Onsite Children’s Activities Violate Local Regulations

While delegates to the last several APWU national conventions have had childcare services available to them, a recently-passed local ordinance means that the union will be unable to coordinate activities for children at this year’s gathering in Las Vegas.

In the past, the union has contracted with KiddieCorp to organize programs for children ages six months to 12 years. In early March, however, event planners alerted the APWU to a Clark County law that restricts the childcare services that area hotels are allowed to provide.

Since then the union has explored other options for providing childcare, to no avail. APWU President William Burrus has asked local presidents to alert members to the lack of childcare programs.

One option presented to the union, Burrus told APWU leaders, was for the hotel/convention center to apply for a license and designate a room for childcare, with childcare services limited to three hours per day. Convention center managers informed the APWU that they have no interest in such an arrangement, Burrus said, and the three-hour limit would make such a program ineffective for delegates.

The only other alternative — busing delegates’ children to an off-site location staffed by childcare specialists — was a logistically difficult and unattractive option as well.

“It was not anticipated that childcare would present a problem at the 2008 convention,” Burrus said, noting that at three (1976, 1984, and 1990) previous conventions in Las Vegas childcare posed no problems. 

“We regret any inconvenience this may cause the delegates,” he said. In the future, he told APWU presidents, “Convention proposals will only be accepted if they include provisions for childcare.”