Ballot item eyes unions for day-care workers

A little-noticed but well-funded initiative buried near the bottom of the ballot on Election Day would allow unions to organize workers in some 9,000 mom-and-pop day-care centers run out of homes across the state.

The initiative, which has the backing of prominent Democrats including Senator John F. Kerry, is part of a labor campaign to organize hundreds of thousands of day-care workers across the country.

Supporters say the initiative , Question 3 on the ballot, will improve care by stabilizing the day-care labor force and giving the underpaid workers a collective voice to bargain for benefits, training, and higher state subsidies.

Critics fear that union pressure could drive up prices and put health, safety, and education standards on the bargaining table.

A political committee funded by the 1.8-million-member Service Employees International Union plans to run two 30-second television ads in Massachusetts through Election Day and has called a million households with a recorded phone pitch from Kerry. So far, the SEIU has given $1.1 million to the committee, called the Campaign for Our Children's Future, though there is little opposition.

The Massachusetts initiative focuses on what the state calls family child-care providers, who run their businesses in private homes and have an average of about six children per location.

Unions have already won the right to organize day-care workers in five states, and campaigns are being waged in 18 more. In Massachusetts, supporters had to collect signatures to force the issue onto the statewide ballot after Governor Mitt Romney vetoed a bill in August that would have given home-based day-care centers the right to unionize.

There is no political committee raising money to urge voters to reject the measure, though the state Department of Early Education and Care raised concerns in a recent analysis.

If approved, the analysis warned, the initiative could set a precedent by giving small, private businesses the right to collective bargaining with a government agency. With that power, a union could drive the cost of government subsidies above market rates, a move that could drain state funds and inflate child-care costs across the state, the analysis found.

"It's not necessarily for kids," said Ann Reale, the commissioner of Early Education and Care.

But a union supporter insisted that the measure is aimed at maintaining high quality day care.

"We have no interest in loosening regulations," said Susana Segat, president of SEIU Local 888. "We have kids. Part of why we are doing this is because . . . we want to professionalize the profession."

If the initiative passes, a union would need to obtain written authorization from 30 percent of family providers who care for children who are subsidized by the state. If that union then wins a mail ballot, it would become the sole representative to bargain with the state on behalf of all the day-care workers.

In the suburbs of Boston, for example, a state voucher will pay roughly $30 a day for the care of a toddler under age 2. The average rate that child-care providers charge parents is $45, according to Early Education and Care. If the initiative passes, providers could join a union to negotiate those rates on their behalf.

But support for the measure has slipped in the polls.

In a survey released Oct. 24 by the Suffolk University Political Research Center, 36 percent of 400 possible voters polled opposed the measure; 34 percent supported it. That was a reversal from in August, when the measure was supported 46 percent to 32 percent.

"I would attribute that to voters not understanding" the question, said David Paleologos, the director of the research center. "Historically if voters are confused about the question, their fallback behavior is to protect what currently exists, which is what they know."

The union hopes that will change. This month the SEIU dropped $750,000 into the coffers of the committee supporting the ballot initiative. The money helped fund the phone call from Kerry, who benefited from more than $3.2 million in mailings, television commercials, and radio ads funded by the SEIU during his 2004 presidential campaign.

"I believe in organized labor," Kerry said in a statement. "I think that if you bring family child-care providers across the state together and give them the opportunity to collectively bargain with the state, it will help improve parents' access to affordable, quality child care."

Sue Winn, who has run a day care in her home outside Seattle for 26 years, flew to Massachusetts last week to distribute pamphlets and discuss how 8,000 home child-care workers joined the SEIU in Washington last year.

"I think the major issue for providers is to be recognized as a profession, not just glorified baby sitters," said Winn, who takes care of five children in her home.

Without pressure from a union, officials in Massachusetts recently approved an increase that will bump voucher rates up by about $1 a day with more raises expected .

But some say the disparity is still too large. "We need that income to have a safe and healthy environment," said Rosa Jackson, who has watched children in her Dorchester home for 20 years. Jackson, chairwoman of the committee pushing the ballot initiative, said a union would stabilize an industry with high turnover and encourage more people to go into child care.

Others aren't so sure. "It's very split in this town," said Dianne Hansen-White, who has run a day care in her Braintree home for 30 years. "Unions are kind of scary thing for some people."