Child Care Providers
We’re building a bigger, stronger voice for ourselves and our children.
Child Care Providers are the most recent Industry Division to join SEIU Local 99. Our Executive Board voted to create a new Child Care Division within SEIU Local 99 on January 21, 2012. This means that Local 99 formally recognizes as members all family child care providers in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties who join us.
California’s family child care providers have worked for years to build a union. And they’ve got a diaper-pail-full of reasons for wanting one:
- A broken child care system that has led to providers going months without pay to the point of having to close their doors
- A lack of quality training
- A need for higher standards so that all children being cared for in home settings are prepared for kindergarten
- Thousands of families on waiting lists for their services.
We can now support one another in our mission to preserve quality jobs and a quality education for our children—from cradle to college! Child care providers will continue to need support. Their fight is not over. While they are now full members of SEIU Local 99, they are still fighting to be granted collective bargaining rights by the State. Until then, they are without a contract and without a seat at the table to fix the broken system.
We are fighting for the right to collectively bargain with the state of California. Join our campaign.
By coming together, we can realize the changes we want to see at our jobs and in our communities. Joining your co-workers in the union is a first step.
Child Care Providers Blog
Rates Update: Calculating Hourly Rates Under the 52.5 Hours (Examples Included)
Wondering what hourly rate you should charge after 52.5 hours of care? Here are some sample calculations for hourly rates after 52.5 hours of care have been provided.
Fighting for Child Care in Santa Clara County
The impact of Community Child Care Council’s (4Cs) misuse of millions of public funds threatened to disrupt child care for dozens of families, but union providers knew how to fight back. In June, Maria Chavez, a Provider from Culver City, Tonia McMillian, a Provider from Bellflower, and I traveled to Sacramento to speak to our legislators attending the Joint Committee on Legislative Audit Hearing of Community Child Care Council, known as 4Cs, of Santa Clara County. 4Cs is a Resource & Referral agency that misused millions of dollars in state funds.
Caring for Children With Special Needs
For the past two months, hundreds of providers at SEIU Local 99 have participated in a series of workshops hosted by the Santa Clara County Office of Education (SCCOE) called the Inclusion Collaborative. The Inclusion Collaborative is a three-part series discussing challenging behaviors, inclusion & disabilities, and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
Testifying at the Blue Ribbon Commission on Early Childhood Education
On October 9, California family child care providers from SEIU Local 99 and SEIU Local 521 testified at Long Beach City College to share the importance of unions for all at the final stop of California’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Early Childhood Education’s tour. The goal of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Early Childhood Education is to identify ways to create a more sustainable early learning system, find ways to improve the state’s early learning system and realize those improvements through policy and budget decisions.
Our Collective Provider Power Helped Me Recover Thousands of Dollars of Back Pay
From October 2015 to April 2016, I provided care for two children through the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). For over 7 months, I provided care while dealing with continuous payment issues. My payments were late or sometimes I didn’t get paid at all for weeks at a time. I would follow up with the children’s case worker and the payment department but nothing was resolved. Only through our union did I finally find a resolution!
