Largest Union Election Victory in Illinois History Fuels National Movement of Child Care Workers

CHICAGO - More than 49,000 Illinois home child care providers have voted overwhelmingly to join Local 880 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The ballots were counted by the American Arbitration Association Thursday after a three-week vote-by-mail election.

The final vote total was 13,484 for SEIU and 359 for no union. Another union, AFSCME, which pulled out of the election after most of the votes had already been cast, received minimal support. Overall, SEIU outpolled AFSCME by a 5-to-1 margin, receiving 82 percent of the vote to 16 percent for AFSCME. Two percent of the votes were for no union.

This is a big step toward winning improved rates and health coverage to make child care a stable job for adults so we can provide consistent care for children," said Angenita Tanner, a home child care worker in Chicago. "Working together we can improve services so the parents in our community can go to work and support their families knowing that their children are cared for, loved, and safe."

The home child care vote is the largest union election in Illinois history and one of the largest in U.S. history. In recent decades, only the vote by 74,000 home care workers in Los Angeles to join SEIU in 1999 saw more workers unite in a single union election.The Illinois victory is fueling a national movement by more than half a million child care providers to unite for improved services for children. Joining the Illinois providers at a news conference in Chicago Thursday were child care providers from eight other states who are now organizing to join SEIU.

"We expect this vote in Illinois will be the catalyst for more than half a million family child care providers across America uniting in our union, much the same way more than 300,000 home care workers have joined SEIU since the 1999 election in Los Angeles," said Anna Burger, SEIU International Secretary-Treasurer.

Thursday"s election capped a nearly decade-long effort by child care workers to unite in SEIU to improve child services in Illinois. The vote was conducted after Gov. Rod Blagojevich issued an executive order in February that for the first time gave the providers the freedom to form a union.

The next step for the Illinois home child care providers is to elect a negotiating committee and begin bargaining with the state.

"Home child care workers will begin working with the Governor and legislature immediately to improve their reimbursement rates and achieve health insurance benefits," said Helen Miller, president of SEIU Local 880. "There is broad agreement that improving conditions for these providers will benefit the children of Illinois, and we will carry that message to Springfield until these workers get the improvements they and the children so desperately need.

The Illinois vote is also energizing efforts by family child care providers to join SEIU in a dozen other states - California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin.

Family child care providers from seven of those states came to Chicago Thursday to plan strategy for uniting in SEIU and to help celebrate the victory in Illinois.

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