A new force emerges in state politics Beyond their own continuing effort to collectively bargain, home-based day-care workers have already made an impact at the State House BY BRIAN C. JONES

AS MORE THAN 200 home day-care providers and their supporters assembled on the polished steps of the State House rotunda for a recent rally, it was clear they had plenty of competition for lawmakers’ attention.

Left behind on the broad marble railings were a couple of large "Stop Abortion Now" signs and lyric sheets to "Amazing Grace," props from an earlier demonstration. Nearby, advocates for the poor were making their case to a Senate committee for a costly new program to prevent winter heat shutoffs. But of all the voices in the Capitol that afternoon, those of the day-care forces — many of them Spanish-speaking — were seemingly talking the language that elected officials understand most clearly: politics.

In addition to being another group pushing another compelling cause, the day-care people were there as proven campaign operatives who last summer and fall helped shape the Rhode Island political landscape.

One rally speaker was newly elected Representative Grace Diaz (D-Providence), herself a day-care provider, who won an upset primary in September thanks not only to her own work, but to fellow day-care providers who invested weeks of door-to-door campaigning for her. Organized by one of the state’s most aggressive labor unions, District 1199 of the Service Employees International Union, the day-care providers also played roles in numerous other legislative races.

That, in turn, may have helped frustrate Republican Governor Donald L. Carcieri’s drive to add more GOP members to the Democrat-dominated General Assembly. And provider-backed candidates also helped embattled House Speaker William J. Murphy retain his powerful post.

Matthew Jerzyk, a District 1199 organizer, says that all 10 House and Senate candidates for whom the day-care workers campaigned in the September primary won their races. And in the November runoff, he says, 45 of 48 candidates they endorsed won their races.

Shortly after the day-care rally, one State House insider told the Phoenix: "They are building a strong coalition over here. They are becoming players. It’s not like they are whistling in the wind." It remains to be seen whether this will pay off in the day-care providers’ long fight for the right to bargain collectively with the state about pay, benefits, and other conditions of their work.

One gain is to organized labor. The day-care workers represent a fresh and energetic infusion into the state’s labor union movement, which faces declining membership and growing public hostility. Further, the day-care providers — largely women and many of them first generation Latino immigrants — demonstrated to themselves and similar groups that they have the muscle and know-how to master the political system.

"I felt proud," says Araminta McIntosh, who has operated a home day-care center for the past 10 years in Providence, describing how she felt while watching Diaz at the rally, pumping her arms in a victory salute as the crowd cheered and clapped. Similarly, she relished seeing the results of last year’s campaign. "Providers have been classed as a bunch of women sitting down in their homes surrounded by babies," McIntosh says. "But we had the strength to get up there and run campaigns. All our people won."