The caring professionals at UBC who built and now sustain a nationally recognized child care program deserve more than poverty wages.

Given that we are college trained, government licensed professionals, who are responsible for children’s well-being and optimal development, our wages should not be barely at or just below the “living wage” for Vancouver. So why aren’t the wages paid to UBC’s child care professionals equitable? Why are we paid poverty wages for professional work?

Our Wages are a Reflection of a Mistake

The unfair wages that we are paid are a reflection of a mistake, an error in the history of child care at UBC.

The origins of this mistake can be understood at two levels.

First, the early childhood educators at UBC have been so focused on building quality child care and supporting children and families that too little of our effort has gone into the work of securing the resources needed to sustain this work. Instead of insisting on equitable wages, we’ve been donating our time to build model programs. By doing this, we’re essentially subsidizing the provision of quality child care out of our own pockets.

This speaks to our values and commitment to UBC child care, but does little to ensure that sustainable funding is in place. In a sense, we have become the “Band-Aid” that covers over the mistake of continued gender inequity at UBC child care.

Second, the history and politics of child care and of gender pay equity has changed over the past decades. Many assumptions and attitudes, as well as economic conditions facing women in the workforce, that were widespread when our programs were founded no longer apply.

The world has changed since UBC child care programs were first created. But nobody in power has effectively addressed the mistake of paying poverty wages to UBC’s child care professionals. Because of this, our wages remain based on outdated and wrongheaded attitudes about the value of child care and the profession of early childhood education. We are paid based not on the value of our work, but instead on sexist notions of the value of “women’s work.”

Fortunately  we can correct these mistakes by drawing attention to the problem. With this attention, we can build public support for a solution: Child care equity at UBC.

UBC Is Like a Small City

As we think of how to build this support, it is helpful to think of UBC as being like a small city, a community composed of tens of thousands of families, students, faculty, and staff who live, work, play, and study at the University. Just like any community in Canada, problems at UBC should be resolved through fair and democratic processes.

In a democracy it’s always important to seek common ground and to work in collaboration with others. Because child care at UBC benefits the University as a whole, there’s good reason for parents, caring professionals, and other community members to work together and call for a solution to the mistake of gender pay inequity. That’s one reason why UBC child care professionals are proposing to connect the issue of gender pay equity with the related issue of access to affordable, quality child care. This helps us work together for a common vision.

It’s time for UBC to solve the mistake of paying for child care out of the pockets of its early childhood education staff. This is not only unfair, it’s also unsustainable. UBC can no longer depend on the lower-wages historically (and unjustly) paid to women across the economy as a way to ensure that qualified early childhood educators will continue to work for poverty wages. While early childhood educators love children and care deeply about families, we’re better off expressing these values by calling for a shift in priorities. In this way fair wages and affordable fees will become part of the child care economy at UBC.

UBC’s early childhood educators are essentially writing cheques to UBC for thousands of dollars each year in forgone wages. This cannot sustain quality child care – especially  when our wages go down year after year due to increases in the cost of living. Rather than continue to subsidize and enable an unfair system, early childhood educators can put our efforts into building widespread support for the value of child care. We can unite with families, and work together to figure out how to create a shift in UBC’s budget priorities around the provision of child care.

Good News: UBC Has the Means to Solve the Problem and Right the Mistake

The good news in all of this is that UBC – a billion-dollar-a-year public institution - already has the resources needed to fairly fund child care. And given how much UBC’s child care programs help the community as a whole (enhancing the brand, helping recruit outstanding faculty and staff, opening up education to students with young children, and ensuring well-being of children and families), it makes sense for UBC to shift resources toward sustaining these benefits. Nobody has to choose between fair wages and affordable fees, as UBC has the resources to do both at once!

Budgets reflect priorities. All that UBC needs do to solve the inequity mistake is to examine its current priorities, especially in light of its commitment to recruitment of outstanding faculty and to advancing gender equity across campus. And like a city, the way to encourage a public institution is by reaching out to the community and building support for the change that’s needed. As a public institution of higher learning, UBC has a responsibility to reflect community values and to be principled in the conduct of its dealings.

