Social Work Commons^™

New Turf For Organizing: Family Child Care Providers, Fred Brooks

SW Publications

Child-care providers are among the lowest paid wageworkers in the United States. Nationwide, less than 5 percent of child-care providers are represented by labor unions. This article addresses the question: How can family child-care providers be effectively organized? The author describes and analyzes Local 880 Service Employees International Union's effort to organize family child-care providers in Illinois. Adapting the grassroots-organizing model that they developed to organize homecare workers, Local 880 has over 2,200 signed authorization cards and over 1,500 members in the family child-care union. Even without formal recognition, the union won a pay increase for providers in 1999 and …