In Historic Vote, New York City Home Child Care Providers
Say Yes to Union

WASHINGTON, D.C.—In the largest addition of unaffiliated workers in the history of the American Federation of Teachers, 28,000 home-based child care workers in New York City voted overwhelmingly for representation by the AFT-affiliated United Federation of Teachers, the unions announced today.

"This vote caps a two-year drive to secure an economic and political voice for home-based child care providers," said UFT President Randi Weingarten, noting the workers are among the lowest-paid workers in the New York region.  "The UFT will begin negotiations soon for them and will seek the economic dignity, professional opportunities and respect they so deeply deserve but now lack."

According to the New York State Employment Relations Board, or SERB, which tallied secret mail-in ballot cards on Oct. 23, the vote was 8,382 to 96 to form a union. A simple majority of those who voted was required for the UFT to become the bargaining representative.

The organizing campaign was a joint project of the UFT and ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). After New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer signed a May executive order allowing providers to form a union, the UFT and ACORN collected more than 12,000 signatures from daycare providers to support a union election.  The victory marks the largest addition of workers unaffiliated with any other union or organization in AFT’s history, and the most extensive organizing drive in nearly 50 years in New York City.

AFT Secretary-Treasurer Nat LaCour said the UFT-ACORN alliance marked a new form of union organizing.

"They blazed a trail for community-focused organizing that recognizes child care workers' right to fair wages, children’s right to the best early learning experiences possible, and parents’ right to affordable and readily available, high-quality care," LaCour said.

# # # #