SB 5572 - DIGEST
(SEE ALSO PROPOSED 1ST SUB)

Creates the access to quality child care workforce act.

Finds that, as of 2009, the challenges posed by low wages and lack of training that the legislature identified in enacting the child care career and wage ladder persist, and the availability of quality child care in the state continues to suffer.

Declares an intent to address these problems by creating the possibility for a new relationship between child care center directors and workers and the state. Child care center directors and workers are to be given the opportunity to work collectively to improve standards in their profession and to expand opportunities for educational advancement to ensure continuous quality improvement in the delivery of early learning services.

Declares an intent to create a new type of collective bargaining for these directors and workers whereby they can come together and bargain with the state over matters within the state's purview to improve the quality of child care for the state's families. Unlike traditional collective bargaining, this new approach will afford these directors and workers the opportunity to bargain with the state only over the state's support for child care centers, a matter of common concern to both directors and workers.

Provides that all child care center directors and workers will equally be able to maintain full membership in the organization that represents them in their efforts to improve the quality of child care they provide to the state's children. This new bargaining relationship does not intrude in any manner upon those relationships governed by the national labor relations act (29 U.S.C. Sec. 151 et seq.) Child care center directors and workers do not forfeit their rights under the national labor relations act by becoming members of an organization that represents them in their dealings with the state. Under the national labor relations act, an organization that represents child care center directors and workers in bargaining with the state under the act is precluded from representing workers seeking to engage in traditional collective bargaining with their employer over specific terms and conditions of employment at individual child care centers.

Provides that the act is not intended to create any unfunded mandates or financial obligations on child care centers covered by the act.