Local 880 and Illinois Reach Tentative Agreement on Contract for Home Child Care Providers

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 880 and the State of Illinois have reached a tentative agreement on a contract for home child care providers. The contract would cover the more than 49,000 home child care providers who care for children participating in the state’s child care assistance program (CCAP) for low-income families. The contract covers both licensed and license-exempt home child care providers. It is the first contract of its kind in the nation.

Under the tentative 39-month agreement, home child care providers would receive a series of four rate increases, with the first increase on April 1, 2006. License-exempt home child care providers would receive a 35 percent increase by the end of the contract, from the current rate of $9.48 per day per child to $12.75 per day per child. Licensed home child care providers would receive increases ranging from $3.50–$5.76 per day per child by the end of the contract, with average increases ranging from about 20 percent in the Chicago metropolitan area to about 27 percent in downstate counties with urban centers and about 35 percent in downstate rural counties.

The tentative contract revises the child care rate structure. The revisions mirror key recommendations in the Illinois Department of Human Services’ 2005 Child Care Rates Report, developed in consultation with the State Child Care and Development Advisory Council.

As recommended in the Rates Report, the current age classifications of 0–2.5 years and 2.5 years and older would be replaced by age classifications of 0–2 years, 2–3 years, and 3 years and older. The contract’s quality incentives consist in implementing the tiered rate recommendations of the Rates Report. Starting in the second year, providers who meet specified quality standards would receive a premium of 5–20 percent in addition to their base rate.

The tentative contract also sets up a fund for state contributions to health insurance coverage for uninsured home child care providers. The state would contribute $27 million toward the cost of providing affordable, comprehensive health insurance to home child care providers in the third year of the contract. The home child care providers would be covered not through the State Employee Insurance program but through an insurance program that SEIU manages. Eligibility details and benefit levels remain to be worked out by SEIU.

Under the tentative contract, all home child care providers participating in the CCAP will be required to pay monthly dues or a fair share payment to SEIU Local 880 when the contract goes into effect in April 2006. Details about the dues structure under the tentative contract are not available. SEIU Local 880 members’ dues are generally 2–3 percent of their earnings and average about $20 a month.

Illinois’s child care reimbursement rates have not changed in six years. “This contract will help us improve the quality of care that we give to children,” said Martina Casey, a Chicago-based home child care worker who attends to seven children.

The tentative contract will become final if ratified by SEIU Local 880’s members, who will be voting until mid-January. Gov. Rod Blagojevich will have to secure funding for the contract, estimated to cost $250 million over its 39-month term.

The State’s tentative agreement with SEIU Local 880 affects only CCAP-participating home child care providers. SEIU Local 880 has no authority to bargain on behalf of centers. Earlier this year, Governor Blagojevich issued an executive order granting CCAP-participating home child care providers the right to elect an exclusive representative to bargain collectively with the State over the terms and conditions of their provision of child care services. The home child care providers subsequently elected SEIU Local 880 to represent them.

In a statement released after the SEIU Local 880 tentative contract was announced, Action for Children, the lead child care advocacy organization in Illinois, hailed the victory for family child care providers. Action for Children stressed the importance of attaining parity for center-based providers—to avoid limiting parents’ options and undermining the child care infrastructure that Illinois has so successfully built. Action for Children will continue its Equal Access to Quality Care campaign, which advocates rate increases for all child care providers.

For more information, contact Dan Lesser, Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law.