This blog is designed to give readers a glimpse of our editorial-page operation and how we make our decisions. We’ll let you know who we’re meeting with, what they’re telling us, what events and issues we’re looking at. We’ll also pass on information and observations that may not make our print editions. In addition to the editorial board members who post on this blog, the board includes Publisher David Zeeck, Executive Editor Karen Peterson and Managing Editor Dale Phelps.
Editorial board bloggers
Editorial page editor Patrick O’Callahan oversees the online and printed opinion sections of The News Tribune. He came to The News Tribune in 1987 and has worked at Washington newspapers since 1979. E-mail him at patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com
Editorial writer Cheryl Tucker, in addition to writing commentary, manages the daily production of the editorial and op-ed pages and edits letters to the editor. She began her journalism career in 1974 at a Virginia newspaper and came to The News Tribune in 1978. E-mail her at cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com.
Editorial writer Kim Bradford manages the online opinion section of The News Tribune and writes commentary. She joined The News Tribune in 2005 after working 11 years at newspapers in Washington and Maryland. E-mail her at kim.bradford@thenewstribune.com.
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Editor emeritus David Seago retired from The News Tribune in 2008 after 41 years at The News Tribune. E-mail him at sds99@harbornet.com.
Richard Davis’ column on state politics frequently runs in the print edition of The News Tribune. He was president of the Washington Research Council, a statewide think tank, from 1986 through 2006. Currently, as a principal with The Simeon Partnership, Inc. he coordinates the activities of the Washington Alliance for a Competitive Economy, a business coalition founded by the Research Council, the Association of Washington Business and the Washington Roundtable.
Karen Irwin of University Place, a mother of four, has been a frequent contributor to The News Tribune's print editions. She has also written for Seattle's Child, Puget Sound Parent, the Tacoma Weekly, the Fayetteville Observer Times and the political blog Right Meets Left. She graduated from California Lutheran University with a degree in English literature and is currently working toward a history degree.
Michael Allen, professor of history at the University of Washington Tacoma, was born and raised in Ellensburg. He served with the U.S. Marines in Vietnam from 1969-70. He has written five books, including the prize-winning "Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus' Great Discovery to the War on Terror," "Rodeo Cowboys in the North American Imagination" and "Western Rivermen, 1763-1861: Ohio and Mississippi Boatmen and the Myth of the Alligator Horse." Allen lives in Tacoma and Ellensburg and has three children.
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This editorial will appear in tomorrow's print edition.
The Legislature can increase subsidies for low-income day care without acting as the SEIU’s enforcer and dues collector.
After scuttling the Worker Privacy Act, a high priority of organized labor, the Legislature’s Democrats don’t want to go home without giving their union supporters something.
A bill designed to crowd child care workers into the Service Employees International Union is the wrong thing to give them.
This idea has been kicking around Olympia for years, and it hasn’t improved with age. House Bill 1329 and its Senate companion measure would define many child care providers in private centers as public employees.
Although the bill doesn’t name names, they would wind up being represented by the SEIU, the union that has been hungrily pressing lawmakers to pass the measure.
Supporters say pulling providers into one grand collective bargaining unit will produce higher state subsidies for the many low-income children who need day care. The SEIU would negotiate contracts with the governor, who in turn would present them to the Legislature for up-or-down votes. Under the law, the state would deduct the union dues from the providers’ pay and hand them over to the SEIU.
Collective bargaining is no guarantee of more money, as state employees discovered to their sorrow this year. If the Legislature doesn’t have enough money after funding basic education, its paramount constitutional duty, day care providers won’t be getting raises.
But the fundamental problem with HB 1329 is that it amounts to a political payoff to an especially aggressive union. The actual welfare of the children involved is a secondary consideration.
Underscoring that point is Senate Bill 5506, which does put the children first. It would skip the middleman and simply mandate higher state child-care subsidies. The state’s current fiscal emergency makes that impossible right now, but SB 5506 would start ramping up the subsidies in the next biennium, with the ultimate goal of bringing those subsidies up to 75 percent of the actual cost of providing the care.
Sweet, simple. All the money goes to the providers.
The SEIU can’t be faulted for doing what unions do: working to expand their memberships. But state lawmakers should not be even contemplating diluting scarce child care subsidies by diverting some of those monies to the union.
The SEIU – one of the feistiest outfits in organized labor – can take care of itself. It’s not the state’s job to serve as the union’s organization enforcer or as its dues collector.
