news story / By Heidi Walters

Election time

Will there be a union at Northcoast Children’s Services?

(Jan. 10, 2008)  Last Thursday night, inside the slightly musty old hall of the Labor Temple in Eureka, about a dozen employees from Northcoast Children’s Services gathered at a long table with a couple of representatives from the California Federation of Teachers. The reps had driven up that day from San Francisco through a winter storm that cleared as they reached Eureka.

Inside the hall, the worker-organizers — everyone from a cook to classroom teachers — spoke about why they wanted to form a union. It wasn’t that they were unhappy with their jobs. But there were issues.

GALLERY >

“There’s a lot of secretive stuff that I think goes on,” said Jennifer Turley, center director for Fortuna Head Start. “For instance, a person went on vacation recently and came back and was told their job had been eliminated, and someone was handed a job that basically was the same job.”

“There’s a lack of transparency both in budget and personnel procedures,” said Susan Hiler, a literacy specialist and English-learner specialist. “For instance, until I got that information on voting [in the union election], I didn’t know that my position had a 1, 2 and 3. I’ve never been told that. I’ve never known that there’s a possibility for me to move from a 1 to a 2 to a 3, as a specialist.”

“In the past they did give us salary schedules,” said Turley. “When I asked for it at a recent board meeting I was told no, it was all confidential. When I said, well, how come? … I never got a response.”

“I think sometimes also it’s not so much a specific complaint but just wanting enfranchisement,” said Hiler. “This is a huge agency; it shouldn’t be run by four or five people. Everyone should have a voice. The counter opinion from anti-union people is they feel they have a voice, and they can talk to whomever. I think the point of view that’s different is, we want a collective voice, because it’s stronger.

“I have no complaints. I love my job. But what I see is a lack of enfranchisement for a majority of the employees. And I’ve worked in school districts and I’ve worked in other places where there are strong unions and I know the difference. And it’s better with a strong union.”

Northcoast Children’s Services formed in the early 1970s as a small parent co-op, first getting state grants and later federal grants. Now it’s a private nonprofit corporation with a $9.8 million budget that funds educational and social services and resources for about 1,200 children, from birth to age 5, and their families in Del Norte and Humboldt counties. NCS runs the federal Head Start and Early Head Start programs, state preschool programs, state child development centers, a child care food service, Even Start, the Humboldt Recreation program and Reading is Fundamental. It also distributes car seats, food and books, and its employees hook up low-income families with dental, medical and other services. It employs about 250 people, from educators to housekeepers and cooks, at 33 sites. More than half the employees are part-time field staff who work at the various sites for up to 36 and a half hours a week with sick leave and vacation pay but no health benefits. The rest, full time staff who work 37 hours or more, can choose from three benefits, either health insurance, childcare or a tax-sheltered annuity.

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