Child care: family child care providers: bargaining representative.

Existing law authorizes employees of public schools to form, join, and participate in the activities of an employee organization for the purpose of representation on matters of employer-employee relations, including terms and conditions of employment. Existing law, the Child Care and Development Services Act, administered by the State Department of Education, requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to administer child care and development programs that offer a full range of services for eligible children from infancy to 13 years of age. This bill would authorize family child care providers, as defined, to choose whether to be represented by a single provider organization, as defined, that would be designated pursuant to a specified petition and election process overseen by the Public Employment Relations Board or a neutral 3rd party designated by the board. The bill would require the State Department of Social Services and the State Department of Education, with assistance of specified state departments and agencies, and their contractors and subcontractors, to make specified information regarding individual family child care providers available to provider organizations and would require the provider organization requesting the information to bear the costs of collecting the information. The bill would authorize a certified provider organization to perform various functions, including meeting with state regulatory agencies and engaging in various types of negotiation on matters within a specified scope of representation with the Department of Personnel Administration, in consultation with the Superintendent of Public Instruction and other state agencies that administer programs of publicly funded child care. The bill would prohibit provider organizations from calling strikes and from interfering with, intimidating, restraining, coercing, or discriminating against a family child care provider because the family child care provider joins or refuses to join a provider organization. The state, as defined, also would be subject to the latter prohibition.