Question 3 Viewed From the Trenches

[brynndragon]

As some of you know, my mom runs a day care out of her home. As (I hope) all you know, question 3 on today's ballot is about how people like my mom can bargain with the state. So I called her up this morning and asked her what she felt about it.

Her initial reaction was to say no, because she doesn't like unions and feels that she is running an individual business. She doesn't like the idea of someone else getting to decide if the government should give her more or less money for the single mom she is providing care for (the deal in MD is the state pays half of the child care costs), and the law would (if she was up here) force her to do so if less than a third of her fellow providers said it was OK. Then I read her the text of the proposition, and I got to this line: "The proposed law would not authorize providers to engage in a strike or other refusal to deliver child care services." To which she said, "Wait, I'm no longer allowed to strike or even say that I don't like the deal and won't be giving child care to someone? Oh hell no." She feels strongly that this proposition would take power away from her, not increase it.

I know some of you have already voted, but I thought those that haven't yet would like an opinion from someone who has been an "authorized provider of child care in [a] private home" for over 25 years. Furthermore, you get to have that info without trying to hear my mom talk over several yelling kids, occasionally turning away to get them to hush (it would've made an amusing NPR interview ;P).

Comments

[tpau]

[sarcasm]

unions? taking power and choice away form people? never!

[/sarcasm]

[catya.livejournal.com]

It's interesting - given the language of the proposal, i couldn't see much of a downside to it, and until this week they couldn't even find anyone to write in against it. Strange.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Which was part of why I asked my mom - I smelled a rat, but couldn't ferret it out of my intuition. She's been doing intuitional ferretting much longer than I have :).

Reading the whole text of the proposal this morning, I easily found two things to object to - that you didn't need anything near a majority of providers to force all of them to accept a representative rather than remain independant (I like unions, I don't like people being forced into unions), and the whole "no striking for you!" thing (the ability to say "do this or we won't work" is a large chunk of a union's power, and taking it away makes a union into a paper tiger). I didn't tell my mom about those issues however, she objected to them on her own. So she and I were in agreement, even though I'm generally favorable toward unions while she's generally negative toward them.

I'm also dubious of what looks like a goverment-organized union to bargain with the government. Sounds like a conflict of interests to me. The more I think about this proposal the less I like it. . .

[greyhame.livejournal.com]

I've seen a lot of people say this (esp. on BlueMassGroup) -- that "30% can force everyone to unionize" -- and it just ain't true. If 30% vote in favor, that means there gets to be a vote, and then if 50% + 1 vote in favor, they unionize. It does still need a majority.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

I think you're correct, but they never actually mention what percentage of the ballot needs to vote yes for it to go through, or really much about the process would work other than "secret" and "mail ballot":
"Under the proposed law, these family child care providers who provide state-subsidized child care would not be considered public employees, but if 30% of the providers gave written authorization for an employee organization to be their exclusive representative in collective bargaining, the state Labor Relations Commission would hold a secret mail ballot election on whether to certify that organization as the exclusive representative."

The only thing I'm sure of is they couldn't have used more confusing language if they'd tried.

[friode.livejournal.com]

Yes, the thing where nobody in Massachusetts has been at all organized in being against it leaves me wondering how it could be bad for MA.

It is possible that conditions for people in this field happen to be much worse in MA than they are in MD. (I've seen people claiming that if you're an employer who doesn't want a union, all you have to do is treat your employees well.)

The actual text of the law regarding strikes is ``Section 7. Strikes Not Authorized

No provision of this chapter shall be construed to authorize family child care providers to engage in a strike, boycott, or cessation of the delivery of child care services.''

I don't see anything in the law that looks like it would prevent a provider from saying ``I'm getting out of the business of providing child care to people who get state subsidies.''

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Well, remember that someone has to put in the effort to get a proposition on the ballot and presumably they're for it, so the "for" position will pretty much always be organized. If it's overshadowed by other propositions *coughcoughProp1coughcough* or there's other pressing concerns in a given election season *coughcoughIraqcoughcough* it might be hard to organize opposition to a proposal even if it's a bad one, particulalr if it only affects a small number of people like this one does. So I try not to judge the worth of a proposition based on lack of opposition.

One thing...

[null4096.livejournal.com]

I'm not an expert on this particular issue but there have been cases of corporations using fake 'public interest groups' to promulgate legislation that serves their interests. Apparently in Ohio the tobacco companies created a group called Smoke Less Ohio that put forth a ballot iniative that claims to restrict smoking but actually restricts smoking *bans* by legislating smoking ban rules that are *less* stringent than those that actually exist. (Sneaky, huh?)

