WHEREAS:
Subsidy rates and eligibility salary ceilings for child care are in most cases, as in New York, well below the market rate and cost of care; and

WHEREAS:
In New York City, newly-organized, former welfare clients, in the transitional JTP title, receive child care benefits for one year, demonstrating a need for child care in order to maintain their new jobs; and

WHEREAS:
DC 37 in New York City, in coalition with the central labor council, fought for and won City Council funding for the Working Parents for a Working New York Project, whereby members will receive subsidies for child care and be part of a study to measure the effects of child care on the family and their productivity; and

WHEREAS:
DC 37 joined in coalition with other unions, community groups and a not-for-profit provider to build a 24-hour child care center at Bellevue Hospital.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:
That AFSCME and its affiliates will support and, where possible, initiate legislation that calls for increasing and updating both the subsidy levels and subsidy salary ceilings, and to increase federal, state and local funding for child care subsidies and development, so as to make sure a larger portion of our membership and the public become eligible for subsidized child care; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:
That AFSCME and its affiliates continue to support and, where possible, initiate legislation that calls for increased child care subsidies to needy welfare recipients and for “welfare-to-work” programs; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:
That AFSCME and its affiliates will support and, where possible, initiate legislation that calls for building of new and extensions of existing child care centers; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:
That AFSCME and its affiliates will support and, where possible, work by legislation, collective bargaining and/or in coalitions to construct child care centers on worksites and in communities near worksites, including seeking ways to work with existing providers to expand their centers into worksites; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:
That AFSCME and its affiliates will seek to develop such studies and programs, such as the Working Families for Working Parents Project, in order to determine the needs of our members for child care and to show the positive effects on worker productivity; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:
That AFSCME and its affiliates will work in such coalitions with understanding that staffing for such centers be unionized and, therefore, of highest quality; and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED:
That we work in coalitions with those clients in need, politicians, advocacy groups, our work institutions and providers of child care in order to fulfill our needs for affordable, quality child care.
 
 
SUBMITTED BY: Eddie Rodriguez, President and Delegate
Loretta Y. Jones, Recording Secretary
Ralph Palladino, Delegate
AFSCME Local 1549, Council 37
New York

Council 5
Minnesota