Public Employee Press

Affordable child care unavailable for many working families

Working families’ need for affordable quality day care remains unmet in New York City while the cost continues to climb.

Parents and unionists pressing to make child care a priority for policymakers got ammunition recently from research showing that subsidies to ease the cost burden improve employees’ work performance and family lives.

Deborah King, who heads the New York Union Child Care Coalition, unveiled the results of the two-year study on the impact of subsidies Dec. 2 at a forum that brought together parents, policymakers and advocates.

Some key findings:

• Receiving a subsidy impacted positively on employees’ work performance.
• Subsidy participants used less sick time for child care.
• Immediate, low-cost employer interventions, such as workshops that provide information on child-care issues, improve employees’ on-the-job performance.

For working parents who are often only one paycheck away from hunger, homelessness or the loss of child care, the subsidies filled the gap. They kept children in quality child care and helped working parents remain productive on the job.

“While I understand that my children are my responsibility, the months that we received the money were so helpful,” said one DC 37 member who participated in the survey. “I had much less stress and less migraines. I paid the rent on time and the refrigerator was full.”

“Our society hasn’t solved the issue of who is going to take care of the children when just about everybody is working,” said King. “I hope policy makers will hear the voices of survey participants — parents, unions and employers — and help to bring about much needed change in society.”

The New York City Council provided funding for the study in a project developed by then-member Bill de Blasio (recently elected as Public Advocate), the Child Care Coalition and the New York City Central Labor Council.

The study was initiated by Working Parents for a Working New York. Its joint labor-management surveys partnered DC 37 with the Health and Hospitals Corp., Teamsters Local 237 with the School Safety Division of the Police Dept. and 1199 SEIU with New York City Home Care subcontractors.

Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations directed the case study research, the Consortium for Worker Education distributed the subsidies and Child Care Inc. provided informational and educational services.

For more information about Working Parents for a Working New York, contact Jocelyn Mazurkiewicz at 212-558-2276.