By working together, we can help ensure that UBC lives up to its reputation by paying fair wage to its caring professionals, without compromising access to affordable, quality child care.

One of the lessons coming from Quebec, where over 125,000 students have maintained an eleven-week strike in opposition to the government’s plan to make education merely about training workers for private interests, is that everyone’s involvement matters. Students are engaged now in a debate about the future of the province: Is education for social justice? Or is it about nothing more than handing over the next generation for the benefit of those who seek to control others in the interest of private profit alone?

At the heart of this debate is the value of community and the role of culture in shaping our future. Without access to education that is both critical and creative, younger generations face huge challenges to building an enriching community life – centred on the values of fairness, democracy, and shared prosperity. Worker bees cannot sustain democratic culture. We need people who can think critically and work creatively for that.

Everyone has a right to the kind of education that develops our capacity to think critically and to be a creative force for good – not only the children of rich parents. We all benefit when our culture is endowed with the gifts needed to sustain a strong, fair, creative, and prosperous democracy. That’s why everyone benefits from the provision of public education that is provided to all on an equitable basis.

Organizers of the largest and longest-lasting student strike in the province believe that one reason why so many students are involved is because direct democratic processes were in place. Rather than telling students to simply rely on others to speak up and to take stand on others’ behalf, many of the leading organizers opened up the process to include as many people as possible in key decisions.

Committees were opened up, providing a reason for everyone to attend and contribute. Structures were developed that allowed this to happen in an orderly way, so that efforts equaled results – but also that did not impose undue control on those whose involvement powers the movement. While this form of organizing may seem to take longer, in the end it invites (or rather, it requires) more participation. More people therefore become willing to take a stand.

Another reason why the movement in Quebec is strong is because the reason for striking is about more than money in the pockets of today’s students – those who are standing up for the future of their province. People have been invited to stand up for something bigger: a fair and democratic economy for everyone.

More than a tuition hike over the next 5 (now 7) years is at stake. The future of the province is being decided by those taking part in the student movement. With many of the student unions calling for every student to have a voice, the future becomes something that everyone can help determine. Asking people to fight for a good cause, not only their self interest, makes involvement more meaningful.

Organizers who ask tough questions about the larger agenda being pushed forward with tuition hikes are essentially trusting the community to make decisions about its own future. By challenging the “big picture” implications, organizers are showing deep respect for others in their community to “get it”.

People want to contribute to a better world. It is the job of leaders to open up the routes to change, by facilitating spaces and processes for intentional dialogue. Leaders who seek to control the process, rather than to expand the power of those engaged in the process, shut down potential and end up limiting what’s possible. Leaders who trust the community at large to solve problems and to see the big picture open up possibilities by creating and sustaining participation and involvement in ways that really matter.

More than 65 unionized child care professionals at UBC, fellow union activists from BCGEU Local 303, and union staff gathered at St. John’s Community Square on the evening of May 1, 2012 to start a conversation about how to move forward and achieve equitable wages without compromising access to affordable, quality child care.

Child care providers at UBC are insisting on gender pay equity, without a raise in fees or a reduction in spaces to pay for equitable wages.

Gender Pay Equity by March 8, 2013

At the meeting, members present passed a number of proposals, including to commit to doing what is required to achieve child care equity at UBC by March 8, 2013 (International Women’s Day) and to launch a campaign for Child Care Equity at UBC on September 26, 2012. These and other proposals will next go to the bargaining unit as a whole for consideration.

Members at the meeting voted to move forward on a proposal that defined child care equity as gender pay equity and access to affordable, quality child care for families. Below is a quote from the proposal that passed by a majority of members at the meeting:

We deserve to be paid on an equitable basis – based on our qualifications (college trained and government licensed professionals), responsibilities (early childhood education) and value to the university (enhance the UBC brand, support recruitment and retention of outstanding faculty and staff, provide access to education for students, support children’s well-being, strengthen the UBC community as a whole).

