The childcare unionization bill, formerly known as S.52, went down in flames in a Senate committee earlier this legislative session, but it looks like the legislation will live to see another day — this time as an amendment on the Senate floor.
Sen. Bill Doyle, R-Washington, was the swing vote when the bill failed in the Senate Economic Development Committee last month. The senator, in a surprise move, just days after telling childcare providers and members of the American Federation of Teachers that he would support the bill, voted against it.
Doyle, who is a professor at Johnson State College and a member of the AFT, has switched allegiances — again — and will support the unionization provision as long as it includes all home-based childcare providers. The original legislation, he said, would have only allowed providers who take children who are eligible for state subsidies to vote on whether to form a union. About 500 providers do not receive subsidies from the state for low-income working families who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford childcare.
“I just think all people should be included,” Doyle said. “I teach government. I can’t see leaving people out. It’s a fundamental principle.”
The Senate Education Committee has drafted new language that would enable all of the state’s some 1,500 childcare providers — including independent, small business owners and workers alike — to join a union and bargain collectively with the state over subsidies and standards of care. AFT does not oppose the more inclusive language.
The amendment would be attached to the miscellaneous education bill.
Sen. Dick McCormack, D-Windsor, chair of the Senate Education Committee, told VTDigger on Thursday he supports the new language.
McCormack says he would not seek to amend the pre-K bill, even though he says it would be a better vehicle for the legislation. That’s because in what looks like a tight vote on the Senate floor, he’ll need the support of senators who are currently on the fence, and he can’t afford an all-out battle on the floor with Sen. Kevin Mullin, R-Rutland.
Mullin, chair of the Senate Economic Development Committee, is adamantly opposed to the provision and helped to orchestrate its demise in his committee last month. The two senators bantered over the legislation at Lt. Gov. Phil Scott’s weekly coffee hour last Thursday.
McCormack reluctantly agreed to put the amendment on the miscellaneous education bill after Mullin made it clear he’d put up a fight if the vehicle was the pre-K bill, which would enable schools to use state funding for early education of 3- and 4-year-olds, in a number of new communities around the state.
“I’m giving up a weapon here,” McCormack said. “The governor likes the pre-K bill and to put it on a bill that the governor is pushing for would strengthen my hand, but we work together.”
“Dick and I will have a friendly fight,” Mullin said. “I think it’s going to be close.”
Last year, a similar measure passed as an amendment on the Senate floor, 16-13. It failed in conference committee.
If the Senate passes a childcare unionization bill, it will have smooth sailing in the House where a similar measure passed in 2011. Gov. Peter Shumlin, who supports higher pay for early education workers, has said he would sign the legislation.
The Senate passed similar legislation allowing home health care workers unionize last month. That bill, unlike the childcare unionization measure, generated very little debate.
Belinda Snow-Gifford, of Brookfield, who works as a home health care provider and an early educator, is baffled by the politics around the issue.
“It makes absolutely no sense to me that the Senate has given me the right, through S.59, to choose whether I want to form a union for the services I provide for the home health care children I serve, but has not given me the same right for the early education children I serve,” Snow-Gifford said in an email.
CORRECTION: Doyle is an R, not a D, as originally reported. We originally reported that last year’s amendment failed on the Senate floor; it did pass and then failed in conference committee.
