United for Change: How Child Care Workers Can Benefit from Unions, Collective Bargaining, and Professional Standards
Child care workers hold the critical responsibility of nurturing the future generation, yet they often face low wages and insufficient benefits. To improve their working conditions and advocate for their rights, they can draw valuable lessons from other professions that have effectively utilized unions, collective bargaining power, and professional standards to achieve their goals. Nurses, elementary and secondary school teachers, and auto workers offer inspiring examples that can guide child care workers in their fight for better pay and benefits.
Lesson 1: Harnessing the Power of Unions and Collective Bargaining
The success of nurses and teachers in securing better working conditions can be largely attributed to their strong labor unions. These unions negotiate contracts on behalf of their members, leveraging collective bargaining power to obtain higher pay, better benefits, and improved working conditions. Child care workers can follow suit by forming or joining unions that can advocate for their rights, bringing them the benefits of collective bargaining.
Lesson 2: Establishing Professional Standards
Both teachers and nurses have professional standards that help define their value and create a framework for fair compensation. By developing and promoting such standards within the child care industry, workers can ensure that their skills, qualifications, and contributions are recognized, paving the way for better pay and benefits. Furthermore, professional standards can help establish clear career pathways, enabling child care workers to pursue further education and advancement opportunities.
Lesson 3: Building Public Support through Advocacy
Elementary and secondary school teachers have gained public support by raising awareness about the challenges they face and the importance of their work. By engaging with the media, organizing events, and partnering with parents, teachers have effectively made their case for better pay and benefits. Child care workers can employ similar tactics, emphasizing the critical role they play in early childhood education and highlighting the need for better compensation to attract and retain qualified professionals.
Lesson 4: Creating a United Front with Other Industries
Auto workers, through organizations like the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, have successfully negotiated better wages, health care, and retirement benefits for their members. This success has been partly due to their ability to build alliances with workers from other industries, creating a united front that amplifies their demands. Child care workers can learn from this example by connecting with other professions and organizations, which can not only provide valuable insights but also strengthen their collective voice.
Using these stratagies won’t be easy. The formation of unions among child care workers faces several unique challenges that impede their ability to collectively bargain and advocate for better pay and benefits. A significant hurdle is the fragmented nature of the child care sector, which includes a mix of center-based facilities, family child care homes, and informal care arrangements. This diversity makes it difficult to establish a unified front, as workers are scattered across numerous workplaces with varying employment structures. Additionally, many child care providers operate on tight budgets, which can lead to concerns that unionization and the resulting demands for higher pay and benefits may burden already-struggling centers, potentially leading to closures or reduced accessibility for families. Furthermore, the historical undervaluation of child care work as "women's work" or "babysitting" along with sexism has contributed to a lack of recognition of the skills and expertise required in this field, making it more challenging to garner public and political support for unionization efforts. These challenges will be hard to overcome, but these efforts could be one of the few pathways for child care workers to get the pay and benefits they deserve.
To achieve better pay and benefits, child care workers can learn from the successes of other professions that have effectively harnessed the power of unions, collective bargaining, and professional standards. By embracing these strategies and working together, child care workers can make a strong case for the recognition and compensation they deserve. By forming or joining unions, establishing professional standards, advocating for their cause, and building alliances, they can pave the way for a brighter future for themselves and the children they serve.
Bibliography and Sources For Further Reading
Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2021). Union Members Summary. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm
Child Care Aware of America. (2021). The High Cost of Child Care Underscores the Need for Supporting Child Care Workers. Retrieved from https://www.childcareaware.org/2021/11/the-high-cost-of-child-care-underscores-the-need-for-supporting-child-care-workers/
Education Week. (2018). Teachers' Unions and Collective Bargaining: A Primer. Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/teachers-unions-and-collective-bargaining-a-primer/2018/02
National Association for the Education of Young Children. (2020). Power to the Profession: Unifying Framework for the Early Childhood Education Profession. Retrieved from https://www.naeyc.org/sites/default/files/globally-shared/downloads/PDFs/our-work/public-policy-advocacy/p2p-unifying-framework-web.pdf
National Education Association. (n.d.). Advocating for Education Professionals: The Power of the NEA. Retrieved from https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change
National Nurses United. (n.d.). Organize with NNU: Building Nurse Power. Retrieved from https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/organize-with-nnu
United Auto Workers. (n.d.). About the UAW. Retrieved from https://uaw.org/about/
Whitebook, M., & Sakai, L. (2004). By a Thread: How Child Care Centers Hold on to Teachers, How Teachers Build Lasting Careers. Kalamazoo, MI: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. Retrieved from https://research.upjohn.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1046&context=up_press
Whitebook, M., McLean, C., & Austin, L.J.E. (2016). Early Childhood Workforce Index 2016. Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved from https://cscce.berkeley.edu/files/2016/Early-Childhood-Workforce-Index-2016.pdf
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. (n.d.). The Importance of Unions for Child Care Providers. Retrieved from https://www.afscme.org/organize/the-importance-of-unions-for-child-care-providers
photo credit: Photo by Thirdman from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/pretty-woman-holding-a-megaphone-8924458/