Fair wages for UBC child care professionals should not compromise access to affordable, quality child care for UBC families. Equity should be respected for both providers and parents. Therefore fees should not be raised to pay for equitable wages, nor should spaces for children be reduced.

Building Community Together

The night started with a community dinner, organized by a team of volunteers and funded entirely from donations from those who attended the meeting. As dinner wrapped up, the band Fraser Union played live music in celebration of equity and the value of child care to communities.

Music was followed by an insightful and inspiring keynote speech by Gyda Chud. Gyda talked about the value of child care to communities and shared stories of our accomplishments as a field. She also talked about child care equity as a movement that can be expanded throughout BC and beyond as we build our power and make history together.

Building Power through Dialogue and Participation

Following the keynote, we shifted gears to open up and have an honest dialogue. This was facilitated by Roberta Stuart of the Council of Parent Participation Preschools of BC. Roberta volunteered to help facilitate the meeting to ensure that everyone’s voice was heard.

After a lengthy discussion, a majority of members present voted to not elect a Caucus Coordinating Committee. This was in response to the union’s announcement of the formation of an elected Unity Subcommittee to build the power of the bargaining unit by uniting members around a vision for fair wages.

A majority of members present also voted to raise the profile of early childhood educators at UBC and for the bargaining unit to engage in a dialogue about the role of staff who are members of BCGEU committees.

Another proposal that was passed was not to bargain for a “raise” and to instead aim for an average $25/hour which would be gender equitable by truly reflecting our worth. This wage would be in line with the ECEBC and Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC’s Community Plan for a Public System of Integrated Early Care and Learning.

This proposal leads to establishing a fair value wage comparison with like institutions (that have already applied gender pay equity practices for their child care workforce). This would bring early childhood educators into the UBC wage grid on an equitable basis.

We ended the night by dancing to Aretha Franklin’s “Respect.” Thanks to everyone who attended the meeting!

Check out this great short animation on the benefits of quality child care to communities. It was produced by early childhood educators who were part of ECEBC‘s Leadership Program…

The Canada that I immigrated to just over five years ago was a country that treated everyone within its borders the same. We were expected to live, work, and play by the same rules. Immigration was a path to citizenship, an invitation to be part of the Canadian experience and to be part of a community. But now, Harper’s Conservatives are moving to create first class and second class persons within Canada.

By allowing employers to bring in low-wage guest workers and then pay those workers 15% less than they would pay non-guest workers (citizens and permanent residents of Canada), the Conservatives are remaking Canada. Beyond lowering everyone’s wages, this move treats the rest of the world as a temporary labour agency for Canada.

Here’s what the Toronto Star reported on this recent shift in guest worker policy:

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has always vehemently denied bringing cheap foreign labour into Canada. Employers had to pay foreign temporary workers “the prevailing wage,” he pointed out.

That indeed is what the rules said – until Wednesday, when Human Resources Minister Diane Finley quietly changed them. Employers will now be allowed to pay foreign temp workers 15 per cent less than the average wage. read more

Conservatives want Canada to be nothing more than a business. Not a country. Not a community. Simply a business that hires and fires, drives down wages, and maximizes private profits. Moves to lower the wages of temporary guest workers follow other moves to change immigration from community-building to immigration as recruitment program.

While immigration should does grow our economy, benefiting all Canadians, it should not do so at the expense of community. Immigration should invite newcomers to come and stay in Canada, to become part of and to contribute to community life. That’s why family immigration policy matters, why there should be a route to permanent residency for all immigrates to Canada, and why immigration policy should be holistic in approach.

Human rights know no borders. Canada should be expanding rights of all workers, not exploiting the world’s poor at the expense of our shared prosperity. This should be country centred on the values of universal dignity and respect, a place where all are welcomed to live, work, and play together. A place where we are thankful for each others’ contributions, where employers are expected to pay everyone a fair wage, and where all humans are treated on an equal and equitable basis.

