daycare corporate
What. The. Actual. Fucking. Fuck.
Daycare is a multibillion dollar industry. The previous company I worked at here in Australia was owned by big an American private investment firm (Bain Capital).
My centres company owned about 70 centres under them, and their owners had many other childcare corporations they owned across the globe.
I work for a not for profit now and while they run 76 centres, they actually care about the children.
Bain Capital? The Bain Capital? Ugh.
In his 2009 book The Buyout of America: How Private Equity Is Destroying Jobs and Killing the American Economy, Josh Kosman described Bain Capital as “notorious for its failure to plough profits back into its businesses,” being the first large private-equity firm to derive a large fraction of its revenues from corporate dividends and other distributions.
Yes that Bain Capital.
Childcare in Australia is subsidised by the government, so the childcare centres raise fees and every few years the government raises the subsidy so parents can afford it. Once it’s affordable the centres raise fees again, it’s a vicious cycle.
I read the meeting minutes from when they bought us out and it was all about how they struck gold with free government money. They didn’t give a shit about the children, just how much tax payer money they could take out of our country.
Needless to say the quality of care went down and it wasn’t high to start with, injuries and incidents went up, and I quit to join somewhere better.
At least they don’t turn their charges into fertiliser, in the way that private equity-owned veterinary chains do.
Orphan Crushing Machine LLC
It’s like the matrix, but for children.
Oh yeah, it’s perfect for corporate America. If fits the bill perfectly for abuse through corporate consolidation:
- working class people NEED it to survive
- workforce theoretically doesn’t require an advanced degree so is therefore ripe for exploitation
These two things together are the holy grail of American capitalism because it means if a handful of companies control all the daycares then they can screw over both labor and consumers through corporate consolidation.
We know the government will never break up the conglomerates, so that leaves unions to hold the ghouls accountable in which case they just close any daycare that unionizes, look for scabs, or try to replace humans with AI.
Probably for KinderCare or something similar to them
I’m honestly slightly confused by this response. Any business type will end up with some that do well, open more locations and get some manner of central office. It’ll inevitably be some manner of corporation because that just how we structure any business beyond small. The daycare is where the kids go and the office their handles local stuff like contact forms and medical notes, and corporate office handles billing and such.
Like, yeah it’s weird for something as personal as childcare to be a franchise, but no one gets too worked up about corporate pharmacies and that’s literally trusting a stranger giving you a bottle of drugs to eat not to hand you the poison they keep a few feet over.
It’s weird and kinda dystopian, but I’m confused by the shock.
because if it involves a profit motive it involves exploitation inherent in this motive. to apply that exploitation to a service that provides care for children would mean there is a nonzero chance the place is not prioritizing child care and safety over profit.
I mean, I get that. As I said, it’s the surprise that confuses me. I understand “ugh, why are we putting profit in _____”. It’s that someone would go “whoah, hold on, people are running daycares for money?”
Literally every paid daycare has a profit motive. The issue you take is with scale, not motive.
Wrong. In the northern Europe the daycare are owned by the government and are not for profit. They are still payed but without profit motive
North of what?
Edit: before the edit of the comment above me it only said “in the north” not “Northern Europe”.
Northern Europe
Daycares aren’t Mom and Pop shops anymore. They are chains.
“OH SHIT!!! WE ACTUALLY FOUND A WOMAN WILLING TO RAISE OTHER PEOPLES KIDS FOR PENNIES IN PAY??? YES I’LL TAKE THE CALL!!!”
“Hello, I’m some lady, trying to get ahold of corporate”
“…how did you get this number???”
“I know who you are. I know what you don’t want. If you are looking for an employee I can tell you I don’t need money, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter get a juice box now that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you, but if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you.”
“Good luck!” click
“Hi, this is Agatha, the ChildCorp AI agent. How can I help you?”
“human”
“I understand but I can help you”
“No you cannot”
"Please allow me to try!
“No”
“I understand, but…”
Holy fuck I hate this AI generation.
I’ve begun to use nonsense statements, made up words, and random vocalizations to make the bots think they couldn’t help me. That usually gets me to a human faster.
For some, cursing at them will also get you a human faster.
That’s a really good idea.
This also doubles as poisoning their training data too
