More Good Education Labor News from NYC

It's been a good month for education labor in New York City.

First there was the announcement of an important new merit pay plan supported by both the district administration and the United Federation of Teachers. Now, as reported in the New York Times, "In the largest successful organizing drive in New York City in half a century, 28,000 child care providers will join the city’s teachers’ union as the result of an overwhelmingly pro-union vote."

This strikes me as good news all around. For the child care workers surely, who are currently paid less than $20,000 a year on average, often without health care and other benefits. But also for parents, children, and society at large. The transition to an economy where women are becoming fully engaged in the workplace has been, in historical terms, remarkably rapid. We're still catching up on the long-term ramifications, one of which is the need for a much more robust, high-quality child care infrastructure. And an important part of that is making sure that child care workers are well-supported, trained, represented, and compensated.