Income Inequality
Sen. Ron Johnson's Solution For Child Care Crisis Is Predictably Awful
Sen. Ron Johnson
Sen. Ron Johnson

Sen. Ron Johnson thinks he has a solution to the labor crisis in child care. Typically of Johnson, his proposed solution craps in equal measure on child care workers, women receiving public assistance, and Wisconsin state law.

“When you have mothers on different kinds of public assistance, to me, an elegant solution would be, why don’t we have them help staff child care for other mothers?” Johnson asked on a recent telephone town hall. “I think there’s an imaginative solution here.”

It’s not that imaginative. Women taking care of other people’s children, formally or informally, as a way to earn a little income while caring for their own children at the same time, is not a new idea or practice, and Wisconsin banned state subsidy payments from going to child care providers where employees’ children received care in 2009, because it’s not always a good idea. (Though it can be! It’s just complicated and there need to be guardrails.) Johnson even acknowledged some of the possible problems, saying, “I understand, you know, having a mother in charge of a bunch of kids plus her own kids, she may not provide the care to the other kids.” But he still wanted to be “imaginative” about a thing that’s been done basically every way you could imagine.

Beyond Johnson’s lack of imagination, there are big problems on both sides of the equation here. Children in daycare deserve better than people who have been forced into the job without training or motivation. Early childhood education is a job that involves knowledge and training and skill, and being a mother does not automatically equip a person to care for multiple children who are not your own. Unless Johnson is envisioning a major early childhood education training system to equip women on welfare to be skilled, high-quality caregivers for young children (he’s not), he’s suggesting the creation of really inadequate care environments.

On the other side, women on welfare deserve better than to be shoved into a demanding, low-paid profession simply because they are in need of that type of service for their own kids. Many are unemployed for very good reasons beyond having children. Work requirements more generally have been shown not to reduce poverty. And giving employers essentially a pool of semi-forced labor is going to make jobs worse for everyone.

A Johnson spokesperson insisted that he was just suggesting something that already kinda-sorta happens. “His suggestion was to look at Wisconsin’s law that prevents a child care provider from receiving funds if an employee’s child receives care,” Alexa Hennings said. “He said he understood why that law is in place but suggested we reevaluate it to see if there’s some way to create a win for children and parents. Why should child care centers be different than schools that allow teachers to teach at government-funded schools where their children attend?”

So many reasons. Most child care centers are much smaller than most K-12 schools, increasing the likelihood that a child will be cared for by its own mother. He is not talking about pushing anyone into K-12 teaching for the purposes of getting schooling for their children. Kids attend schools where their parents teach usually when their parents teach in the local school, rather than there being a system set up to put parents and children into the same schools or even classrooms. It’s a blisteringly stupid comparison.

Two of Johnson’s Democratic Senate challengers responded sharply to his idea. “We have a full-blown child care crisis and a record number of moms getting knocked out of the workforce,” said state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski. “There are common-sense solutions to these problems, but Ron Johnson’s ‘imaginative’ idea would punish moms and drag us back to the 1950s. I have news for this guy: We’re not going back.”

Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes said, “The pandemic has effectively set women’s participation in the workforce back a generation, and Ron Johnson’s solution to the child care crisis—on Equal Pay Day no less—is to add to their burden.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

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Starbucks Workers Score Major Union Breakthrough In Vote

Buffalo Starbucks became first company-owned cafe to vote for unionization

Buffalo (AFP) - Workers at two Starbucks cafes in Buffalo, New York voted to establish a union, the first at the coffee chain's company-owned shops in the United States.

There were hugs and cries of joy at the union office as the campaign won a decisive majority Thursday at the company's Elmwood Avenue shop in northern New York state, before results were announced on votes at two other cafes.

"It has been an unbelievably long road to get to this count," said Michelle Eisen, who has worked at the shop for more than 11 years. "We've done it in spite of all the company has thrown at us."

The outcome was also cheered by two of America's most prominent progressive politicians.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) saluted the group on Twitter, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said she was "proud" of the workers for persevering through a difficult campaign.

The mood became more subdued after officials with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced that a majority at a second Buffalo-area cafe voted against the union.

But union backers were smiling again after a third store in the region also voted in favor of representation.

Final results await certification by the NLRB following challenges to some votes, but union supporters say they are certain of wins in two of the shops.

"This is a monumental victory, this is a dream come true," said Lexi Rizzo, another union supporter.

Rising Activism

A Starbucks spokeswoman said the coffee giant continues to believe conditions do not justify an intermediary between the company and workers, but added, "we respect our partners' right to organize."

Starbucks will await the final certification of the results next week before announcing next steps, she said.

The vote is the culmination of an effort launched in August by about 50 employees under the banner of "Starbucks Workers United."

A "yes" vote might have a knock-on effect -- not just for Starbucks, but for other US firms like Amazon who are fighting similar efforts by workers to organize.

Earlier Thursday, Steve Boyd, a 60-year-old attorney, expressed support for the workers as he exited the Elmwood Avenue location in the city not far from the Canadian border with his daily fix.

"I see them every morning. They are sort of part of my day and they should have a living wage," Boyd said.

"All across the US, businesses are complaining that they can't find people to work, and the best way to find people to work is to give them fair wages, fair working conditions."

The campaign shows how workers are becoming more assertive at a time when tight job markets have given employees more clout, said Cedric de Leon, a labor expert at University of Massachusetts Amherst.

"The bargaining power of workers is very high at the moment," de Leon told AFP.

There have been high-profile actions at other companies, such as a five-week strike at tractor maker John Deere & Co. earlier this fall.

And some 4.2 million Americans left their jobs in October, part of a phenomenon dubbed "The Great Resignation" that has added to the tightness in labor markets.

Cycling Managers

Will Westlake, 24, joined Starbucks in May and said he was initially attracted to the company's progressive reputation and better working conditions compared with other cafes.

He said he later "found out that wasn't the case," and was surprised that colleagues with much more experience at the cafe were only making slightly more.

The coffee chain, which recently announced that it was lifting its minimum wage to $15 an hour, has stressed that it is not against organized labor, but argued that the issues raised by workers do not justify a union.

Union supporters say Starbucks has cycled about 200 managers and supervisors through the stores since August, in an apparent effort to win over undecided employees.

The company's longtime architect and former CEO Howard Schultz led a meeting with employees in November.

Labor backers describe Buffalo as just the start of an effort that has already spread to the southwestern state of Arizona, where workers recently demanded a vote.