Child Care Bargaining Update 7/29/09

After seven long months of bargaining our Child Care bargaining team is one issue away from a final tentative agreement. The remaining issue is health care.
 
We hope that our next mediated bargaining session on August 19th, will be our last. Despite the many challenges, we remain optimistic and committed to winning health care for our members by holding the Governor to his promise to support us.
 
Here is a summary of what we’ve TA’d so far. You can also view this information in a downloadable chart that compares our union team's proposals to the State's proposals issue by issue.
 
Rates: No cuts to provider rates (Governor originally proposed cutting rates by 10-14%). Maintaining rates at current levels in light of the economic crisis is crucial to retaining dependable providers who care for low-income children in safe reliable homes and is a real victory in these economic times;
 
Grievance Procedure: Strengthens the previous language by setting in place a grievance procedure with steps and timelines for resolving grievances. The State originally wanted to give the State Employment Relations Board (ERB) discretion to refuse new cases when they reach an arbitrary workload threshold, but now agrees that ERB will hear all unresolved issues concerning a violation of the Union contract.
 
Orientations: Thirty minute union presentations at mandatory new employment orientations. The State was originally opposed to making new child care provider orientations mandatory, but with passage of HB2868 we will no longer have to bargaining this issue. On a broader note, this win will increase provider understanding of how the DHS child care subsidy programs operates; increase awareness about role and responsibilities; will reduce payment miscalculations that lead to over/under under payments, unpaid care, and general confusion about billing; and increases awareness about available training opportunities and wage incentives;
 
Trainings: Continuation of our Union’s training committee which gives us a say in shaping the training content and policy for child care providers, plus additional money for our training fund throughout the ’09-’11 biennium. These funds will continue the current $12/hour training stipend and facilitate provider access to scores of trainings such as 1st Aide & CPR, and Child Abuse, Neglect Prevention, Food Handler’s, etc.
 
Union Membership: Expands the amount of time (from 6 to 12 months) the State recognizes a provider’s membership and CAPE status when there is a break in service. This is significant because often time’s providers in our bargaining unit temporarily stop providing care for a variety of reasons i.e. during the school year. With this change we will no longer need to repeatedly ask providers to become members and reauthorize their CAPE;
 
Timely Payments: Improves the notification process for timely notices to providers when a billing voucher will not be issued;
 
Non-Discrimination: Strengthens previous language by setting in place a process for addressing  in discrimination claims;
 
Contract Restructure: Restructures our contract from a Memorandum of Agreement to a more formalized Contract.