In the largest successful organizing drive in New York City in half a century, 28,000 child care providers will join the city?s teachers? union as the result of an overwhelmingly pro-union vote, state officials said yesterday. Officials of the State Employment Relations Board said yesterday that 8,382 home-based child care providers voted to unionize and 96 voted against doing so. The providers mailed in ballots from Sept. 5 to last Thursday. Under state rules, even though far less than the 28,000 providers voted, the United Federation of Teachers won the right to represent them all because a majority of those who did vote voted to unionize.
See "Child Care Workers in New York City Vote to Unionize", Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times, October 23, 2007