MARYLAND GOV’S ORDER LETS CHILD-CARE PROVIDERS ORGANIZE

In yet another illustration that electing pro-worker politicians has positive consequences, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), elected last November with strong labor backing over a GOP incumbent, signed an executive order on August 6 to let child care providers organize. O’Malley’s the latest of several pro-worker Democratic governors, including Ohio’s Ted Strickland, to sign such orders this year.

O’Malley’s order lays out procedures by which unions can petition for a recognition election among the estimated 7,000 child care providers in the state. The union that actually seeks the election must provide signatures from at least 30% of the state’s child care providers, from a list the state would give the union.

But other unions seeking to intervene and represent the providers would have to get signatures from only 10%. They’d have to get their signatures in within 15 days, because the election would be 60 days after the petition is filed.

A child care providers’ union, if one wins, would “meet and confer” and “collectively bargain”--the order uses both terms--with state Education Department officials over providers’ wages, participation procedures, reimbursement rates and benefits.

If more money is needed for the providers in the state’s Child Care Subsidy/Purchase of Care program, the state agency and the winning union, according to O’Malley’s order, would jointly lobby for it.

O’Malley specifically said his executive order would not limit parents in choosing a child care provider for their kids. “Maryland parents deserve the freedom to choose the most appropriate child care services for their children, including family child care, and therefore the state seeks to attract and retain sufficient numbers of well-qualified family child care providers,” he explained. “There is a need to stabilize the family child care workforce, which includes both registered providers and providers legally exempt from registration,” he added.