Gendering and Diversifying Trade Union Leadership by Ledwith Sue;Hansen Lise Lotte;

Author:Ledwith, Sue;Hansen, Lise Lotte;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

THE CAMPAIGNS

United Federation of Teachers (UFT)/ACORN Home-based Childcare Providers

In 2005, UFT began an organising drive to gain collective bargaining rights for approximately 60,000 home-based childcare providers, mostly women of colour, in New York City. According to UFT, over 50 per cent of these workers earned poverty-level wages, and lacked health benefits, overtime pay, pensions and paid vacation time. Providers received government subsidies to care for infants, young children and children needing after-school care from low-income families. Their roles are important yet overlooked, especially as publicly funded care does not begin for children until they are four years old in New York City and the school day can end well before parents return from work. As the city's largest education union, UFT represents over 200,000 teachers and educators.

After a two-year campaign, UFT organised 28,000 city childcare providers. In January of 2010, the UFT providers ratified their first two-year contract with New York State and the NYS Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) ensuring a standard market rate for reimbursement, access to the state healthcare plan, professional development funding, and a fund to upgrade facilities. The victory came after providers won the right to unionise in New York through Executive Order 12, signed in May 2007 by then-governor Eliot Spitzer, granting providers the right to negotiate with the state for higher pay, health insurance, improved working conditions and better training. Before this, providers were defined by state law as independent contractors without collective bargaining rights.

Knowing providers would be difficult to reach, UFT collaborated with the New York City chapter of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a community organisation committed to social and economic justice for historically disenfranchised groups.7 UFT and ACORN launched a citywide door-knocking campaign, first to get providers to sign union cards, and then to mobilise for the union election. Rallies and meetings brought together providers, elected officials, clergy members and community leaders.

When UFT and ACORN campaigned for changes in the payment system, (winning over $300,000 in back pay), and in health inspections, providers learned the power of collective action even though the union was not yet recognised.

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