TALKING POLITICS Child-care ain’t child’s play: So why is it OK for the ProJo to call grown women "babysitters"? BY BRIAN C. JONES

One of the most surprising aspects of the battle to unionize home-based child-care providers has been the insulting language used by union opponents -- and the relative absence of protest challenging the insults. The Providence Journal coined the pejorative label "babysitters," using it in several unsigned editorials, including a June 11 piece, headlined "Spank babysitters’ union," and op-ed columnist Edward Achorn has also used it.

"Babysitter" is a loaded word that belittles the important work of child-care professionals, and reduces the mostly female providers to the status of girls and teenagers. At its worst, the insult is subliminally anti-ethnic and anti-immigrant, given that many providers are Latinas. A search of Journal archives shows that at least one letter-to-the-editor writer deplored the use of "babysitter." But for the most part, there does not seem to have been the kind of outrage that one would expect if a black man had been called "boy."

It’s understandable that groups, such as the Poverty Institute at Rhode Island College School of Social Work and Rhode Island Kids Count, took a neutral stance when the giant Service Employees International Union first proposed unionizing up to 1300 women who’ve converted their homes into state-regulated child-care centers. The bid promised a titanic battle in which the SEIU was charting new territory in union organizing, guaranteeing a fierce counter-attack from forces opposed to unions. Few wanted to be caught in that crossfire.

Also, the union drive seemed at times to be going labor’s way, beginning with a favorable State Labor Board ruling in March 2004, declaring the providers state employees. A furious Governor Donald L. Carcieri successfully blocked that tactic by winning a temporary court order. Then the union tried a new tactic, a proposed law giving the providers bargaining rights without being declared state workers, and that got backing from powerful General Assembly majority leaders, Senator M. Teresa Paiva-Weed (D-Newport), and Representative Gordon D. Fox (D-Providence).

The pendulum swung the other way when Carieri continued to oppose the union drive, joined in by a host of other groups, including the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, which launched radio and newspaper ads. By the time Carcieri vetoed the bill June 22, the opposition had gained even more steam, and as the regular legislative session ended July 1, it was not clear whether General Assembly leaders would be able to round up enough votes to try for a veto override.

But the logistics of the labor battle begs the question of why supporters of women and minorities have seemed relatively mute in the face of the attacks on the providers.

One union activist, Norma Tetrault, a Pawtucket provider with an associate’s degree in early childhood education and 22 years in the field, says the "babysitter" term "makes me feel 12 years old – not an adult."

Tetrault was at the State House shortly before the end of the session, lobbying with other providers -- and some children, who were handing out kids’ artwork to sympathetic legislators. She was asked, what is the difference between a day-care provider and a "babysitter"? "The difference is that a teenager is basically entertaining children," Tetrault says. "I’m not entertaining them. I’m educating them. I’m providing them with guidance; teaching self-help; conflict resolution; and just how to get along in the world."

In her ninth year as a home day-care provider, Tetrault says that she considers herself a "social service professional," having worked in pre-school programs including Head Start. When someone uses the term ‘babysitter," she says, "They are trying to grind us into the ground, to feel that we are not as educated." Tetrault said that women’s advocates "shouldn’t be standing on the sidelines. They should be coming forward. Every woman in the state has some problems with child-care."

Kate Brewster, executive director of the Poverty Institute, acknowledges, "We do need to do more to stand up for them. To call them ‘babysitters’ is the most degrading thing you can do."

Anti-welfare sentiment also is turned against low-income women, Brewster says, simply adding to the troubles of coping with the challenges of poverty.

In fact, the union drive itself has received direct and consistent support from some women’s groups, including the Rhode Island chapter of NOW, the National Organization for Women.

NOW promotes the campaign on its Web site, and in May, wrote supportive letters to the General Assembly, including one to House Speaker William Murphy, saying the providers want to have a "voice in protecting and improving our child-care system."

The drive also has the support of many clergy, union, academic, and other people and group, and the day-care bill did pass both chambers of the assembly. At the same time, the SEIU felt that it had made real political inroads in last November’s election, helping elect a Providence day-care provider, Grace Diaz, to the House, and aiding campaigns of several other legislators

But after pro-union bills passed the House and Senate, a strong anti-union campaign developed.

