In the early 1990s, labor activists responded, with some success, to the exploitation of waged child care workers by dissolving the usual labor divisions between workplace and home, employer and employee, and labor and love, according to a new account of the movement by Justine Modica, a Klarman Postdoctoral Fellow in history in the College of Arts and Sciences.

United by their close working relationships and their shared sense that society undervalues the work of caring for children, workers and center directors in the Worthy Wage movement strove to increase public funding of child care, ultimately making progress in organizing family child care centers, which are based in providers’ homes and funded largely by government stipends to low-income children.

Future efforts to fairly compensate child care workers will likely retain these redefined relationships between workers, bosses and families who receive care, Modica argues.

“Worthy Wages in the Emerald City: Worker- and Director-Led Childcare Movements in Seattle, 1984-2006” published May 1 in the journal Labor: Studies in Working-Class History.

“The Worthy Wage movement brought to a boil a child care labor crisis that had been simmering for decades,” Modica wrote. As the portion of women with children in the work force expanded from 20% in 1950 to about 70% in 1995, “a low-wage child care workforce expanded rapidly, as well.”

By 1990s, it was a true industry: From 1967 to 1990, the number of child care centers tripled nationwide, and the number of children served quadrupled. But child care labor remained poorly compensated, Modica said. In 1989, child care workers in Seattle earned an average of $5.21/hour, typically in small centers with fewer than 15 employees and thin profit margins. Fewer than a third of these workers had full health care benefits, more than 40% worked a second job, and more than 40% left the profession each year.

In the 1970s and 1980s, child care labor activists in Berkeley, California; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Madison, Wisconsin; and Seattle began collaborating to address the undercompensation of child care workers nationwide, forming the roots of the Worthy Wage movement, Modica said.

The initial goal of Worthy Wage activists was to raise public awareness – starting with parents – of the links between compensation and quality of care in hopes that voters would urge policymakers to expand public funding for child care.

The movement used some creative tactics, such as a flyer sent home in kids’ backpacks in 1992 announcing a fee increase set to take effect on April 1 to “reflect more accurately our costs of providing care to your child.” The flyer was an April Fool’s bluff, but it included a serious awareness message: “If you thought that was scary, try working for $5.21/hour.”

Worthy Wage activists also held rallies and walkouts in Seattle and other cities where child care workers marched alongside center directors and families for whom care was not being provided that day. Seattle was the first city to attempt a coordinated day of center closures.

“Initially, these closures were led by a group of progressive day care directors who had been meeting since 1984 to discuss their frustrations about being unable to offer workers wages that would keep them in the field,” Modica said.

By the mid-1990s, activists had achieved greater awareness of the industry’s poverty wages but had not improved the situation. In 1998, the movement entered an agreement with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) District 925. Called the Child Care Union Project, it was, Modica wrote, “not the first child care union in the country, but it was one of the most ambitious efforts to organize providers in centers that were not publicly funded and thus did not share a common employer.”

Eventually, 12 out of 243 Seattle child care centers organized, a few of which are still operating and organized.

A greater success came when SEIU District 925 turned its attention to family child care centers, which are based in providers’ homes. Funded largely by stipends to low-income children, in-home care centers were able to leverage this state-based income to bargain with the state.

“Future efforts to retain child care workers, stabilize the field and expand child care access for families will need to fully conceptualize the needs of workers and families as intertwined and symbiotic,” Modica said. “Not only can a state solution make child care more broadly available to families, but it can provide a common employer from whom child care workers may demand the wages and benefits that will make possible the long-term careers most workers desire.”

Kate Blackwood is a writer for the College of Arts and Sciences.