Major Union Drive in NYC
Major Union Drive in NYC
28,000 home day care workers in New York City - who are among the lowest-paid workers in the region - are one step closer to joining the United Federation of Teachers, the New York City Teachers' Union. Read about it at Edwize
Submitted by Steve Perez on 1 August 2007 - 1:48pm.
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Hey Daniel, good
Submitted by Steve Perez on 2 August 2007 - 11:45am.
Hey Daniel, good questions.
1) The home day care workers we're talking about here are paid by the state. Prior to Gov. Spitzer's Executive Order, they were considered independent contractors - even though their pay is decided by the state government. The Executive Order gave them an employer, the Office of Children and Family Services, who they can bargain with as a group if and when they form a union.
3) To answer the part of your question about representation, home day care workers in NYC would be represented by the UFT. Of course, that doesn't mean we go it alone. Since these home day care workers are so poorly paid, ACORN started to organize them as well to help improve their quality of life. So it's natural that we would work together.
4) Not sure what you're asking. The UFT is active in NYC.
5) Executive Orders carry different weight in different places. Here in New York state, rescinding an Executive Order is hard to do. Never say never, but I'd expect the Executive Order to stand, even with an anti-union governor in the future. That's different from, say, the federal level, where a President can more easily undo a former President's Executive Orders; take, for example, George Bush rescinding the Roadless Rule or reinstating the Global Gag Rule.
Hope that clears things up!
I've read your posts here and at Edwize, Steve, and there are
somethings that I do not understand:
As I understand the basic home-care set-up, parents pay a provider for group child care in the provider's home. Many of the parents pay by means of child care vouchers. (Some, undocumented, just pay cash). The executive order, I gather, declares those providers to be "employees" for collective bargaining purposes and integrates them into the existing framework for establishing collective bargaining rights.
1) How do the providers bargain collectively with NY State, since, as a practical matter, their income comes largely from the per capita payments they get from each child they care for? Is the plan to abandon that structure and to campaign, somehow for hourly salary or is it to bargain with the state over per-child care rates? You (& others) have talked about career ladders and health insurance but how will those be paid for?
2) Will the cash income from undocumented child care now have to be recognized a declared? Will that help?
3) What is ACORN doing in this? Are they now going to be a union? Will they be covered by LM reporting laws? Will ACORN have a duty of fairly representing these care givers?
4) How did UFT and CSEA divide up the territory? Yes, UFT gets NYC and CSEA gets the rest, but what is the process here?
5) Since this change is coming about by means of an executive order, what will happen, do you think, when (and if) Gov. Spitzer leaves (to become Amb to Poland or AG)?