On Dec. 19, 2024, Dartmouth College Child Care Center employees voted 21-1-3 to join the Service Employees International Union, Local 560. The National Labor Relations Board certified their union on Dec. 30, according to College spokesperson Jana Barnello.
In an email statement to The Dartmouth, Barnello wrote that the College is “wholly supportive” of D4C employees’ “right to participate in a secret ballot election.”
“The next step will be for Dartmouth and the SEIU to begin collective bargaining in order to reach agreement on the teachers’ future terms and conditions of employment,” Barnello wrote.
Over the past three years, unions at Dartmouth have sought recognition and engaged in contract negotiations to various levels of success. On June 29, 2024, the Graduate Organized Laborers of Dartmouth-United Electrical Workers — Dartmouth’s graduate student workers’ union — ratified a three-year contract with the College. On Dec. 31, the men’s basketball team, which became the first college-athlete union in the country after voting to unionize in March last year, withdrew its petition to unionize. Other recently formed unions at the College include the Student Worker Collective at Dartmouth and the Dartmouth College Library Workers Union.
In a December press release, SEIU Local 560 said that D4C workers had unionized to “ensure a supportive and successful environment for workers and families alike.”
“By unionizing with SEIU Local 560, D4C workers will seek to establish meaningful dialogue and representation in decisions that directly impact the workers and families that they serve,” the press release continued. “Recruiting and retaining talented and dedicated staff is critical for the ongoing success of D4C and is directly related to the wages, benefits and working conditions.”
Rumors surrounding the potential privatization of D4C — which is currently operated by the College, according to the D4C website — have caused concerns for D4C teachers and parents alike. In August 2024, Latin American, Latino and Caribbean studies professor Marcela di Blasi sent a petition to College administrators opposing the potential privatization of D4C. The petition cited concerns about privatization — from a worse quality of education to a harder working environment — and was signed by more than 390 members of the Dartmouth community, according to past coverage by The Dartmouth.
On Dec. 10, 2024, senior vice president for capital planning and operations Josh Keniston wrote in an email to D4C staff that the College had rejected the option of privatization, according to the Concord Monitor. Keniston — who worked on a committee responsible for “coming up with” proposals for the College to increase access to affordable child care, according to past coverage by The Dartmouth — said in an interview that one of the College’s “key priorities” is expanding child care accessibility. D4C currently has capacity for 86 students but has a waitlist of 150 children, he explained. Keniston added that while the College had considered a third-party provider, they rejected the option due to the short-term costs.
“We determined that while there would be some operational savings in terms of the annual cost, the actual upfront cost of expanding the facility and actually creating space to add more seats wasn’t going to be a savings for us,” Keniston said.
Sociology professor Casey Stockstill — who specializes in early childhood education — said “this type” of union is “really rare,” adding that the vote to unionize “seems to indicate” that there is “a lot of dissatisfaction” among D4C teachers.
“[The teachers] feel changes are needed and they need to be heard in a way that they’re not being heard,” Stockstill explained.
The unionization could help D4C teachers negotiate for higher wages and better benefits, according to sociology professor Kristin Smith, who specializes in family policy.
“One of the major things that helps … reduce turnover [in child care] is higher wages, better benefits and job stability,” she said. “If that’s what the union is bargaining for, then there is a good chance that it could create lower turnover for [D4C].”
