New York Health Care Union Seeks Legislation To Make Home Health Care Agencies Boost Worker Pay

Main Category: Caregivers / Homecare
Article Date: 11 Aug 2008 - 11:00 PST

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New York's 1199 Service Employees International Union, United Healthcare Workers East President George Gresham recently said that the union does not seek funding from the state to resolve issues with home health care workers' pay but rather legislation that would require home health care agencies to raise employees' wages, the New York Times reports. The 300,000-member union is threatening to strike next month if home health care workers' wages are not increased; however, with the state's budget deficit, the union will not ask the state to foot the bill as it has in the past.

Gresham said that all 20 agencies the union is negotiating with received higher reimbursements from the state, $18 to $21 per hour, which should be used to raise home health workers' wages. He said that current wages range from $7.15 per hour, New York's minimum wage, to $9.50 per hour.

In the New York metropolitan area, 20,000 of the 33,000 unionized home health workers are working for agencies with expired contracts, according to the union. In addition, 5,000 home health workers are employed at agencies that recently unionized but the agencies have not yet signed their first contracts.

The union hopes negotiations with the largest home health agency in the state, Partners in Care, will be a model for the other agency talks. Partners in Care employs about 10,000 home health workers. "These agencies are receiving significant amounts of money that have not been paid to the workers," Gresham said, adding, "These workers are grossly underpaid by today's standards. Many of them are barely making more than the minimum wage." He said, "If we're not able to settle with these agencies, there's no other choice but to strike" (Greenhouse, New York Times, 8/7).

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