It sounds wonderful the way she is describing it, however, it will limit the number of families that will be helped through subsidized care. The regulations she is referring to are licensing regulations. These are standard throughout the industry. In fact, they are less strict for home day care providers than they are for center-based. Those regulations are not going to go away because home day care providers are unionized. Those regulations are there to protect the children in care. Home day care providers are independent business people. Unless they are contracted with a family day care system, they are not mandated to accept state subsidized children. Therefore, if they feel the reimbursement is too low, then they have the option of choosing not to accept vouchers. What will happen if a bill like this is passed is that the state will be forced to raise reimbursement rates. That means that out of the money available to help low income working families, more money will be going to each provider and less money will be available to help low income families resulting in higher paid providers and fewer families being served. When these low income working families can’t access child care, they can’t work. THen one of two things happens – they go on welfare or they leave the state.
By the way, this is not just a union forming of family day care workers. This is service workers something , something union trying to increase it’s membership in the state, giving it more power. Most of our family day care workers are against this bill because they understand in the long run, it will cost them more money and they will be forced to compete for private paying parents.
Two other things to keep in mind:
Most well-run family day care providers make in excess of 40K.
If this measure passes, many of the smaller family day care systems, which provide lots of training and support, especially to non English speaking family day care providers will simply close their doors, leaving these providers to fend for themselves. Many of the non English speaking providers will lose valuable support and as a result will not doubt close themselves.
First she says “if [home day cares] feel the reimbursement is too low, then they have the option of choosing not to accept vouchers” (ie: not providing services to poor families -> fewer families being served). But then she says that raising reimbursement rates from the state would result “in higher paid providers and fewer families being served”.
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Huh?
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“This is service workers something , something union trying to increase it’s membership in the state, giving it more power. ” This is true, but I get a little sceptical ahout how well informed about an issue she is when Service Employees Internation Union (SEIU) becomes “service workers something something”.
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I do think that if home care workers want to be unionized, joined an existing powerful union is going to be of more benefit to them than forming their own union from scratch.
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And I’m completely lost on how she comes to the conclusion “If this measure passes, many of the smaller family day care systems…will simply close their doors”
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I am, in fact, very eager to understand the views of people offering home day care services, but this view makes no sense to me.
Many Home/Family day care providers will do one of two things – either stop accepting vouchers and go 100% private pay, or close down if it is determined that SEIU has jusrisdiction even if they DON’T take vouchers. It’s like dentists who won’t take MassHEalth – if they take one person, they are embroiled in a huge bureaucracy, so many opt for free care instead.
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I have a friend who was forced in SEIU – and was given a much bally-hooed 3% raise. It comes to $20 per pay period. Union dues are $19.60 per pay period. Gee, thanks for the sixty cents! Independent contractors may not WANT to be forced to pay union dues on top of their FICA, UI and othr taxes.
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You don’t know what taxation is until you have to write that check yourself. We should end employer withholding.
Question 3 is about giving Family Providers the right to make that decision.
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Great annecdotal stories about your friend. I also know of Janitors in New York who went on hunger strike for the right to join SEIU. As I have replied in other messages, people joining a union don’t pay dues until after they negotiate and contract and vote to ratify it. If it is a bad deal, people don’t vote for it.
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As to the “force” into SEIU, that’s not true. Closed shop contracts are illegal. They may have to pay a “fair share” which would be less than membership dues, since the union is legally required to represent all those in the barganing unit, even those who are not members. In addition, that place would have had to have a majority of employees vote to join the union. So if you are concerned about the idea of people forced into a union, what about the much greater number who would like to be in a union, but whose workforce either has not had an election or it went the other way.
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And last time I checked union workers make 30% more than non-union workers.
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As for employer witholding, it has nothing to do with “us”, that is an issue that is negotiated into union contracts.
Have you ever tried to determine how much a union’s “agency fee” should be? You can run a query here. It’s very interesting how sparse Schedule 16 is, even for organizations that are openly very political.
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I didn’t think MA had any right to work laws?
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So a vote yes for question 3 means more pay for workers which means more taxes to pay the workers.
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Vote yes for 3! It’ll raise your taxes.
anymore than I think that package stores primary concern is drunk driving.
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Agencies are afraid because they get their money by taking a cut from the state voucher.
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They might have a concern that once providers organize together that might have less need for these agencies, but there is nothing inherent in organzing that would force them to close down. The argument makes no sense.
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And I don’t trust the argument “service workers something.’ SEIU, IMHO, is the most dynamic, progressive union in the country. It is the fastest growing union in North America for the last fifteen to twenty years (Full disclosure: I used to work for SEIU… no longer work in the labor movement, have worked for many unions.. SEIU, UAW, UNITE, and I think SEIU is the best.. since they have a goal of building power by strategically organizing rather than just going after membership)
If reimbursements aren’t fair right now (and I don’t know that they aren’t, I’m arguing an ‘if’ here) then it’s our moral obligation as the state to make sure they are, even if that means, say, increasing funding for this program, which frankly is probably a drop in the bucket of the state budget.
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A Governor Patrick won’t let the number of providers go down, I really believe that. I don’t think the legislature would, either.
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Between Patrick’s government efficiency plan, the reduction or elimination of earmark pork, and his plans to restart our lagging economy (all of which we ground troops will help him gather the pressure to pass through the legislature), I think we can find a few mill here or there to increase the number of subsidies if needs be, whether that’s because of demand going up or reimbursements becoming more fair.
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The bottom line is, my analogy still holds. If you’re going to regulate an industry, that industry’s businesses need to come to the table with some sort of voice in the process, and I would want one if MY industry had the sort of neccessary but sometimes badly-crafted regulations governments make to protect the people. Both to offer my expertise from experience, and to make sure I am not steamrolled by the government.
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I’m a liberal and believe in regulations, but I ain’t stupid. No one should have a monopoly on negotiations (and yes, that’s a deliberate oxymoron).
This is very interesting, and I’m glad to see all this discussion of question 3. I’m still trying to understand the issue. I just posted in another BMG thread on this issue.
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The statement that higher reimbursement rates would reduce the amount of assistance to low income families does not make sense. Lower reimbursement rates must force more home daycare providers out of the state voucher system creating fewer home slots for poor kids. This benefits the institutional providers over the home daycare providers. Institutional providers have the ability to lobby for their interests and to promote their style of child care over a home caring situation. This is unfortunate. I see the two as different styles, and appealing to different groups of people and different individuals. It is too bad if home day care providers are seen as less valuable than the bigger corporate care centers.
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Perhaps a “union” of some sort could help to lobby on behalf of home daycare providers, but I’m not sure.
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I think I’m beginning to understand this issue.
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Still not sure how I will vote on it, but I think I’m leaning to Yes, in order to give the home care providers more of a voice at the state house.
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My evolving understanding is that this will not affect those home care providers who are dealing independently with families who pay them to care for their children through a private business arrangement. This only affects those home daycare providers who are caring for poor children, whose fees are reimbursed by the state.
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(By the way, I was a MA licensed home day care provider more than 15 years ago, and I have had my children cared for in a licensed home day care setting and in a non-profit institutional daycare setting.)