OLYMPIA – Handing a victory to a growing labor union, the state House on Friday overwhelmingly approved collective bargaining rights for workers who receive state child care payments.
The measure is aimed at improving the compensation of some 10,000 child care providers in the state who receive subsidies from the Department of Social and Health Services.
Those child care providers voted last year to affiliate with the Service Employees International Union, a political force that helped unionize 26,000 in-home health care workers after voters approved a union-sponsored initiative in 2001.
House members passed the child care bargaining bill by an 84-14 vote on Friday. Kim Cook, president of the union’s Local 925, said a companion bill also has bipartisan support in the state Senate.
“I think our society has evolved to the point where we have accepted the working-parent family, and that day care – quality day care – is an absolute necessity to our society,” said Rep. Jan Shabro, R-Bonney Lake, a co-sponsor of the bill.
Some Republicans, however, had reservations about requiring child care providers to pay dues even if they didn’t want to join the union.
House GOP members offered several unsuccessful amendments to pare that provision, including one from Rep. Bruce Chandler, R-Granger, that would have cut unlicensed friends-and-family caregivers from the bargaining unit.
“Those providers should not have to be encumbered under the collective bargaining agreement,” Chandler said. “They are more often than not doing it as an obligation and a duty and a privilege … to their families and the families of their friends.”
If the measure becomes law, subsidized child care workers would vote to select a bargaining representative to negotiate with the state. The union is expected to win that balloting.
Any contracts negotiated under the new bargaining agreement would have to be approved by the Legislature.
When negotiations begin, benefits and better pay rates will lead child care workers’ wish lists, Cook said.
“Subsidies are a huge issue – they’ve dropped dramatically in the last 10 years,” she said. “These workers don’t have health benefits, and they want to talk about that.”
Child care providers can collect state subsidies when they care for children whose family incomes are less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
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