Minnesota providers, if you do not want this you need to let your legislators know. I have written to all of my district legislators plus the people who are introducing the bill. Unfortunately, these meetings are always held while I am working ~ so this is all I can do without putting out 8 families.
Rather than trying to re-type all of the information, I am copying and pasting and email forwarded from our county association. All I can say is, act now. With the current make up of our state government (DFL in control of the house, senate AND governor) there is not a more perfect time for this to be passed. It nearly was implemented by executive order last time; a judge ruled that it needed to go to the legislature. Well, here we are.
In case you can't tell, I'm not for the union
Hello colleagues,
Child care unionization is now being pushed through with new legislation.
http://www.senate.leg.state.mn.us/me...em_id=1192&ls=
This bill would allow the union to exclusively represent all providers who accept children on the subsidy program. If the union collects more than 50% of the cards, many of which they have already collected over the last seven years, they will be counted as votes and providers will be denied the right to a secret ballot election. This bill also groups licensed child care professionals with unlicensed family, friend, neighbor providers which means that they can collect enough cards using unlicensed providers to force those of us who are licensed to become unionized. If they are not able to collect 50%, they can collect 30% and then get a secret ballot election in which over half the licensed child care professionals would be excluded from voting, even if they are willing to accept families receiving child care assistance. This vote would also include unlicensed FFN providers so they could easily tip an election in the unions favor.
I am urging you today to write the authors of this bill in the senate and urge them to withdraw this legislation. It was abundantly clear the last time this was tried that providers and the public did not support this and did not want union representation. Please consider forwarding this email to all licensed providers you know. Let's show them that we don't need a union or anyone else to speak for us, we can speak for ourselves.
Pappas's email form
http://www.senate.leg.state.mn.us/me...mem_id=1046&ls
Bakk's email form
http://www.senate.leg.state.mn.us/me...mem_id=1003&ls
Haydens email address
sen.jeff.hayden@senate.mn
Eaton's email form
http://www.senate.leg.state.mn.us/me...mem_id=1192&ls
One more thing, if you haven't already done so, please consider signing a deauthorization card. These can be used to counter a signed union card and can also be used down the road to show you were not in support of unionization which could help us in recovering dues taken from child care assistance payments.