Union war over child care
Sitters seek someone to stand up for them
By Stephen Franklin
Tribune staff reporter
Published March 18, 2005
With 3-month-old "Miss Muffin" on one knee and 5-month-old Kayla climbing onto the other, Angenita Tanner was busy with all five of the youngsters under her care.
But way before her workday began Thursday, she was even busier, making telephone calls on behalf of a cause that has taken up much of her time lately--getting child-care workers like herself to vote for a union.
"You need someone to speak up for you," said Tanner, 40, adding that she often barely gets by at the child-care operation that she has run out of her South Side apartment for the last nine years.
With foot soldiers like Tanner, dozens of organizers and heaps of money, two of the nation's largest unions are waging a furious battle over who will represent up to 50,000 child-care workers in Illinois.
It's the state's largest organizing drive in decades, and the contest between the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) has stirred some of the unkindest words heard within organized labor.
"It is a kind of madness, but I don't think either union can back away," said Robert Bruno, a labor expert with the Chicago Labor Education Program of the University of Illinois.
The ballots went out on Wednesday, and the vote counting will begin April 7. The workers, mostly w0omen, care for about 200,000 children from low- and moderate-income families whose child care is paid for by grants from the state and federal government.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich last month signed an order opening the door for them to bargain with the state through a union even though they are not state employees. That was the first time a governor in the U.S. has taken such a step on behalf of child-care workers, union officials said.
How much a vote in favor of a union would cost the state is not clear, said Gerardo Cardenas, a spokesman for the governor. "They may end up choosing neither union. We need to see how the process works out."
The workers' pay ranges from $9.48 to $22 per child per day, depending on the youngsters' age and the facility's location. But most workers earn the minimum and are limited to caring for only three children.
The union feud erupted earlier this month at a meeting of the nation's labor leaders in Las Vegas held by the AFL-CIO, where the two unions' presidents traded accusations.
SEIU President Andy Stern, who raised the issue, accused AFSCME of trying to steal away 10 years of politicking and organizing in Illinois by his union.
AFSCME President Gerald McEntee replied that his union represents most of the state's workers and also that SEIU couldn't be relied upon to do the best for state employees.
Tempers haven't cooled since.
AFSCME officials "should be ashamed of themselves. This not the way to build our union movement," said Tom Balanoff, president of SEIU's 107,000-member Illinois State Council.
Mike Zucker, AFSCME's director of strategic research, said his union has cooperated with SEIU in other states but is standing its ground in Illinois because "we want to take a principled stance."
He pointed to the contract reached between SEIU and the state two years ago after Blagojevich similarly opened the way for home health-care workers to have a union represent them.
That brought 20,000 new members to SEIU Local 880 and a 34 percent pay increase over four years for the workers. Zucker's gripe is that the agreement signed by the local does not provide for worker's compensation, retirement benefits or health insurance for the workers.
"We thought it was a step backward for state workers," he said.
Balanoff replied that without a union, the workers would not have a chance to seek health care, and SEIU officials pointed out that there are bills in the legislature to provide medical coverage for home-care and child-care workers.
To be sure, health care is top priority for Tanner, who doesn't have any now.
It is also one of the first things she mentions as she urges fellow child-care workers to vote for her union, the SEIU.
She is a shop steward in Local 880, a member almost since she opened her own child-care service. The union began organizing child-care workers nine years ago, collecting dues from whoever was willing to pay, even though it could not negotiate with the state at that time. Union officials were laying the groundwork in hopes of organizing in the future.
To keep children and money coming, her small center, which takes up nearly all of her apartment, is open weekends, holidays and nights.
And though she doesn't like to do it, she is licensed to take care of children until 3 a.m., a situation that sometimes comes up, she said, when a parent can't leave a late-night shift on time.
Her children come from homes where the care is provided by single parents or grandparents. Not everyone always pays, either, which is the case lately for one young mother between jobs who needs a place to leave her youngster when she goes on job interviews.
Some months, Tanner said, she has only $100 left after paying her bills and an assistant, who earns as much as $50 a day.
"But it's a blessing to be able to hold and to shape these kids," she said, before heading off into the other room, plopping down on the floor with all five kids closely gathered around and launching into a rousing song.
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