work by failing to encourage higher quality standards for providers. The bill would weaken quality by authorizing a union to bargain over the allocation of reimbursement rates.
S.316 will not provide higher wages or health care. In fact for most providers across the state, this bill will result in a net loss in our operating budget. Any subsidy increase that might be negotiated is a parent benefit, not a provider benefit. The pie would be split differently between parent and state payments, but the provider will still receive her full weekly rate. Providers will still have to pay dues out of their pocket, resulting in a budgetary loss.
Providers across Vermont have stated that they will no longer accept families receiving a subsidy in order to avoid having to pay union dues or agency fees.
Does the state have this money in the budget to negotiate with another labor union as well as increase subsidy rates? A subsidy increase could be achieved through legislative appropriation without the assistance of a union, but first the Statehouse would have to procure the money to support this change. With a union in place, they would also have to come up with additional monies to negotiate with the governing body. We believe this money would be better spent improving the subsidy rates rather than negotiating them.
Home child care professionals are independent business owners who provide services out of our own homes. We set our own wages, vacation schedules and hours. We manage our own working conditions, choose to save for retirement and select and pay for our health care insurance. Typical unions help workers negotiate for better working conditions and reimbursement. S.316 proposes a very atypical union that will do nothing but take our hard-earned money and silence our individual voices.
Currently the bill is written in a way that dues (agency fee and full share) will be deducted from state assistance checks that providers receive on behalf of the family receiving subsidy. Providers across Vermont have stated that they will no longer accept families receiving a subsidy in order to avoid having to pay union dues or agency fees. This does nothing to increase the quality or availability of child care in Vermont.
S.316 would eliminate the voices and rights of the child care professionals who have significant impact on the most critical development stage in life. This is not only a strong and clear infringement of our First Amendment right to petition our government, but it removes the emphasis on the ever-important child and falsely places the emphasis on child care professionals at the expense of a union.
