Winning Organizing Rights
For 20 years, the United Domestic Workers has struggled to organize and improve the lives of domestic and home care workers. Now home care workers have the law on their side.
SAN DIEGO
Shirley Adams says she used to be a shy, quiet, passive person. But her experiences with Orange County’s In Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program have changed her. “I’ve turned into one of those people to whom ‘no’ means ‘maybe,’” she says.
Adams, along with her 20-year- old daughter Tiffany, joined delegates from 22 California counties at the 20th Anniversary Convention of the United Domestic Workers (UDW), an AFSCME affiliate. It was the celebration of a great victory: UDW had just won bargaining rights for home care workers.
Adams knows first hand how important that victory is. Tiffany has cerebral palsy; Adams is her sole caretaker.
After her marriage broke up, Adams faced a crisis. Tiffany has severe physical limitations and needs total care. If Adams took an outside job, she would have to hire someone to provide care. How could she keep a roof over their heads and care for Tiffany?
Adams signed up with IHSS to be Tiffany’s home care provider and has battled to get Tiffany the care she needs. Adams isn’t passive any more.
WHO CARES? IHSS pays about 200,000 California home care workers to provide personal care for low-income individuals with serious disabilities so they can stay safely in their homes.
Each case is analyzed by a county team that decides how many hours of care to provide for each recipient. In many cases, care is provided by family members or friends. For each authorized hour, providers are paid the minimum wage. It is difficult to provide adequate care in the time allotted.
Gus Gutierrez is a good example. His 98-year-old grandmother came to live with him, and he began caring for her, while he was recovering from a job-related injury. A botched operation blinded her in one eye, and she suffers from dementia. She needs continuous supervision.
When Gutierrez was ready to return to work, there was no one to watch his grandmother. He is the only family member she recognizes. They moved in with his mother, and Gutierrez applied to IHSS to become her caregiver. They pay him for three hours of care per day.
UDW has organized aggressively over its 20-year existence, winning collective bargaining agreements with a variety of home care employers. But the union was stymied in its efforts to unionize IHSS workers — the vast majority of California’s home care providers. The counties simply labeled them as independent contractors and refused to accept them as employees — even though they received a government paycheck.
The union reached out to these workers and developed programs to help them. UDW staff became experts at dealing with county bureaucracies. They educated home care workers about the rights they did have and often helped them to appeal IHSS decisions. And they never stopped organizing: locating individual workers and meeting with them at home or on the job.
MAKING HISTORY. UDW found a friend in high places when Gray Davis was elected California’s governor in 1998. AFSCME members had poured time, energy and funds into the campaign, and Davis listened, actively supporting landmark legislation reforming IHSS.
The law now requires all counties to establish an employer of record for IHSS workers by January 2003 and guarantees their right to collective bargaining. All counties must also appoint an IHSS advisory board (with a consumer majority) to provide ongoing recommendations about IHSS activities.
The changes will benefit clients as well as home care workers with a requirement for clear and comprehensive guidelines on the kind of care needed and the selection and qualification of IHSS workers.
For delegates to this historic UDW convention, the task was clear: Prepare for the campaign to move from a “Union Law” to a “Union Contract.” With the dedication and energy of members like Adams and Gutierrez, that move will be a great success.
By Susan Ellen Holleran
