As if daycare didn’t already cost enough

The Washington State Legislature has floated a bill that would not only unionize all “Childcare Providers”.

Section 8:
The legislature finds that as of 2000, child care workers in the state earned an average hourly wage of eight dollars and twenty-two cents, only fifty-eight percent received medical insurance, only sixty-six percent received paid sick leave, and only seventy-three percent received paid vacation.

They’re excuse for doing this is that since the wages and benefits are so low, no one wants to make a career out of keeping little Billy mentally entertained while mom works. Never mind that half to two-thirds of her paycheck already goes to cover the cost of this service, while dad’s pays the bills and puts food on the table.

The legislators pushing this also say that with people making a career out of working at a daycare will make the services better. That is arguable, but I sincerely doubt it. People either like working with kids or they don’t. If they do and they’re good at it, they’re wages will increase proportionally.

One more excuse I’ve seen hidden between the lines is that the state will more easily be able to do background checks on the child care providers if they become unionized. This is bullshit. We already do background checks of daycare employees at the risk of the establishment losing their license.

I may be missing some history here, but I can’t for the life of me, remember a government advocating for a new union. Help me out here as I am truly not recollecting anything like this.

These legislators do understand that when they mention “A Living Wage” that they’re talking of at least a 50% wage increase from the one mentioned above. Can John and Jane Public afford the corresponding increase in the cost of child care? Answer: Most likely not.

But I’m sure that in the next legislative session they’ll offer subsidies to those who aren’t already getting my tax dollars to pay for their kids. The kids are their dependents, not mine.

And of course, since this is Washington State, the successful passage of this bill means big increases in donations to Democrat candidates in the state and federally from the union/s that get the right to bargain for these people..

And to top it all off with a bow, the writers of this horrible piece of legislation have slid an “Emergency Clause” onto the bill, so that if/when it gets passed, no one will be able to challenge it before it becomes law.

This is what happens when you give the Democrats a majority in government.

Found @ Sound Politics (where there is a nice little discussion happening as to whether this forced unionization constitutes “Liberal Fascism”)