Capping one of the biggest unionizing efforts in the nation's history, the Service Employees International Union announced yesterday that 49,000 child care workers in Illinois would be members after workers voted overwhelmingly to join.þþThe workers, paid by the state to care for 200,000 children at home, voted 13,484 to 359 on unionizing, union officials said.þþÿWe expect this vote in Illinois will be the catalyst for more than half a million family child care providers across America united in our union,ÿ said Anna Burger, secretary-treasurer of the service employees. þþThe union said the vote would lift its membership to 1.8 million.þþLast month, Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois issued an executive order giving the workers the right to unionize, a move made after the service employees had worked for years to win support. The organizing drive created a huge jurisdictional fight with another large union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, that the service employees won two weeks ago, when an umpire appointed by the A.F.L.-C.I.O. ruled that they had jurisdiction. þþþþ
Source: NY Times
