This article is sorely missing some history.
Since disabled people have a huge stake in the model of services that
policy wonks decide upon, I'd like to make a couple of points known.
First the UDWA and the SEIU have been at odds over unionization in the
state. The Independent Living Centers and the World Institute on
Disablity have allied with the SEIU for a couple of reasons. UDWA is
a "company union." The workers work for a managed care corporation -
a model of services whereby the corporation sends a worker to the home
(unless a relative is involved as reported here). On the other hand
the SEIU workers work for the disabled person through a program called
In Home Support Services, the individual provider model where the
disabled individual (not a company) hires and oversees the worker.
This is a social model of service delivery not a medical model. Under
the individual provider model (SEIU/ Public authority) there is an
advisory board where disabled persons have direct input on home
services policy.
Another reason we prefer the IP mode --In Tulare county the county
contracted out to one corporation, Addus Home Health, and the results
were disastrous. Hours of service were cut to make the corporation
profits and meet the county budget and people needing services were
terribly neglected. Legal Services fought to end this contract
situation (there was lots of press about this) but that was a managed
care situation and we don't have much fondness for the UDWA model.
A few years back there was a battle between these two unions for
workers and counties. The SEIU pursued the Public Authority in
counties it dominated and the UDWA in alliance with their main
corporation (I cannot recall the name of it at the moment) pursued the
other counties. They seem to have divvied them up.
The report here is wrong about payment. The counties DO pay a portion
of the worker's wage. Also, Eldon Luce is not against unions, he has
supported the SEIU's efforts for higher wages and benefits in PUblic
Authority counties, rather he is against the UDWA's model of services.
Also, I would like to note that we are largely opposed to medicalizing
the IHSS program as this article seems to allude is a step forward.
We have tried to educate the SEIU about independent living philosophy
but the UDWA is hopeless.
I cannot possibly tell the entire story but there is much more to it
than this reporter understands.
Marta Russell
Tim Bousquet wrote:
>
> [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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--
Marta Russell
author, Los Angeles, CA
http://disweb.org/
Beyond Ramps: Disability at the End of the Social Contract
http://www.commoncouragepress.com/russell_ramps.html
