Betty Beene, president of United Way of America, said yesterday that the coordinated effort between community-based United Way chapters and local business leaders is the first in the organization's 100-year history. The lobbying is aimed at swaying Republican lawmakers to support child care legislation.
United Way is the nation's largest supporter of health and human services outside the federal government. The organization raised $3.2 billion last year for its programs, mostly through payroll deductions.
Marian Heard, president of United Way of Massachusetts Bay, said, ''We must persuade Congress that we cannot wait another year to offer millions of young children the education they need to succeed. No child should lack quality child care because their parents cannot afford it.''
The organization is not supporting a specific bill, but Senators John F. Kerry and Christopher Bond, the Missouri Republican, appeared with Heard and Beene at a Capitol Hill news conference to tout a proposed amendment to the tobacco bill being considered in the Senate this week.
Their proposal, a variation of a bill they introduced earlier this year, would earmark $6 billion of the state's share of the proposed increase in the tobacco tax for child care, after-school programs and early childhood development.
''Together this bipartisan effort is getting some steam,'' said Kerry, one of the Democrats' floor managers of the tobacco bill.
The United Way's national campaign grew out of Massachusetts' Success by 6 program, which has coordinated community resources for nine years to foster early childhood development in 200 Massachusetts cities and towns.
''This is an economic imperative,'' said Ira Jackson, the executive vice president of BankBoston. ''We support this initiative because it is cost effective ... We think this is the smart investment to make and the right thing to do.''
Jackson added: ''This is not ideology. This is business. Business needs quality, affordable, accessible child care to compete in the international marketplace.''
ASHINGTON - At the prodding of the Massachusetts chapter of the United Way, the national charity has begun an unprecedented mobilization of local business leaders to lobby Congress on child-care legislation.
This story ran on page A27 of the Boston Globe on 05/21/98.
© Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.
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