CRANSTON -- Calling it "the worst piece of legislation" he's seen,
Governor Carcieri today vetoed a bill that would give home-based
child-care workers the right to bargain with state agencies.
Caricieri, who had been expected to veto the bill, also described it as
"a full-scale assault on Rhode Island taxpayers and families by powerful
labor unions."
The bill, called the Family Child Care Providers Business Opportunity
Act, was passed by the House and Senate last week.
Carcieri's veto, which took place at the state Department of Human
Services, is still subject to a possible override by the General
Assembly.
The bill covers all home child-care providers who take state-subsidized
children, including both certified and non-certified providers who care
for a family member or neighbor in a less-regulated setting.
Under the bill, the providers would gain the right to organize and
demand that the state negotiate with them over the terms and conditions
of their work -- whether they did so under a union banner or not. The
groups could total as many as 2,600 people, state officials have said.
Carcieri called on Rhode Islanders to contact their state
representatives and senators to urge them to sustain his veto. He handed
out a list with the names of those legislators who had voted in favor of
the bill.
After Carcieri's veto, bill supporters criticized Carcieri in an
afternoon press conference organized by the New England Health Care
Employees Union, District 1199.
State Rep. Tom Slater, D-Providence, and state Sen. Juan Pichardo,
D-Providence, joined family child-care providers and parents at the
press conference held at a home daycare in Providence, according to a
press release from the union.
Slater was quoted as saying, "While the governor says that children are
a priority, he insults the people whom parents trust most to care for
them. He says that quality care is important, but only if its cheap."
Slater and Pichardo will both work to override Carcieri's veto,
according to the press release.
Last Thursday, the state Senate followed the House's lead in approving
the bill. The Senate voted 23 to 13 in favor, indicating the Senate
would prevail in a three-fifths override of the governor's veto. The
House vote Wednesday was closer at 41 to 27, falling short of that
margin.
The governor today claimed that the bill, by forcing the state to
negotiate reimbursement rates with a providers' union, would drive up
spending on what is already "one of the most generous child-care subsidy
programs" in the country.
State spending on the program has increased from $31.4 million in 1999
to $80.5 million this year, Carceri said, contributing to the state's
high tax burden, currently sixth in the country.
He also said the bill would make child-care health and safety
regulations subject to union negotiations. He contended that the bill
would open a "pandora's box" for other independent contractors who
wanted to form a union and negotiate the terms of their regulations with
the state.
The legislation says nothing in its language shall "be construed" to
declare the providers state employees, entitle them to a state pension,
or to give them the right to strike.
But Carcieri said the bill would make them "quasi-state employees. I
don't care what they (supporters) say."
The bill was promoted by a group of home child-care providers -- and
their ally, the District 1199 union -- as the solution to a dispute that
arose last spring when the state Labor Relations Board declared that
certified home-based providers were so extensively regulated by the
state that they qualified as state employees.
Governor Carcieri has challenged that declaration in court, and the case
is pending. He has said he is unwilling to drop it.
-- With Journal archival reports and reports from Journal staff
writer Liz Anderson.
ARTICLE TOOLS: 
