The latest data from the state shows that, as of August 2015, more than half of all state-paid family child care providers in the state had ceased paying dues to SEIU Local 925.
In July 2014, 6,633 family child care providers were paid by the state and 6,633 paid union dues. Following the implementation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Harris v. Quinn decision and thanks to a comprehensive (and ongoing) educational campaign by the Freedom Foundation, 3,652 (51.4 percent) of Washington’s 7,103 family child care providers had resigned their membership in SEIU 925 and ceased paying dues.
More information about the decline in SEIU 925’s membership is available here and here.
Time to Reform Union Certification Process?
As the Freedom Foundation continues its multi-pronged effort to inform providers of their constitutional rights, it is likely that SEIU 925’s membership will continue to dwindle. Canvassers going door to door continue to find providers unaware of their right to leave SEIU 925 and, all too often, unaware even of their membership in the union.
The exodus of providers raises some significant questions about the process Washington law establishes for selecting, changing and removing government-sector unions.
Under RCW 41.56, once a union is certified to represent family child care providers, it must never again seek or receive the approval of the workers it represents. Between low participation and “no” votes, only 23 percent of family child care providers voted to be represented by SEIU 925 in its 2006 certification election.
The only way for workers to change or eliminate the union is to complete a cumbersome decertification process.
State law requires that 30 percent of the bargaining unit must sign a petition calling for an election before the state Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC) will conduct one. Sufficient signatures and appropriate paperwork must be submitted within an arbitrary 30-day window that occurs between 90 and 60 days prior to the expiration of the union’s two-year contract with the state.
If those requirements are met, PERC will conduct an election to determine the outcome.
Such requirements are hard enough for employees in traditional government workplaces to meet. For the approximately 7,000 family child care providers scattered in homes around the state, the process is nearly impossible, even though a majority have now indicated they do not want to be part of SEIU 925.
Thus, a union with only minority support is permitted to function as the monopoly provider of workplace representation services for all 7,000 family child care providers in the state.
Other states have taken steps to prevent such a situation from occurring. In Wisconsin, unions representing public employees must win annual recertification votes from the workers they represent in order to continue acting as their exclusive bargaining representative. In Nevada, a union can lose its recognition by a public employer or be challenged by another union when its membership falls below half.
Such measures help bring an element of accountability and competition to unions that is currently missing from the workplace representation industry and help prevent the kind of “tyranny of the minority” situation Washington family child care providers currently find themselves stuck in.
