A bill just passed out of the human services committee. The original intent of the legislation, H97, was to allow for child care providers in the state of Vermont to form a union. Some of the provisions of the original bill included allowing for providers to choose to form a union so that they can, if they desire, bargain with the state over a variety of issues including:
- subsidy rates and reimbursement practices;
- retirement and health care benefits;
- professional development and training support;
- child-to-staff ratios;
- licensing fees, as well as other related fees;
- grievance procedures;
- any other matter related to regulating child care within the state;
This legislation also allowed for an automatic collection of dues for union members and covered every kind of child care providers regulated by the state.
I will state again that this doesn’t force providers to do this. It allows them to choose to do so.
So what passed out of committee?
- subsidy rates and reimbursement practices;
retirement and health care benefits;- professional development and training support;
child-to-staff ratios;licensing fees, as well as other related fees;- grievance procedures;
any other matter related to regulating child care within the state;
Yup. Anything related to benefits? Cut out of the bill. Anything related to child to staff ratios? Gone. Anything that’s not subsidy, professional development or grievance procedures? Nixed. Nada.
You know what else got cut out of the bill as passed?
Licensed centers. This includes some fairly small centers, but it also includes those large child care facilities which deal with a great many children in Vermont. They won’t have the choice to form a union and work with the state collectively under the new version of the bill.
What else got cut? The automatic collection of dues. This is how you nickel and dime a union to death: instead of having dues automatically pulled out (as with any paycheck for any union member), forcing the organizing body to collect the dues themselves is an administrative nightmare and will have to be handled provider by provider.
This, folks, is how you hobble a union before it’s even been formed. And this was done in a committee controlled by Democrats, many of whom have just turned their backs on the people who work absurdly long hours, for ridiculously low pay, to take care of Vermont’s children.
But even with this watered down version of a union, there’s one Democrat who didn’t even want to give child care providers the tiniest of voices. That Democrat is none other than district CHITTENDEN-8 rep. Bill Frank, of Underhill, who just happens to share his district with poll hack George Till (I’ll leave it to you guys to figure out just what to say about that).
Just an aside: I was at the house for some of the testimony over this bill. Its opponents invoked the anti-union measures in Michigan as a reason not to support this, saying Michigan’s an example of what goes wrong when we let the wrong people form unions.
I expect that from Republicans, and I expect it from people who think themselves better than working class people, and better than “the help.”
I forget from time to time that that can sometimes include Democrats.
I have connections to this campaign, both personal and professional. I make no pretense of objectivity.
At the St Albans candidate forum about this and HCR, I was stunned to hear Democrats warning about the dangers of the right to organize.
“forcing the organizing body to collect the dues themselves is an administrative nightmare”
Interesting anecdote: I asked my 86 year old Red Diaper Baby friend what exactly was it when Unions started going wrong? She thought about it for a minute or two and said, ‘automatic dues collection’? Huh? She explained: when the steward would come to collect dues from you, they had to be able to explain why and defend the dues collection, to justify to each worker just why the union deserved your hard-earned cash. When it became automatic, the leadership no longer had that direct connection to the lowliest worker.
After the last election I heard a lot about how we no longer needed the Progressive Party, since the Dems were doing a better job of representing the left. VPR did a whole show on that topic.
(The story goes that the Progressives formed because the Dems were too close to the GOP in ideology, both represented different Big Business factions and no one represented The People.)
Well, here’s all the proof I need that the VT Dems are not all that much different than the GOP and that we desperately need the Progressives more than ever.
Let me put it this way: You can not be a Democrat if you are actively fighting unions. People like Bill Frank (cited above) need to switch parties, or be forced out of the Democratic Party, since they clearly are not Democrats.
Anyone interested can look and see the lobbying efforts that went against this bill: it’s a who’s who of Montpelier’s institutionalized “left” Dems.
Shame on all of them…. shame, shame, shame on all those careerist, centrist, sell-out BS agents who- like the elected leadership of the Party- put a public face forward of being progressive and thoughtful, and then in deed act like Blue Dogs at best- moderate Republicans is more like it though. I’ve seen Tea Party members act more thoughtfully and honestly.
This was a perfectly progressive, common-sense movement to gain a “voice” for about 10,000 generally low income (generally) women in VT- and the Dems and the Progs (elected as well as lobbyists) acted like a fucking convention of Scott Walker’s.
I’m embarrassed for you all.
Most child care providers are actually the operators of small businesses, whereas unions are formed by employees to negotiate with employers.
Why isn’t this a proposal to allow a category of small businesses to form a cartel to negotiate with the purchasers of their services?