Not only does UBC operate the largest campus-based child care system in North America, but its programs are also recognized as a leading force in early childhood education in BC and beyond. By focusing on the basic values of respect and dignity of children, partnering with families, and encouraging a range of approaches and diversity of offerings, UBC stands out in the quality of the child care provided to students, faculty and staff.

The quality programs provided by UBC Child Care Services benefit the University community as a whole in a number of ways, some of which I list below:

Promote Gender Equity at UBC

• Accessible child care provides access to employment and educational opportunities, removing barriers that lead to inequities at the University

Enhance the UBC Brand

• By promoting gender equity and building community, UBC child care programs demonstrate the University’s values and promote its place in the community

Recruit Outstanding Faculty and Staff

• Given the high cost of housing in Vancouver and around campus, and the distance between campus and affordable housing, campus-based housing helps ensure the UBC can attract faculty and staff
• For faculty and staff with young children to be able reside on campus there needs to be accessible and nearby quality child care as well
• The quality and culture of UBC’s child care ensures faculty and staff that their children are not only nearby, but are also being cared for in the right kind of environment

Provide Educational Opportunities for Students

• Students with young children benefit when child care is accessible, affordable and located at the heart of campus

Support Children’s Well-Being

• Everyone at UBC, of all ages, should have a “place of mind” here – which is why UBC child care provides loving care that is play-based and centred on meeting children’s holistic needs
• The UBC community as a whole benefits when every member of its community is welcome and included

Sustain Vibrant Community

• UBC child care speaks to UBC’s values around equity, community, and wellness
• Being a place for people of all ages not on reflects our values, but also influences how the University relates to knowledge and the larger society – the presence of child care as integral to our community supports a context in which the reality of the human experience becomes part of how UBC conducts itself as a place of higher learning

Fixing the mistake of gender inequity at UBC requires stepping out of the net zero mandate. Moving from an unfair wage to a fair wage is not a “pay increase.” It’s a correction.

UBC benefits from the outstanding programs that its child care professionals provide to the University community, but doesn’t even pay a base wage that reflects our qualifications, responsibilities, or value. Now it’s time to solve the problem of gender pay inequity, by implementing fair wages without a raise in fees for parents or a reduction in spaces for children.

Child care providers at UBC are paid poverty wages for professional work, a reflection of sexist notions about the value of “women’s work.” The fact is, 98% of early childhood educators are women. Moreover, UBC’s child care is an equity rights program, opening up education and employment opportunities for women and supporting all families enrolled or employed at the University. Child care equity requires both gender pay equity and access to affordable, quality child care.

Most early childhood educators at UBC are paid less than $39,000 annually. It’s time to question if this wage reflects a fair wage for college-trained, government licensed professionals, charged with carrying out the occupational and professional standards of early childhood education.

Child care enhances the University’s brand, helps UBC recruit and retain outstanding faculty and staff, provides students with access to educational opportunities, supports family and child well-being, and benefits the UBC community as a whole. Given the benefit of quality child care to the University, child care professionals are short changed everyday we come to work. Let’s fix the mistake of the unfair wage, based on gender inequity, and move forward together by investing in quality child care at UBC.

Check out the recent article in the Ubyssey, UBC’s student paper, on efforts that I am part of to achieve child care equity at UBC. Our aim is to achieve gender pay equity without compromising access to affordable, quality care.

Over half of UBC’s childcare workers are forming a new Childcare Equity Caucus.

Early childhood educators at UBC are members of the British Columbia Government and Service Employees Union (BCGEU) Local 303. The equity caucus is a grassroots movement from within the union, consisting of 90 of the union’s 150 members. The caucus will begin to establish its plan, to see that UBC childcare workers receive more “equitable” wages, at their first meeting on May 1.

“The real issue is childcare equity, and our goal is to have other union members talk about what the union does on our behalf,” said Tom Kertes, a key organizer for the caucus. Kertes is a UBC early childhood educator and founder of the Liberation Learning Project, a BC-wide network of child care workers.

Kertes is dissatisfied with the wages currently paid to UBC child care workers. He would like to see UBC childcare workers receive more “equitable” wages, without raising fees or reducing childcare spaces. UBC child care workers are currently paid between $17 and $21, depending on their levels of education. Kertes was not willing to say what he considered to be an equitable wage before the caucus meeting took place.