So it's possible there's some interest group pulling the strings behind this one, trying to make it harder to run a day care but pretending to make it easier in order to steal the other side's votes.

[tober.livejournal.com]

By way of a disclaimer, I should mention that I _don't_ like unions (and I have never understood how it is fair - or even constitutional - that employees of unionized businesses can be forced to join the union as a condition of employment). That being said, I think I am still being entirely fair in saying that question 3 has been promulgated and promoted mainly by the SEIU and its component unions. If the question is passed (and not rendered invalid by the legislature as so often happens with ballot initiatives in MA) it is a virtual certainty that the collective bargaining agent for the child care providers would be an SEIU-affiliated body - and even though the individual providers would not technically become union members as a result, they would have to pay union dues (or a fee for services rendered by the agent in lieu of dues, but that's functionally pretty much the same thing).

With regards to the "no authorization to strike" provision - are there any unionized sectors of public employment (e.g.- teachers) that are in fact, by law, affirmatively authorized to strike? I don't know the answer but I think it may be "no." This doesn't really mean that the child care providers could not or would not strike, it means that they would be in violation of the terms of their contract and could be "fired"[1][2] for striking - which is already the case for at least a lot of unionized public employees, if not all of them.

[1] "fired" is probably not quite the right term, as, in the strictest sense these child care providers are contractors and not employees.
[2] Union-busting is illegal, of course, and there's a fine line between firing employees who are on strike because you (as an employer) can't get any work done - which is usually legal - and firing employees who are on strike in order to break the back of the union - which isn't.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

People who run in-home day care are small businesses, not government employees. They are sometimes given money for services as part of a government program (e.g. the single mom who pays 50% for her kid's care while the government pays the other 50%, or the "we'll give you partial reimbursement if you feed kids healthy things" program my mom participated in a while back), but they sign contracts with parents, not the state. So no, they are not a part of the public sector and thus no-public-sector-strike rules should not apply to them.

[tober.livejournal.com]

Right. In any case, the providers in question don't have a "right to strike" today (except insofar as they can individually choose to participate in these subsidized programs or not - and I don't see any attempt in this proposal to change that - such an attempt would possibly be construed as unconstitutional anyways) so I don't see how specifically the "no authorization to strike" provision makes things worse. Without this language, a court might hold that this law (if enacted) creates an authorization for the providers (collectively) to strike. I still don't like this proposal - I just don't think that the "no authorization to strike" clause removes any right or privilege that the providers have now.

[roamin-umpire.livejournal.com]

With regards to the "no authorization to strike" provision - are there any unionized sectors of public employment (e.g.- teachers) that are in fact, by law, affirmatively authorized to strike? I don't know the answer but I think it may be "no." This doesn't really mean that the child care providers could not or would not strike, it means that they would be in violation of the terms of their contract and could be "fired" for striking - which is already the case for at least a lot of unionized public employees, if not all of them.

Varies from state to state. I seem to remember the number of states that have such laws is somewhere around 30, but I can't be certain. In New York, this is called the Taylor Law, and it prohibits public employees from striking in exchange for other concessions... most notably that the union gets to collect a "negotiating fee" equal to their dues from anyone who elects to not join their union. To me, this is a lose-lose scenario, but then, I don't have much respect for my current union.

[dragonvpm.livejournal.com]

Another thing that's particularly onerous about this proposition (apparently) is that it seems like it would only apply to people who provide child care that's subsidized in some way by the government.

If a daycare in a well-off area didn't need or want to work with those parents who received subsidies they could just stop dealing with them in order to avoid falling under the rules of that act.

So conceivably it could reduce the number of good daycare providers available to poorer people.

Something else that comes to mind is that there isn't any language about who would owe union dues if one was established. I'm not sure how unions work in MA, but in TX one reason they've never been able to catch on like they have in other states is that since TX is a right to work state, in many cases, someone can come along and benefit from perks that a union has lobbied for without having to actually join one. Of course that person would have no say in what the union negotiates with the government/employer so it's a toss-up as to whether it's worth it or not, but a lot of times people end up feeling that it's not worth it (if they have a choice in the matter with a given employer).

Like so many proposed laws this one seems like it might have started with it's heart in the right place (or at least a not-bad one) only to end up being committied into a poorly worded proposal where it's possible to do quite a bit of damage to the very people who it intended to help.

[lionofgod.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this. I've been trying hard to find information on Prop. 3, and failing-- it seems sketchy to me, but I didn't know enough about the situation to have any usefully informed opinion. Now I've at least got *one* data point.