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Kids & Company is dedicated to providing corporate employees with reliable, flexible and unique, quality child care solutions to suit the needs of each individual child, parent and employer, creating a healthy work-life balance.

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So where does this leave the child care workers (presumably not "corporate employees"...)

Over a 100 hundred child care workers at the business are about to strike, due to a rotten attitude twowards baraginaing from the employer.

Please send a letter of support to these workers via http://www.4823.cupe.ca

A message from the union to the parents of children cared for by these workers:

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A Message to Parents of Kids and Company

Dear Parents,

Collective bargaining can be an uncertain time for everyone, especially with a strike deadline looming.

We do not want a strike. No one wants to disrupt the important service we provide for so many families. Our bargaining committee will return to mediation on Nov. 26 to work with our employer for a fair deal. We hope to be able to avert a strike before the Nov. 29 deadline, but we also know that we have to see some willingness on the part of Kids and Company to improve their wage offer.

That’s where we need your help.

You know as well as anyone how low wages and high staff turnover affect the quality of care your children receive.

Here’s what Profit magazine reported about Kids and Company in May, 2006:

“ … Kids & Co. is pouring funds into quickly building a national child-care network … The goal, says [President Victoria] Sopik, is to operate 50 centres generating annual revenue of $50 million by 2011.”

Losing money, the magazine reported, is part of the Kids and Company business plan. The only thing missing from the plan is a strategy for ensuring that the people actually providing the service the company sells can afford to stay in their jobs.

We have members who are earning only enough to pay the rent. They are relying on food banks to eat. That is unacceptable. Our average wage at Kids and Company is $13 an hour in an industry where the overall average is more like $18. When your fees were increased this fall, we received only a 1% increase in pay, or about 11 cents an hour. That affects our ability to provide high quality child care.

It’s time for Kids and Company to put quality ahead of business expansion.

Please help us avert a strike and win a fair collective agreement — one that we have been trying to negotiate for more than a year — by sending a message to Kids and Company. We have made progress on many issues in our talks, but we need movement on wages. Please tell Kids and Company to go back to the bargaining table with a plan to reach a settlement that will let us continue to work and provide your children with the high quality care you expect.

Sincerely,

Members of CUPE 4823

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