Bid to unionize child-care centers still a bad idea

This editorial appears in the Feb. 4, 2010, Yakima Herald-Republic

A measure in the Legislature to force child-care centers to be unionized has not aged well.

Though the proposal never became law during the past two legislative sessions, House lawmakers seem undaunted. The Democratic majority successfully passed House Bill 1329 last week along party lines, with all Republican legislators from Central Washington voting against it, and sent the legislation merrily on its way to the Senate.

Let's be absolutely clear about this as we were last year: The measure is a distortion of how labor laws should be construed. It has no place in this shortened session where lawmakers are facing an extremely difficult task of trying to balance a budget that's $2.6 billion out of kilter.

Supporters of HB 1329 claim the measure would allow managers and workers at child-care centers to form a union and then bargain with the state for higher subsidies for low-income children. There's little dispute that state subsidies fail to adequately cover the true costs of caring for a child. By giving the child-care centers the added muscle of being part of a union, supporters believe several benefits will follow -- subsidies will increase and salaries for child-care workers will improve.

Of course, it's important to note the biggest beneficiary of the unionizing efforts. Surprise -- it's the Service Employees International Union. As an added bonus in the House measure, union dues would be automatically deducted from the state's payment to the center. How convenient.

Large child-care systems that have 10 or more centers would be exempt, along with national nonprofits, such as YMCAs. Centers run by Native American tribes are also excluded.

Though not affected by the legislation, YMCAs have lobbied against it, arguing there are far better ways of getting higher subsidies for low-income children than by incurring the exorbitant cost of labor negotiations.

The Senate is expected to take up its version of HB 1329 later this month. We hope lawmakers in that chamber resist the lobbying efforts of large labor unions and dispatch the measure as they did the last two years -- by slipping it into the paper shredder of bad legislation.

* Members of the Yakima Herald-Republic editorial board are Michael Shepard, Bob Crider, Spencer Hatton and Karen Troianello.