Governor Carcieri has promised to veto the measure that would give child-care providers the right to organize and negotiate with the state over work terms and pay.

01:00 AM EDT on Friday, June 17, 2005

By LIZ ANDERSON
Journal State House Bureau

PROVIDENCE -- The state Senate followed the House's lead yesterday in approving a bill that would give home-based child-care workers the right to bargain with state agencies.

The Senate voted 23 to 13 for its own bill and then a matching House version. The House bill has now cleared both chambers and was sent to Governor Carcieri, who has promised to veto it.

The tally indicates the Senate would prevail in a three-fifths veto override; the House vote Wednesday fell short of that comfort margin.

Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal said last night that although the bill had been revised, the governor's position had not changed: "He still believes it's bad for taxpayers, bad for children and bad for Rhode Island families."

The Senate debate was far milder, and shorter, than the one that took place the night before in the House. Members offered no amendments, other than one from Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport, the sponsor, to conform the Senate bill to changes made in the other chamber.

The measure is being promoted by a group of home child-care providers -- and their ally, District 1199 of the Service Employees International 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.

But Paiva Weed, the Senate sponsor, told colleagues that the bill was a fair compromise that would "eliminate the risks associated with future litigation."

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.

The groups could total as many as 2,600 people, state officials have said.

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 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.

"This bill will protect and improve our daycare system," Paiva Weed maintained. She also claimed it was "the very solution imagined by the governor last year when he said he had no objection to the daycare providers unionizing."

(Neal, the governor's spokesman, reiterated later that Carcieri "never endorsed the concept of creating a union that would negotiate with the state.")

Sen. Juan Pichardo, D-Providence, said providers just wanted "a voice -- and the only way they can actually have a voice is by this General Assembly providing them a voice, through legislation, [so] they can become a union."

And Sen. Harold Metts, D-Providence, called attacks on the bill ugly and part of "the traditional antilabor, antiunion and anti-immigrant opposition."

"Combating exploitation and [maintaining] the right to unionize to advance human dignity and strengthen families is as American as apple pie," he said.

Metts said 80 percent of providers earn less than $30,000, and 68 percent earn less than $28,000. He said the whisper campaign that many are illegal immigrants is wrong; in fact, he said, they must prove they are legal residents or U.S. citizens to participate in the state program.

But Sen. Joseph M. Polisena, D-Johnston, one of seven Democrats to join the chamber's Republicans in opposition, said the bill would cost the state "millions upon millions of dollars." Polisena said he believed providers would still seek pensions and full family-insurance coverage in the future.

"The taxpayers in this state, in my opinion, are about to revolt," he warned. "They'll do so in about 17 months when it comes to election time. They've had it, that's what they keep telling me.

"Remember, your constituents are watching, no doubt about it, and they're counting on you to protect their pockets," he said.

Like Polisena, Sen. Michael J. Damiani, D-East Providence, said rank-and-file union members he spoke with told him they didn't support the bill. He said the supporters were the union leaders who wanted more dues.

Damiani said he'd never been told why the bill was really necessary.

"There's a skunk in this woodpile -- something smells. I haven't put my finger on it yet," he said, but, "I'm going to call it a feeling in my bones."

Sen. June N. Gibbs, R-Middletown, chairwoman of the Permanent Legislative Child Care Commission, said the state had set up a "remarkable" child-care system and had steadily improved it with the cooperation of home-based and center-based providers.

"'Why would we want to change it?" she said. "Why would we do something that could split these coalitions, possibly setting one group [of providers] against each other? It just doesn't make any sense."

But Paiva Weed, in her closing remarks, said the bill was about "the very fundamental right of workers to unionize."

"If in fact we can't recognize that right as Democrats -- and I'm speaking to the Democrats in this chamber -- then we've really missed the point," she declared.