NYT: 17,000 Child Care Providers Joining Union

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/nyregion/16union.html?_r=1&ex=1360904400&en=60aeb29c85b55c97&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: February 16, 2008

About 17,000 home-based child care providers will join the Civil Service Employees Association as a result of a lopsided pro-union vote, state officials said Friday.

Officials with the State Employment Relations Board said that 3,723 child care providers had voted to unionize, while 161 had voted against.

National union leaders applauded the move. “Today, 17,000 day care workers in New York added their voice to the national cry for change,” said John J. Sweeney, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. “They said the best way for working families to bring change is to form unions.”

These child care providers as well as 35,000 others in New York are able to unionize because Gov. Eliot Spitzer signed an executive order last May giving home-based child care providers in the state the right to form unions and bargain collectively. Previously, these workers were generally viewed as independent contractors without the right to unionize, but Governor Spitzer, at the urging of organized labor, signed the executive order, and now the state will bargain with unions representing these workers.

FULL story at link.