Those low wages, for work that one advocate calls \u201cthe backbone of our country,\u201d are just one concern childcare providers and advocates called attention to during a \u201cDay Without Childcare<\/a>\u201d on Monday, when some childcare providers chose to shut their doors and participate in a one-day strike. The group gathered in downtown Oakland Monday morning for the fifth annual day of action, with signs and chants about issues such as the low wages for caregivers and high costs for parents and providers.<\/p>\n \u201cChildcare is collapsing,\u201d said Benu Chhabra, CEO of Benu\u2019s Preschool in Concord. \u201cParents can\u2019t afford it. Providers make really low wages even though we hold degrees in our field. We\u2019re struggling to find employees.\u201d<\/p>\n Chhabra and others are calling for universal childcare, with more government investment so that every family has access to affordable childcare, Chhabra said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The demonstration took place at 1330 Broadway, in front of a building purchased by the private equity firm KKR in 2021<\/a>, to highlight private equity\u2019s influence in the early childcare industry. The firm purchased the chain KinderCare in 1996 for half a billion dollars and sold it for twice that amount in 2005. Eight of 11 largest childcare providers in the U.S. are owned by private equity, according to The Economist<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n In Alameda County, the childcare industry is a complex system: there are family childcare centers traditionally operated out of a home; larger, more institutional childcare centers; family, friend, and neighbor providers; and public providers such as Head Start and public schools.\u00a0<\/p>\n Alameda County\u2019s Measure C<\/a> is a step in the right direction toward providing relief to the industry, advocates said. After a yearslong legal battle, Measure C, a sales tax proposal passed in 2020, recently began providing grants to early childcare providers in the county. Charlotte Guinn, the owner of Rose\u2019s Daycare in West Oakland, said she received a $50,000 grant from Measure C last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat allowed me to repair a railing, build a nursery, and take in three infants that I didn\u2019t have [room for],\u201d she told The Oaklandside. \u201cI could buy resources for those infants, infant toys, and I put up gates.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Annie Banks, a family organizer for Parent Voices Oakland, called attention to proposals from the Trump Administration that could cap federal childcare subsidies for low-income families<\/a> and the administration\u2019s immigration enforcement actions near childcare centers, which have prompted fears among both workers and families<\/a>. She also spoke about the insufficient number of subsidized childcare slots for families in need. Only 16% of eligible families receive childcare subsidies in California, Banks said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are millions of families in California waiting for childcare,\u201d Banks said. \u201cThey can\u2019t wait any longer, and there are providers waiting too. Funding childcare spaces would not just expand care for families, it would make sure providers who are small business owners can rely on stable income.\u201d<\/p>\n “*” indicates required fields<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In California, childcare workers, those who teach and care for the state\u2019s youngest residents, earn a median wage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[23524,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-311823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-early-childhood-education","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/oaklandside.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_0077-1559x1600.jpg\")
Charlotte Guinn owns Rose\u2019s Daycare, a preschool in West Oakland. Credit: Ashley McBride\/The Oaklandside<\/p>\n