Teachers Union Members May Grow 25%

The city's teachers union could soon see its active membership grow by more than 25%, after organizers took the first step toward signing up about 28,000 day care workers yesterday.

To come aboard, a majority of the workers would have to vote to do so in an election. More than 12,000 have already indicated they support such a course in signed petitions. United Federation of Teachers organizers turned in the petitions yesterday to the state board that oversees labor groups, carting them in four red wagons.

The growth would lift the United Federation of Teachers – already one of the most powerful city unions — to an active membership of about 138,000.

"This absolutely enhances the political punch of the AFT," the executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, Joe Williams, said.

Union leaders shrugged off the political implications, saying the day care workers were the real winners. "This is not about me; this is not about the unions," the UFT's president, Randi Weingarten, said.

The workers became eligible to join the union last week, following an executive order from Governor Spitzer. Day care providers are paid public money to care for children eligible for social services, but they aren't state employees. That, advocates say, has left them without any hope to improve low salaries — an average of $19,000 a year — no benefits, and frequent bureaucratic headaches. In the past six months, organizers have helped providers collect at least $160,000 in payments they'd never received.

If they join the union, day care workers hope to get a pay raise, health benefits — even a pension package. The state senate minority leader, Malcolm Smith, said yesterday that all three goals are on his list.

Governor Pataki vetoed a similar drive led by union allies in the state Legislature last year. Mr. Spitzer last week said he would support it. "If Randi Weingarten and Bertha Lewis call me one more time," Mr. Smith said Mr. Spitzer told him in letting him know he planned to issue the executive order. Ms. Lewis directs an advocacy group that helped UFT organize the workers.