To Upgrade Staff Benefits
City Won't Pick Up New Day-Care Tab

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

City officials have denied all responsibility for honoring an arbitration ruling that found workers in city-funded day-care centers had illegally been denied union wages and rights, even as they moved to expand the very program that caused the violation.

Officials at District Council 1707, which represents the day-care workers, said they had been assured by the Mayor that the city was trying to find a way to settle the arbitration. But an April 16 letter sent by Labor Commissioner James F. Hanley to the conglomerate of day-care center operators said that the city was not bound by the ruling because it was not a party to the contract between the centers and the union, even though Mr. Hanley is the primary negotiator when those contracts are settled.

"Contrary to your assertion," he told David H. Diamond, the group's attorney, "I am not aware of any representation by the city that [financial] assistance would be provided to the affected day-care centers."

Expanding Program

The letter came in the same week that the city notified day-care providers that the after-school program in question would be expanded starting this summer, including at several city-funded day-care sites already deemed to be in violation of the contract.

"We've never heard this from Hanley," said Neal Tepel, the assistant to DC 1707 Executive Director Raglan George. "We met with the Mayor and Hanley and the Mayor said we'll work this out."

The arbitration ruling was handed down in February 2006 and said that the approximately 600 workers in question at 25 of the city-funded centers had the right to union wages, benefits and protections afforded by the DC 1707 contract. The union filed a civil suit in February 2007 to force the city to comply.

"It's a private-sector dispute," said Mr. Hanley, "and it's between the local and the Day Care Council. We've indicated several times that this is a private matter. We are not the employers."

City Does Negotiating

When DC 1707 negotiates a contract for its members who work in Administration for Children's Services-funded day-care centers, the union bargains directly with Mr. Hanley and other officials from the city's Office of Labor Relations. Representatives from the Day Care Council, which represents the nonprofit groups who run the centers, also sit in on the discussions, but the financial aspects of the deal are discussed directly with the city since it funds the bulk of the day-care centers' budgets. The centers serve primarily low-income families that qualify for subsidized child-care and for the most part would not exist without city funding.

The Day Care Council traditionally bargains only over workplace conditions, such as access to clean restrooms, but it cannot make financial deals since it does not control the money.

Same Work, New Entity

"The city guarantees the contract," said Thomas Murray, DC 1707's general counsel. "It used to be if there was an arbitration award, it was understood that the city pays up. It's not been like that under this administration. The city's really breached its trust with the union."

The Out of School Time program, which led to the union's complaints, provides after-school, vacation and holiday child-care and educational programs to more than 60,000 children. The city contracts the programs with nonprofit organizations that run the programs located in public schools, city parks facilities, churches and community centers, including ACS centers.

The OST program replaced educational programs for school-age children that had previously been run by the ACS centers. About 25 ACS centers opted to house the OST programs in the same classrooms that had been used by their former ACS programs, but under a new funding scheme and now run by a different agency.

The ACS-funded day-care sites used to be paid about $4,600 per child, but the new program pays about $2,800 per child of the same age. Several nonprofit coalitions have testified that they cannot afford union salaries and benefits with the new payment rate.

Program Expanding

This summer the OST program will expand to fund more than 6,600 year-round elementary school slots by adding on to 48 existing contracts with nonprofit groups.

Mary Talley is the educational director at the George C. Conliffe Child Care Center, an ACS-funded day-care site that has been serving about 40 children in an OST program. The center has signed on as part of the expansion to add another 20 children.

"We're doing it because there's such a need in the community," Ms. Talley said, "but they're not giving me enough money to provide qualified staff."

She added that she could afford to hire people with a high school diploma but that anyone with more training or experience wanted better pay. ACS-funded programs require certified Teachers in the majority of their classes.

'City Can't Offer Funds'

Councilwoman Letitia James of Brooklyn has introduced a budget item to try and restore $15 million to the ACS budget, which the union believes would be sufficient to increase pay for the OST workers in the centers. In 2003, $59 million was removed from ACS's budget due to fiscal constraints, and $44 million has since been restored.

But in his letter to the Day Care Council's lawyer, Mr. Hanley wrote, "The OST program awards were made to providers who were aware of the funding available, as well as any financial obligations they may have had to their employees." The letter continued, "We cannot, therefore, offer any additional funding to the day care centers affected by the arbitration award."

The centers have a few weeks to respond to the civil suit filed by the union. The ruling could come as soon as this summer or could take until the end of the year.

"Ultimately, we're going to insist that they all pay or they have to drop the [OST] program," said Mr. Murray.

Meanwhile the union is negotiating the contract for its ACS workers, which expired March 31, 2006, and officials say a strike is not out of the question.

"We want a resolution," said Mr. Tepel, "but it's moving towards a confrontational situation. The District Council will have the right to shut down the centers if this is not settled."