How diverse can a “miscellaneous” bill be? That was more or less the question that squashed an attempt in the Senate on Thursday to allow child-care workers to unionize.
It’s the second time this year that the legislation has emerged. The Education Committee tacked the unionization piece onto a bill that makes “miscellaneous” changes to education law after the Economic Development Committee killed the bill earlier in the session.
This move — spearheaded by the Education Committee chair, Sen. Richard McCormack, D-Windsor — turned a perfunctory housekeeping bill into a divisive topic.
But before McCormack had even begun to make his case for including it, Sen. Kevin Mullin, R-Rutland, who chairs the Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs Committee, interjected to question whether the provision was germane to the underlying bill.
Mullin made the case that the providers are primarily child-care workers, not early educators. About 91 percent of the providers (the bill only applies to home-based providers, not centers) are not certified by the state to offer early education, according to Mullin.
“It could be a miscellaneous transportation bill, but that does not mean that every transportation issue is germane to that bill? And in this case just because it says ‘miscellaneous education’ doesn’t mean anything in any remote way possibly connected to education is germane,” Mullin argued.
McCormack said he was blindsided by the move — not because he didn’t expect Mullin to put up a fight, but because he thought there was an implicit agreement that Mullin wouldn’t pose that question.
“He never promised not to do that but the understanding was that we were being courteous to one another,” McCormack said.
Back when McCormack was deliberating how to revive the child care unionization bill, he chose not to tack it onto a pre-kindergarten education bill in an effort to appease Mullin.
McCormack declined to comment on whether he will now pursue that route by offering an amendment to the pre-K bill.
He maintained that the issue fit within the confines of the miscellaneous education bill.
“The people who provide early childhood education are educators,” he said. “This is an educational issue and the working conditions of a class of workers speaks to that issue. If you’re talking about the working conditions of automobile workers that’s germane to something having to do with automobile manufacturers.”
Mullin, as chair of the committee that killed the bill, also criticized McCormack for commandeering a bill that didn’t belong in his committee. “This is an end run,” Mullin said. “It’s a labor bill.”
The Senate president, Lt. Gov. Phil Scott, said gauging germaneness can often be a murky question, but he issued a clear verdict: “It is not natural or in a logical sequence, and it does entertain an independent question … it is an independent topic.”
Thus fizzled another attempt to give collective bargaining rights to approximately 1,500 child-care workers. The effort traces back to 2011, when the House passed a similar bill. It also passed in the Senate as an amendment last year but then died in a conference committee. Had McCormack’s attempt been successful, the legislation was expected to be a shoo-in in the House, given its vote in 2011.
McCormack said he is mystified by the Senate’s reticence on this issue. Lawmakers approved a similar collective bargaining bill for home health care workers earlier this session with little debate.
“The Senate, in general, is pro-labor. We voted for fair share. We voted for the (unionization of) home-care workers, and why there would be this animosity toward women who take care of children is beyond me.”
McCormack made a last-ditch effort, asking the Senate to suspend the rules and debate the issue, regardless of its relevance. He needed three-quarters of the Senate to back him, but only 17 of the 29 senators present sided with him.
Two senators, Phil Baruth, D-Chittenden, and Peter Galbraith, D-Windham, said they supported giving child-care workers the right to unionize, but out of respect for Scott’s interpretation of Senate rules they were reluctant to take the matter up.
“I hope no one questions my commitment to early educators but … I am absolutely uncomfortable with suspending the rules to make the president’s ruling invalid,” Baruth said.
McCormack responded that rules are routinely suspended. “What we have never had is a clear up or down vote on the merits because there has always been a procedural question.”
