OLYMPIA – Washington state foster parents are the first in the nation to join a labor union, a move that paves the way for them to seek collective bargaining rights with state government.
In a letter to the state, the Foster Parents Association of Washington State said it was aligning with state government’s largest union, the Washington Federation of State Employees, to improve a foster care system “in crisis.”
“Children placed in the foster care system have increasingly serious behavioral issues, and turnover among front-line social workers and foster parents is too high,” said the letter, dated May 12. The Associated Press obtained a copy on Thursday.
The union and foster parents have not completely settled on their next steps, including seeking collective bargaining rights, said Tim Welch, a spokesman for the Washington Federation of State Employees.
“The bottom line is protecting resources for our common goal of protecting abused and neglected children,” Welch said.
The federation represents some 38,000 state workers. It was not immediately clear how many of the state’s estimated 6,000 foster parents would be included in the new alliance.
Steve Baxter, co-president of the Foster Parents Association, declined comment on the union. He also was unsure of the association’s size, but said, “I think it’s doubled in the past couple of days.”
Observers were not sure if the first-of-its-kind alliance would spur similar organizing efforts nationwide.
“I don’t know what the response is going to be, because the departments may respond in one way and the foster parent associations in a different way,” said Karen Jorgenson, director of the National Foster Parent Association.
The new foster parent union follows similar organizing efforts by Washington’s home health care and child care workers, who also receive state payments for their services. Both of those groups, which are aligned with the Service Employees International Union, have won collective bargaining rights with the state.
Dee Wilson, director of the University of Washington’s Northwest Institute for Children and Families, said the foster care union’s power will be tied to its size. Frustration over compensation and support has run high among foster parents for years, but the state association’s numbers have not been strong recently, Wilson said.
“On the other hand, if their membership triples or quadruples within a year, then it’s, ‘Katie, bar the door,’ ” he said.
Washington state’s foster care system has come under intense criticism. State officials are working through the settlement of a landmark lawsuit that accused them of bouncing children among too many foster homes without adequate services. The agency’s previous director was forced out of her job last year after budget overruns and high-profile child deaths.
Washington state has about 9,600 children in foster care. It reimburses foster parents on a sliding scale. Basic rates that take effect July 1 are between $374 and $525 a month, depending on a child’s age.
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