Lily Mosby is a former employee of KinderCare, a major corporate child care chain. Asked what she saw as the most pertinent crises, she replied toby email: “Lack of staff. Lack of available child care options for families. Lack of affordable child care options. Lack of paid family leave.
. However, these represent the owners and managers of child care businesses, whether self-employed individuals or small operations with a worker-owner and/or a few employees. Some states consider both child care owners and workers to be public employees, so collective bargaining rights allow them to negotiate with the state for higher subsidies.
Glitsch was an active organizer in the union drive, which went public in February 2020 and secured an in-person election on March 11: the day COVID was deemed a pandemic. Workers quickly found themselves contending with an anti-union campaign from company owners. Despite resistance, they won across all three locations in a landslide.
Perhaps a silver lining in the ubiquity of these unenviable conditions was that other workers were primed to recognize their shared interests. “Since Growing Seeds successfully organized,” Glitsch toldUnfulfilled Dreams of Universal Care