Dartmouth College Child Care Center employees voted to unionize this month, a little more than a week after the college announced it had dropped plans to pursue partnering with a for-profit child care provider to operate the center.
On Dec. 19, 21 of the 25 eligible employees of the center, or D4C, voted in favor of joining the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU Local 560. One voted against and three did not vote.
“The children and families at D4C can now have peace of mind, knowing that the staff has the stability of the union and it will help with keeping staff turnover rates low,” said Ashley Ricard, a lead teacher in one of the infant classrooms who helped organize the vote.
It was because of worries about instability at D4C that Ricard reached out to Christopher Peck, president of SEIU Local 560, about a month and a half ago.
“I wanted to do what I thought would be most helpful for myself and the staff here,” she said in an interview after the vote.
The vote to unionize took place a little over a week after the college alerted D4C employees that it will not be transitioning management of the child care center to a third-party, for-profit company, an idea the college had floated, causing controversy last summer.
D4C, located on Reservoir Road in Hanover, serves 86 children from infancy through age 5. It is open to the children of any full-time, benefits-eligible employee of the college. Tuition ranges from $650 to $2,400 per month, a sliding scale based on family income.
The center operates weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 5 p.m., and currently has a waiting list of about 150 children, said Abby Plummer-LaBombard, the center’s interim director.SEIU Local 560 represents about 500 Dartmouth workers across several sectors, including employees at the power plant, athletic department, museum and dining hall.
The hope is for D4C employees to be adopted into the greater master contract of the union, with exceptions for their specific trade. However, the details of the contract are dependent on the outcome of negotiations which should begin within a week or two said John Krupski, a Concord-based attorney who represents the union.
Ricard declined to comment on the specific changes D4C employees will seek in their contract negotiations.
“The near unanimous decision shows a strong commitment to engage their employer,” Krupski said. “Now (D4C employees) can have a part in their future instead of it being unilaterally dictated by Dartmouth.”
Krupski said the vote was a stipulated election, meaning both parties agreed on all of the ground rules.
The college does “not anticipate any negative impact on the services provided to families,” from the decision to unionize, Jana Barnello, a Dartmouth spokeswoman, said.
“Dartmouth was wholly supportive of our teachers’ right to participate in a secret ballot election, and we acknowledge and respect the outcome of their vote,” Barnello said in a statement following Thursday’s vote.
She said the college plans to begin collective bargaining after the National Labor Relations Board certifies the SEIU as the teachers’ representative “in order to reach agreement on the teachers’ future terms and conditions of employment, which includes pay, hours, and other benefits.”
D4C has a starting rate of $18 to $22 an hour, plus benefits, Plummer-LaBombard said. That’s above the pay for the average entry-level early educator wage in the Upper Valley of $16 an hour as of January 2023, according to the Early Care & Education Association, a network of center-based child care providers in the region.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Upper Valley had a shortage of between 2,000 and 3,000 child care slots, and there is no indication that those numbers have changed, said Amy Brooks, executive director of the Early Care & Education Association.
There are currently between 600 and 800 empty early education licensed positions in the Upper Valley, Brooks said, meaning centers have the space for more kids, they just don’t have the staff.
In an effort to increase the number of child care seats for the Dartmouth community by 40 or 90 seats, the college had considered partnering with a for-profit chain.
In August, over 300 members of the Dartmouth community signed a petition submitted to President Sian Leah Beilock, urging her administration to keep D4C out of the hands of for-profit chains over concerns among some faculty and staff that it might drive up tuition, compromise care and degrade working conditions for the center’s staff.
“We understand there is a shortage in child care, but corporatizing DCCCC is not the solution,” stated the petition.
The college rejected privatization “after careful consideration of the data we collected and the feedback we received,” Josh Keniston, senior vice president for Capital Planning and Operations at Dartmouth wrote in an email to the D4C staff on Dec. 10.
“I am very grateful that Dartmouth has listened to community members,” said Marcela Di Blasi, an assistant professor, of Latin American, Latinx, and Caribbean Studies at the college.
Di Blasi, who signed the petition last summer, currently has two kids at D4C, and a third, who attended the center before graduating to elementary school.
“I’m cautiously optimistic and I’m also absolutely aware that this doesn’t solve the problem of child care shortages,” she said.
Beilock highlighted increasing child care access as one of her administration’s goals during her inaugural address in September of 2023.
“I also understand, very personally, that having access to quality child care contributes to our ability to do our jobs well,” said Beilock, who is a parent herself.
Since her arrival, the college began providing early child care subsidies of up to $4,000 each year for benefits-eligible Dartmouth employees. The college, along with Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, also provides funds to train new teachers in the Upper Valley.
While no concrete solutions to expanding child care access for college employees have been found, Keniston said Dartmouth is looking into “a little bit of everything,” to add more child care spots. One idea is to partner with existing child care centers operating under capacity to see if there are opportunities to train more staff members and enroll more kids there.
“This is a big sticky problem and we’re dedicated to taking it one step at a time to see what we can do,” Keniston said. “I anticipate that we’ll have something in the spring next year that we can add to the mix.”
The lack of solutions leaves Di Blasi feeling uneasy. “It would be a great if there was once and for all a clear sense of how they plan to address the need,” she said.
Emma Roth-Wells can be reached at erothwells@vnews.com or 603-727-3242.
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