Child-care providers organize. (Keeping Current).

Every morning, as toddlers arrive at Lorraine James' West Side home, she pastes up cut-outs of the alphabet letter of the day. James runs a licensed day care center, and she's determined that the children in her care will learn not just to sing the alphabet song, but to recognize Gs from Ps and Os from As. Her goal is to have children leave her program prepared for kindergarten.

James and other home child-care providers say they fill a lingering gap in the child-care system and deserve respect. These providers get most of their income from a state program that pays for the care of children from low-income homes. And some 800 of the providers have taken the extraordinary step of joining a union.

With welfare reform sending thousands of poor mothers to work since the late I 990s, the federal government and states have funneled millions toward child care, and the number of home providers getting state subsidies has exploded. But providers have organized in only a handful of states, said Brynn Seibert, field organizer for the child-care workers' union, the Service Employees International Union Local 880.

Because they are independent contractors with the state, the providers don't yet have the right to bargain as a unit. But Gov. Rod Blagojevich is considering signing an executive order to grant it, said Tom Schafer, his spokesman. In February, Blagojevich granted collective bargaining rights to 20,000 home health care workers, who are represented by the same union.

The child-care providers, who receive about $21- a day per child, also want a pay hike and health insurance, and they want the state to include more families in the day-care program by raising the income threshold that establishes who's eligible to receive the subsidy. Currently, a parent with two children must earn less than $24,000 a year to qualify.

The issues are tied to quality in children's early education, said Sessy Nyman, director of public policy for the Day Care Action Council of Illinois, which administers the subsidies in Cook County.

"We are asking child-care providers to do the same amount of work and maintain the same level of quality for fewer and fewer dollars," she said. "At some point, the system is going to crumble."

Martina Casey, a union steward who takes care of six children in her far South Side neighborhood of Morgan Park, stressed that care providers play a critical role in early childhood education. To meet licensing requirements, a provider must get training, develop an education plan, and take safety and health precautions.

"But sometimes we are barely making it," Casey said. "It is really hard for us. Some of the providers are losing their vans [or] losing their homes trying to keep their businesses going."

Providers say it also hurts that the current system penalizes parents who increase their income. James said one of her clients got a raise and no longer qualified for the subsidy.

"I have no idea where that kid went," James said. "I don't know if a family member was taking that kid in or if that kid went somewhere where the mother could pay $20 a week. The question is, 'If you are willing to do it for $20, what are you offering? What is that child doing all day?'"

James added that, if she and others made more money, they could buy more art supplies, books and toys. Right now, she said, "we are all [paying] out of our pockets."

In his March 12 State of the State address, Blagojevich announced that he wanted to send all of the state's at-risk children to preschool. Schafer said Blagojevich planned to commit $90 million over the next three years. But the plan consists mostly of expanding existing preschool programs, and it does not include home-based child-care.

Schafer said the state's budget crisis may make it difficult for the governor to move on the providers' issues. "There are a lot of things that we want to do, but we can't," Schafer said.