Supporters, foes of care workers union demonstrate at Capitol

Supporters and opponents of a care workers unionization bill descended on the Minnesota House Saturday.

Veterans of this long battle, which extends back nearly a decade for some participants, exchanged shouts of "Yes!" and "No!" in front of the House chambers.

They came for a debate and vote on a bill, already passed by the Senate, that would allow in-home child care workers and personal care assistants to vote on whether to unionize. The bill is expected to come up in the House Saturday afternoon or evening.

Green- and purple-shirted members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) changed and carried signs in support of the bill.

A group of opposing child-care providers and their supporters were equally adamant in their insistence that the House defeat the bill.

"It's another step towards professionalism," said Sharon O'Boyle, a child-care provider in Washington County. "We'll have a legal voice to collectively bargain with the state. That's what we need -- we need that legal voice."

She said the possibility of health-care benefits for child-care providers is another reason to have the union. She has been a member of the nascent AFSCME union, known as Child Care Providers Together, since 2007. "We deserve to have a vote," she said. "This bill will give us a vote."

"I'm tired, and quite frankly, I'm broke," she said."Regardless of how this is voted on, this is not the end," she said. "They're going to continue to keep coming back."

"The way the bill is written, the deck is definitely stacked in the union's favor," she said. "Excluding thousands of licensed providers from the vote, and having all these unlicensed caregivers who aren't even providing care eligible to vote, just is not fair."

The bill limits the unit that would vote on unionization to those providers, both licensed and unlicensed, who care for children under the state subsidy program. That excludes a large number of providers from deciding whether to unionize. Parrish would be eligible to vote under the current bill.

"If every single licensed provider here was able to vote, we would definitely win an election in a landslide, and they know that," Parrish said. "This bill is just a way to try to get this rammed through without the providers having much say in it."