[Union Busting, Before the Fact]
Supes Smack Down Home Health Care Organizing Effort
by Tim Bousquet
One of the most unlikely, and certainly one of the
most difficult, worker organizing efforts if recent
years has been the uphill job of bringing together the
dispersed and impoverished home health care workers as
a political force.
And yet exactly this has happened in recent years, as
a small independent union called the United Domestic
Workers of America has successfully forced through
state legislation that allows these workers in each
County to form unions, and requires that County
administrations deal with them.
Butte County, however, will have none of this, and
through a vote by the Board of Supervisors Tuesday has
pushed back all state-mandated deadlines to the last
possible date, thereby leaving some of the poorest
workers in Butte County without basic health insurance
and benefits for at least two years more than would be
necessary.
“Make no mistake: we lost big today,” said UDWA
representative Molly Hillis. “The Supervisors could
have helped these people but they chose not to.”
**
At issue was implementation of AB 1682 which requires
that each County establish itself or a Public
Authority agency as the “employer of record” for home
health workers, and that normal collective bargaining
guidelines be implemented.
This will allow the workers to hold a union vote,
decide which (if any) union they want to represent
them, elect officers and direct them to bring their
demands to the administration. At the very least, it
likely means that all home health care workers will
end up with basic health insurance, as well some basic
guarantees and rules about safety on the job.
The legislation will not significantly increase the
costs to the individual Counties because in-home
health care providers are now paid through the state,
and even given the distracting issues surrounding the
energy crisis, the State legislature has set aside
$100 million for increased pay and benefits for home
health care workers.
There will, however, be some small administrative
costs to the program, which the County will have to
assume regardless of the worker pay level.
The legislation directed the County to form an
Advisory Committee composed of home health workers,
clients, and contractors to advise the County on home
health policy, including how to go about meeting the
dictates of the legislation. Butte’s Advisory
committee suggested that the County adopt a
“mixed-mode” strategy for meeting the goals, which
would in essence continue the basic outline of current
employment arrangements but have a new Public Agency
created to oversee the arrangements and act as the
bargainer to the employees’ bargaining unit.
It’s worth noting that this legislation does not
effect the relationship between client and worker.
Many, in fact the vast majority, of home health care
workers are family members of the clients. The new
laws affecting their employment will not change the
way the workers are selected, which is by the client.
Only when the clients have no way to contract–-that
is, when they are utterly alone, with no family or
friends to help–-does the County step in and find a
worker for them. Out of the 2400 clients in Butte
County, only some 300 fall into this category.
AB 1682 mandated that all the administrative
procedures and regulations be completed by January 1,
2003, a year and a half from now.
But Hillis, the UDWA rep, said that she’d like to see
the County adopt certain ordinances related to union
representation and elections implemented immediately
so that her organization can start the organizing
efforts now. “You should direct your staff to adopt
these policies within 90 days,” she told the Supes.
“If you did, then we could hold union elections before
the administration is created, and we could begin
bargaining with you on day one,” January 1, 2003.
“Otherwise,” she noted, “we’ll have to wait until 2003
to start our organizing efforts, and the election time
tables and following procedures for electing officers
and so forth will take another year and a half to
implement, so these workers won’t be represented until
2005.”
Remember that whatever additional costs are created
because of the unionization will be borne by the state
and not by the County, but no matter: the Supes
refused to implement the ordinances Hillis suggested.
“We’re not talking about anything complicated,” Hillis
said after the meeting. “We talking about ordinances
that are available for free on the internet, that
already exist in other counties, that Butte County’s
legal staff could review and approve in an hour. In
fact, they’re exactly like other ordinances that Butte
County already has that deal with other bargaining
units.”
Butte County Welfare Director Pat Cragar said after
the meeting that she understood Hillis’ concerns but
“Our consultant doesn’t want us to go that way. We’ll
give this to [legal counsel] Rob Glussman, and we’ll
see what he recommends.”
Hillis explained that the County was bringing in a
consultant by the name of Eldon Luce, who was active
in the writing of the legislation after the UDWA
brought it forward.
“He’s opposed to union efforts,” explained Hillis.
“His expertise in creating the administrative
mechanisms needed to implement the legislation is
unquestioned, but he thinks that unions will somehow
add to the costs of administering the program. They
won’t.”
The Supes voted 5-0 to accept the Advisory Board’s
recommendations, but backed off giving the
administration any timeline other than that dictated
by AB 1682– that is, January 1, 2003. To be sure, they
did say they wanted the implementing ordinances Hillis
asked for enacted “as soon as possible,” but given the
lack of a specific date, and given the realities of
Butte County’s historic disdain for unions, in
practical terms “as soon as possible” means “never, if
you can.”
It was pure union-busting before the fact, plain and
simple.
**
To underscore the need for a workers’ organization for
home health care workers, Hillis brought several
workers and their clients to the Board meeting to
speak directly to the Supes.
Naomi Dykes, a very elderly woman from Gridley, got up
and said that “I don’t have no family. My children are
all gone, no brothers or sisters. And I like Jackie
[her care provider]. She’s real good. She needs health
insurance, because I don’t know what I would do
without her.”
Nancy Briggs said she is the service provider for her
autistic child. She said she had tried to place him in
care of the Valley Oaks Center, but that organization
could not find a proper home for him. “He’s afraid of
dogs and of strangers, and the only person Valley Oaks
could find had a dog.” She said that because she had
to be with her child “all the time,” she couldn’t find
another job.
A woman named Dorothy wheeled her 109 year-old uncle
up to the podium, and explained that he was the oldest
living Filipino-American in the United States. “He
loves America,” she said. “I make minimum wage caring
for him.”
Charlotte Heron, another organizer with the UDWA, said
that her organization is looking to bring a “decent
living wage” to home health care providers.
“Minimum wage does not cut it,” she said.
Moreover, she added, the quality of care isn’t always
the best when it is contracted out, because the pay
attracts only people who can find no other work.
“Decent wages and benefits would bring a higher
quality of person to the field,” she concluded.
Hillis outlined other benefits that will come with the
new arrangements.
A Public Authority will allow the creation of a home
health care worker registry, she explained, as well as
referral services and background checks for workers.
“These workers now perform acts in the home that are
medical acts in the hospital–and they’re getting paid
minimum wage.
“One woman, a registered LVN, was asked to put in a
catheter in the home, a procedure she wasn’t qualified
to do in the hospital,” said Hillis.
Such abuses would be outlawed through the regulations
that will come forward with the Public Agency.
As for pay, Hillis noted that “It’s minimum wage.
There is no reimbursement for travel, and many of the
workers are taking the clients to the doctor. They
don’t get paid while at the doctor office, because the
doctor is assumed to be watching the client.
“There’s no health insurance, no vacation time, no
sick leave, no back up providers. If a provider gets
sick the client is left with no one.”
By creating the Public Agency, she added, “you will be
improving the entire program.”
Alas, this worthwhile change, which will result in
better care for clients and better pay for workers at
no cost to the County, has to be forced down Butte
County’s throat with state-legislation.
=====
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