Editor’s note: This commentary is by Nan Reid, who has a home day care in Burlington.
I am a child-care provider with a registered home day care in Burlington. The Vermont Senate recently passed a bill that is important to me and to child-care providers throughout Vermont as well as the families we serve. The bill is S.316 and is currently being considered in the House of Representatives.
As an early educator, I am very connected to the children and families I serve. I believe I have a good understanding of the issues low-income, working families face as they try to balance work and family, as do many of my colleagues. These families have entered the workforce, created when welfare reform focused on “welfare to work.” The child care and early education we provide allows low-income parents — mostly single moms — to go to work or school to improve their financial situations. I know because I was one of those single moms. I was able to keep myself out of poverty by advancing my education and career with help from the child-care subsidy I received at the time.
If we choose to form a union, I believe we create opportunities to improve the quality of child care in Vermont, create high quality programs, and create a more stable workforce with lower turnover rates.
I have been working with Vermont Early Educators Union for several years now and am excited about what the union will be able to accomplish. When I began providing child care 10 years ago, the child-care subsidy for low-income families had not been raised in many years and I was finding that fewer and fewer families were eligible to receive support to help with their child-care costs. This seemed outrageous to me since the cost of living had steadily increased during that period. Yet I found as an individual in a fairly isolated profession, I had no voice in changing that. Low-income families were counting on their legislators to make the logical and necessary income eligibility adjustments each year when a state budget was voted on, but with no one in a position to advocate for working families, the ball was dropped.
I believe if early educators choose to unionize, we will finally be heard on this issue. I look forward to being involved, through my participation in a union, in any legislation that would affect child-care subsidy rates as this is the main way I can help low-income working parents go to work, support their families and advance in their careers. As noted, receiving a child care subsidy was absolutely crucial to my career development when I was a single parent and kept me from sinking into poverty.
Early educators are on the front line working with Vermont’s vulnerable families. I believe a union can help us provide input and feedback to policy makers when they are making key decisions that affect these families. If we choose to form a union, I believe we create opportunities to improve the quality of child care in Vermont, create high quality programs, and create a more stable workforce with lower turnover rates. Through a union I can be a voice for the families I work for.
It has been a long wait for the right to choose to form a union. I hope legislators will pass S.316 soon. I know that if Vermont gives us this right, all Vermont children will have better access to quality child care and low-income families will have a better chance for success.