While the caucus is a grassroots movement, its goals can only be accomplished by the union as a whole, through collective bargaining. “Everything is going to work within the union, so obviously, the union is our sole bargaining agent,” said Kertes. read more

I’ll post more soon.

From the Vancouver Sun – the Vancouver living wage is $19.14 an hour:

For families with young children, the costs of basic necessities like food, rent and child care quickly add up. Even with full-time work year round, both parents in a family of four must earn at least $19.14 an hour to escape severe financial stress in Metro Vancouver. read more

At $17.21 an hour, I am paid less than $34,000 a year as an early childhood educator at UBC. To even qualify for my position requires a college diploma and a government license to practice. I am a member of a professional association, and if I worked in Ontario I’d be recognized as a professional by the province. There I would need to be a member in good standing of Ontario’s self-regulatory College of Early Childhood Educators. The occupational standards of my profession are detailed and require great skill and a high level of professional knowledge. I am expected to support children’s well-being and development, and I follow government guidelines articulated in the BC Early Learning Framework.

I provide enormous value to my employer. First and foremost, I contribute to the development of a model early care and learning program. UBC Child Care Services is more than the largest campus-based child care program in North America, it is also recognized as a leader and innovator in the field. Everyday I exercise professional judgement in support of families and young children. Moreover, I enhance the UBC brand, help UBC recruit and retain outstanding faculty and staff, provide educational opportunities for students, and help build community at the University.

I am well-qualified and I am professionally responsible for children’s well-being. And yet I am paid poverty wages for professional work.

UBC child care supports women’s equity when it is affordable and accessible to students, faculty and staff. This is why equitable wages should not come at the expense of parent fees or in the form of space reductions. Nor should it come at the expense of fair wages. Child care equity brings parents and providers together, calling for quality care that’s affordable and accessible and wages that are fair and free of gender inequity.

Strong communities include everyone. Everyone should contribute and everyone should benefit. We are stronger when we’re united and not divided. This is especially the case with co-operation between generations, given the need for people of different ages to share with each other.

Younger generations depend on older generations for wisdom and access to existing power structures. Older generations depend on younger generations for innovation and economic growth. Together we adapt and grow, supporting each other and sharing our unique contributions with each other.

People of Different Ages Depend on Each Other

Grandparents support parents and help raise children. Elders mentor and watch over neighbourhoods. Youth create new cultures, adapting to changing times. Parents rear children, passing knowledge from one generation to another.

In childhood we depend on schools and child care programs to keep us safe and to provide educational opportunities. We fund these programs through our paid work and pooled taxes during middle life. And then we retire, opening up the labour market for the next generation and sharing our legacy with the those who then support us in our retirement.

Special Interests Benefit When We’re Divided

Special interests, seeking to skim from everyone, benefit from dividing the generations. One way to shrink social safety nets is by pitting generations against each other. For example, pitting the old against the young may work as a tactic to shrink retirement security for all generations, which effectively gets more work for less money over the course of each worker’s lifetime.

And pitting the young against the old may work to erode support for universal health care, long-term disability programs, public education, and other social programs that are at the heart of our progressive society. Falling into the trap of generational divisions threatens to break down communities, reduces co-operation, and creates a false sense of competition between people of different ages.

Globe and Mail Series: Distraction in the Form of Generational Division

The recent series of generation-against-generation essays in the Globe and Mail provides a distracting way to understand the meaning of Harper’s attacks on the progressive gains we’ve made. Reducing the length of secure retirement increases elder poverty and lowers everyone’s effective life-time earnings.

Cutting back on social programs threatens equality and equity in Canada. This is not generational warfare, but rather a reflection of Harper’s ultra-conservative vision for Canada: Canada as a poorer, more divided, and less progressive country.

