Unions, not parents, win on child care

It’s an immutable law of government spending that if the government is paying for it, there’s a lobby pushing the government to pay more for it.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s contribution to the state’s history of spending increases now includes the first-ever union contract for child care workers. In 2019, he signed AB 378, legislation that enabled child care workers to unionize. Similar bills had been vetoed by Govs. Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Last week, Newsom agreed to a contract between the state and the new union, Child Care Providers United, that increases child care rates for providers by 15% and adds an extra $40 million for professional development.

Child Care Providers United celebrated the new contract, which will raise the wages of about 40,000 family child care providers in California next year.

This may be only the first step toward increasing the cost of child care in California. “Our work is not yet done,” one Los Angeles child care provider told LAist. “We will continue to fight. We will continue to achieve more.”

Max Arias, chair of the union, said the contract could be the first step toward “a transformation for this industry in the state of California” that also will require “increased federal funding.”

The contract covers providers who care for children in their homes through state subsidy programs. Providers are small-business owners, not state employees, but the state sets the rates for providers working in the state’s child care assistance program.

During the pandemic, thousands of licensed child care facilities closed temporarily, and thousands more have shut down permanently. Restrictions on capacity and the effect of lost jobs and stay-at-home orders combined to reduce the number of kids in child care, which reduced revenues. But the government already has done much to help child care providers deal with the extraordinary circumstances.

In February, Newsom signed AB 82, which allocated more than $400 million for child care workers. It provided a stipend of $525 for each child in subsidized care, $30 million to waive family fees through June 2021, $80 million for providers to cover COVID-19 related costs and $80 million for vouchers to provide care to the children of essential workers.

More than $13 billion for child care was included in the two federal coronavirus relief bills passed by Congress last year. State and local programs have provided emergency funds as well. There’s no disagreement on this point: The pandemic created a financial crisis for child care providers, and the government had to help.

The question now is whether Newsom’s decision to empower union negotiators to bargain with the state is in the long-term interest of California families who struggle to pay the bills. If the cost of child care goes up, fewer families will be able to afford it. The state will be under continuous pressure both to increase rates and to fund more subsidies.

Home-based child care has been a more affordable option for parents than child care centers, but that may be cease to be the case as union contracts push costs higher.

There is no guarantee that raising costs will increase quality, and it may decrease access for families who rely on it. The clear beneficiary is the union, which will see dues payments diverted directly from the state’s checks to the union treasury.