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“You’re in the
UNION, now…..”
Sit back in your chair, take a sip of that
coffee and now I want you to visualize the
words…day care center. OK…have you done it?
Did the headquarters of Exxon or General
Electric come to mind? I thought not. I’d
bet you got the mental image of either a
store front facility or someone’s home.
Playground toys, perhaps a small bus or two,
but nothing fancy. Now you have to ask
yourself what kind of people actually make a
living running these places. Are they
corporate giants with the business acumen of
a General Motors (oops, my bad …that wasn’t
a good example) so lets say…Southwest
Airlines or Google, they seem to be doing ok
in these times or are day care centers
smaller operations with people who like
kids?
I suspect you opted for the latter choice.
Yep, that’s what we see in the majority of
day care operations scattered from Maine to
California and all parts in between. Do you
think these people make big money? I think
they probably do OK but they aren’t going to
be reporting earning in the millions or
billions. If they are, please let me know, I
like kids.
So, the ones I’ve seen during my lifetime
are smaller operation with a few employees
working in some leased facility or out of
their homes. They aren’t exposed to toxic
materials (diapers aren’t toxic, just nasty)
or to safety hazards (I suppose getting bit
could be a safety hazard) so why do they
need a union? You’re probably asking
yourself the same question, so let me
explain.
In Michigan the 40,000 or so day care
centers have now been unionized by the
AFSCME. This group is a merger of the
government workers union and the United Auto
Workers. I guess the UAW couldn’t get enough
dues revenue from auto workers so they need
to dig in the purses of baby sitting
nannies. They should be proud.
Check out this link for the story:
http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2010/02/11/forced-unionization/
The union managed to get their hooks into
this industry by mailing out votes to those
in the business. Only 6,000 were mailed back
but that was enough to carry the day and now
the other 34,000 mom and pop enterprises
find themselves obligated to deal with local
presidents, local union rules and send in
those dues each and every month. Will this
cost them more money? You bet it will. Will
the day care owners pass the costs onto
their customer base? You bet they will.
Will the mother who has a low paying job and
has her kid or kids in day care find herself
having to put out more bucks? What do you
think? Who gets hurt? Well, not the union.
Probably not the day care, since they have
fixed costs they have to deal with to keep
their places open and running.
No, it’ll be that mother. She’ll have to
make that decision to find someplace cheaper
to leave her kids or do without something
she needs at the time. And what do the day
care operations get in return for the dues
they pay? More governmental interference,
more rules, more regulations and you can bet
…more paperwork.
Of course the union rebuts the argument by
explaining that their dues are paid from the
state subsidies and not by the day care
centers themselves. Of course the fact that
the monies paid to the unions are monies
that used to go to the day care operations.
This is the same state where a mother who
was watching out for some kids waiting for a
school bus and belonging to her neighbor was
charged with running a day care center and
required to have a license. This poor woman
was looking after some kids whose parents
had to go to work early and in most places
would have been thought as a great
neighborhood asset. Not in Michigan, they
said since she was looking after some kids
for more than two hours a week, she needed a
day care license. Fortunately, common sense
kicked in and the state agency dropped their
claim.
The Obama administration is determined to
stuff the unions down our throats, as if we
weren’t already choking on his other
policies and decisions. The unions threw
their support to his election and now we’re
starting to see who gets paid back first. It
certainly isn’t the voters. I wonder how
many of those 34,000 day care center owners
voted for some change in the 2008 election?
Looks like they’ll be getting their share.
Comments go to
www.pearyperry.com
Complaints go nowhere…..
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