Pitting Gen Y’s against Boomers Hides Another Agenda

The Globe presents Gen Y’s interests in opposition to those of Boomers:

Listen, we’re not dumb. [Gen Y knows] we need austerity measures to counter the enormous costs of our social programs. We’re just resentful that we already have to start saving for our own retirement, even as we pay for the mistakes of the older generation. more

Mistakes of the older generation? What about the mistake of this particular Gen Y author, who speaks more for ultra-conservative ideology than on behalf of Gen Y?

Boomers were supported by the generation before them, with access to public education, affordable housing, universal health care, and other programs aimed at building shared prosperity for all Canadians. These social programs produced huge social benefits, far outpacing the costs.

The Mistake Is Happening Now

The mistake of turning back the clock on Canadian progress is happening now, in the form of the “austerity measures” that Harper wants to impose on Canada.

*We* are responsible for what *we* do, as a society, to ourselves – today.

And that is why young, middle, and old should work together to keep public education going, to provide economic opportunities for those entering the workforce now, to make housing affordable for everyone, to expand gender pay equity for all Canadians, and to provide more bridges in place of greater barriers. This is how we can sustain our shared prosperity – by working together.

More False Choices – Retirement Security or Climate Justice? (We can have both!)

The Globe series presents more false choices, seeking to limit shared prosperity. Again, from the Gen Y author:

And because the public purse has been emptied to pay for boomers’ sky-high retirement and health-care costs, there’s little left to spend on the societal concerns that affect our generation the most, such as climate change. more

By this logic we have to choose between retirement security and climate justice.

The author wants us to choose between these two values, as if the cause of the climate crisis is retirement security? By this logic, Harper’s moves to increase elder poverty would make up for his opposition to reigning carbon pollution.

There is no need to pit retirement security with climate change. We all need a future, which includes both old age security and climate stability. And to secure that future requires co-operation and leadership between generations.

Let’s Look Forward Together – The Future Will Not Be the Past

At the heart of the mistake of generational division is looking backwards, rather than forwards, as expressed by the Boomer writing for the Globe’s generation dividing series:

In 1967, my future husband marched on the Pentagon, and helped to end the U.S. military draft. (Compared to the protest movement of the Sixties, the Occupy movement is a toothless tiger.) Then, like most of the love-bead generation, he joined the Establishment. He got a job in Canadian TV. There were only two networks then, so the industry had high profits and hardly any competition. Pretty soon he was making twice as much as television producers make today. more

The future will be what we make of it. And at the heart of this will be a reflection of our commitment to what we value. The point is not to retain the high pay television producers of the the 1970′s, but rather to retain the values that should be at the centre of the communities we deserve. Values like inclusion, coming together, supporting each other, treating each other respect, expanding human dignity, economic opportunity, and shared prosperity.

Strong Communities Depend on Co-operation and Unity

When we are pitted against each other we become weakened. When we lose hope we become defeated. When statements like the following start to infect our sense of hope and optimism, we lose our strength and hope:

You know where this is going, don’t you? The welfare state as we know it can’t last. The rollbacks to the OAS are just the start of broader changes. Some time in the next few years everybody will have to start paying more for health care, through higher taxes, private insurance, means testing, user fees or some mix of those things. This will affect future generations a lot more than it will us. The boomers’ kids, and grandkids, will never get a deal as good as we have.

Should we boomers feel guilty about this? I think so. We like to say we earned it, and I guess, in part, we did. But we also won the birth-year lottery. Perhaps we shouldn’t cling so stubbornly to our entitlements. Perhaps we owe something to the future. Perhaps it’s time to pay it forward. more

Should we accept the idea that there’s not enough to go around, that equity and shared prosperity are dead concepts? We don’t have to “pay more” to get the health care we deserve, we simply have to make equity a priority, to sustain economic equality as a reflection of our social values. The choice is not between generations, but between the few and the many.

If we allow our country’s wealth to be siphoned off for the gains of the few, then there will be less for the rest of us. But if we commit ourselves to each other, sharing our prosperity on an equitable basis, then we can all benefit and everyone can continue to be included. And that’s what we risk giving up if we fail into the dual traps of generational division and and false scarcity.