When we fight, we win! Over the last several months, CWA Local 1037 In-Home Childcare Providers with support from our organizing partner NJ Communities United, along with hundreds of community supporters, sent almost 5,000 letters, phone calls, and messages to Trenton urging lawmakers to extend enrollment-based payments to providers.

State subsidies are vital to ensuring access to childcare for many working families, and providers mobilized to push for legislation that extends the requirement that subsidies be based on enrollment rather than attendance, providing a fairer and more equitable process for providers to be paid.

The NJ FY 2025 Budget was signed into law on June 28 securing enrollment-based payments throughout the end of 2024, and the continuation of the Temporary COVID Differential Payments so provider rates can stay the same — a huge win for childcare workers and families.

“The funding for us being paid by attendance is crucial,” said Jocelyn Tomaszewski, a 1037 Family Childcare Provider based in Burlington who has worked in childcare for 41 years. “We offer very high-quality educational programs, but we’ve been in crisis for a longtime— always underpaid and underfunded.”

CWA 1037 providers are also pushing for the passage of The Expanded Childcare Subsidy Bill, which would raise income limitations so more working families can access childcare. Workers will continue to mobilize to make childcare affordable and accessible to families, and so childcare workers are fairly compensated.