The House on Monday, on a 65-31 mostly partyline vote, passed House Bill 1329, measure that creates still another group of private-sector employees to be unionized.

Hence, the Republican opposition to the bill. The bill was sent to the Senate.

The bill lets the owner-operators, aka directors, and their workers form a union for purposes of bargaining with the state for wages and benefits. This is much like what happened with home-care workers, although the Service Employees International Union used a ballot measure to get most of the way there.

The independent providers and agency workers covered by these contracts are, indeed, a lot better off that $8.55-minimum wage workers they probably still would have been. Of course, state taxpayers are paying those higher wages and benefits. (This is a cue for SEIU 775NW's Adam Glickman to weigh in here to talk about how the union's members are getting screwed by the governor's decision to cancel funding for their most recent contract. The union is suing, and they have a better chance of winning than the Federation, which lost. Take it away, Adam!)

The connection to government in this bill is that the child care centers eligible for unionization must have at least one child of a parent who is getting state-subsidized child-care payments. This is a huge number because the WorkFirst program, the modern version of welfare, spends most of its money now on child-care so moms can work or look for work.

Exempt from the bill are chains of day care centers with 10 or more centers, as well as all the day cares run by state and local goverments or tribes.

Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, gave one of her constitutents an explanation of the rationale for the exemptions, although she was talking about the very similar Senate version of the bill.

"My understanding of why the exemption for the YMCAs, KinderCares, and other large entities that provide licensed child care is that they have operations around the state and as they are large organizations, provide higher wages and benefits than do other small programs," she wrote in a recent e-mail.