Association providers win with SEIU
“With SEIU, we’ve accomplished more in the last two years than we did in the 20 before.”
—Nancy Gerber, Eastern Washington Family Child Care Association President
Child care associations have built strong networks for providers, parents, and communities, and give us the experience and skills we need to be advocates for quality child care.
Now, association members are working together in our union—SEIU Kids First—to make sure we are treated as professionals in early education and respected as partners in decisions that affect child care and the families we serve.
By forming a union, we can win a contract with the state that guarantees the economic gains we’ve won can’t be taken away. We gain the strength to make child care a more stable profession for providers and an even better place for our kids.
Across the country, associations have joined forces with SEIU Kids First to improve training opportunities, raise reimbursement rates, and win affordable health care:
- In Illinois, SEIU Kids First providers joined together with the Bellwood Quality Providers Network to stop discriminatory zoning restrictions that would have shut down hundreds of child care homes and left a thousand children without care. They went on to win the first contract ever for family child care providers, which includes rate increases, quality incentives, and affordable health care.
- In Washington, the Washington State Family Child Care Association teamed up with SEIU Kids First to sort out payment errors that affected thousands of providers. They joined together last year for a voice in reimbursement rates and regulations to promote safe, affordable, quality child care—and in November won a binding contract with the state. Their contract improves subsidy rates, provides guaranteed funding for training, creates a path for license-exempt providers to become licensed, and will give hundreds more providers access to affordable health insurance.
- In Rhode Island, family providers in the Day Care Justice Co-op, the statewide child care association, became the first in the country to win health insurance. They joined together in SEIU Kids First to make sure their victory couldn’t be taken away, and recently beat back a copay hike that would have increased costs for many of their families by almost $700.