Matthew Jerzyk, an SEIU organizer and former director of Jobs With Justice, described the opposition as a "perfect storm" that included the Journal’s editorials, the Chamber of Commerce, the government reform group Operation Clean Government, and some talk radio hosts. "I feel like we are in Alabama," Jerzyk says, of the degree of the anti-union sentiment that the union was facing, along with the sexist undertones of the counter-campaign.

Carcieri steadfastly has opposed the union drive, both in its initial attempt to declare providers state workers, and the later "compromise," empowering them to negotiate over working conditions. "This bill is a full-scale assault on Rhode Island taxpayers and families by powerful labor unions," the governor said in vetoing the measure. "Unfortunately, the union’s desire for new members and more union dues will come at the expense of the families and taxpayers who will be forced to pay the bill, and of the families and children that this program is designed to serve."

Similarly, the Chamber of Commerce, condemned the proposed union in ads including a full-page Journal spread featuring a picture of the State House’s "Independent Man" wearing a black arm band and stating that the cost could be $10 million a year.

The union, which has not cited specific demands, says the day-care providers need to have a voice in determining their working conditions, and note that providers have had to fight Carcieri’s annual efforts to trim the existing program.

But as the debate continued, some feel that other themes have crept in.

George H. Nee, secretary-treasurer of the state AFL-CIO, a veteran of State House battles, says the union drive had run into racist and anti-immigrant feelings. "I’m outraged that this has become an issue that is appealing to the worst of people, and unfortunately, that sometimes works," he says. "I see this as an opportunity for people that are anti-union, racist and have a fear of immigrants issue, all kind of interwoven into one issue, that I believe is directed at women."

The Journal used the "babysitter" putdown as early as March 8. Columnist Achorn decried a "truly bizarre scheme to unionize self-employed babysitters." Another editorial warned that "babysitters would become a vast state monopoly" and the headline read: "Spank babysitters’ union."

Karen Malcolm, associate director of Ocean State Action and a leader of Women in Action, says she and other feminists were furious when the "babysitter" insults started. Malcolm says she was particularly incensed at the "Spank babysitters’ union" headline, because even a joking allusion to physical force treads on the sensitive issue of violence against women.

There was some discussion about picketing the Journal or a boycott by newspaper subscribers, she says, but in the closing days of the General Assembly, there were too many other issues for this to receive the serious attention it needed. Ocean State Action, a coalition of labor and community groups, and other groups were immersed in other issues, including fighting bills to restrict abortion and promoting educational opportunity for women on welfare.

Malcolm says that women’s and other progressive groups remain determined this summer to challenge the derogatory nature of the anti-day care campaign.

Even some opponents of the union drive are disturbed -- although not surprised -- by the putdowns of child-care providers.

Kim Maine, president of the Rhode Island Child Care Directors Association, which has 65 members, was on hand for Carcieri’s veto ceremony. Maine, who operates the Sunshine Child Development Center in North Kingstown, maintains her group is not opposed to unionization per se, but feels the home day-care providers’ bill "fragments" the coalition of home- and center-based providers that had forged the state’s robust child-care program.

Of the ‘babysitter’ label, Maine says, "That is actually something that happens to anybody the cares for children," and shows a lack of understanding of the work and skill of child-care professionals. "I have parents that say to me: ‘I wish I could come in and play with kids all day,’" Maine says. "We all have to fight that. I feel that this population, who are part of this organization [the would-be union] are being victimized in terms of John Q. Public, saying that they are ‘babysitters’ -- and they are not."

Jeff Neal, Carcieri’s spokesman, was asked what the governor made of the use of the "babysitter" label. "That’s not a word the governor has chosen to use," Neal says. "The governor certainly respects what the child-care providers do for our community."

Carcieri’s concerns, Neal says, are about the costs to the state and whether the union drive would hurt the overall child-care program.

Asked whether the governor had objected to the daily newspaper’s use of the phrase, Neal says, "I think there are a lot of things the governor would like Journal editorials to say, but he allows them to make that decision."

Brian C. Jones can be reached at brijudy@cox.net.