Justice Delayed
In 1991, direct care workers in Michigan began voting for AFSCME representation. Seven years later, 2,100 workers at 37 companies are still battling to get a first contract.
DETROIT
Aqueelah Muhammed begins her 3 p.m. shift by visiting each of the 12 women living in Hunter House 2. As a direct care worker in this group home for the mentally ill, she likes to see who’s there and what’s going on.
“You know which ones need the most attention, and I attend to those first,” says Muhammed, a member of AFSCME Local 3994 (Council 25).
Over the course of her eight-hour shift, Muhammed may cook dinner, distribute medications, give insulin shots, wash dishes, clean bathrooms, and teach individual living skills like table manners. She has a wide range of responsibilities, but is paid only $6.25 an hour.
For the residents, says Muhammed, “We’re their caseworker, therapist, doctor, provider.”
AFSCME estimates there are some 17,500 direct care workers like Muhammed in Michigan. As the state increasingly divests itself of responsibil-ity for its most fragile citizens, it is direct care workers who are shouldering the load. But their pay is low, training is scarce, and turnover is high. AFSCME estimates that the average wage for Michigan’s direct care workers is $6.75 an hour. A 1991 study — done before the state stopped gathering information on this industry — recorded four out of every five workers leaving their positions each year.
“From Day One, we were saying we needed a union,” says Muhammed. But for her and her fellow members, voting for AFSCME was only the first step in getting to the bargaining table.
RETALIATION. The need for direct care workers rose dramatically in the mid-1970s when Michigan, like other states across the country, started removing the mentally ill and developmentally disabled people in its care from institutions and placing them in the community. As clients with increasingly serious disabilities were deinstitutionalized, the nature of being a direct care worker changed. The responsibilities grew. The pay did not.
Still, Muhammed says she does her best to do a good job in the face of high turnover, scarce resources, and frequent, mandatory overtime — for which workers are often paid straight-time wages.
“If it was my aunt, my grandmother, I’d want the best for mine,” says Muhammed. “I want [the residents] to be just as comfortable as me.”
In response to these changes in the industry, direct care workers like Muhammed began to unionize. In 1991, workers at 11 Detroit-area group homes voted 284 to 17 to join AFSCME. Over the next seven years, workers at a total of 212 Michigan group homes owned by 42 employers would do the same — in spite of anti-union pressure and intimidation by their employers. Four of those employers would subsequently go out of business. Today, AFSCME represents some 2,200 of Michigan’s direct care workers.
Omari Khali worked with Muhammed at Hunter House, until he was forced to leave in April 1998. The two, along with Muhammed’s mother — Khadijah Muhammed — were the driving force behind unionizing their workplace. Khali says management there was vehemently anti-union from the start: “The owner made overt statements, saying anyone heard talking union would be fired. That they’d close the home before bringing in a union. People were afraid, but they were more angry at their rights being taken.”
In fact, just weeks after Public Employee interviewed Khali, he was forced to resign when the owners of Hunter House transferred him to a shift that conflicted with his second, better-paying job. Khali had predicted the transfer in retaliation for his union activism.
The situation is the same at almost every facility, says Local 3994 Pres. Lola DeBois. Anti-union pressure, favoritism, singling out of union activists: These tactics were — and are — common.
Jerry Jarnot, a steward for Local 3994, works for AHS Community Services. He says because of his union activism, managers let his co-workers know that “I’m the troublemaker. It’s like, ‘Watch out, he’s going to get you fired.’”
Still, in 42 consecutive elections, workers voted for AFSCME.
LOOPHOLES. But the state and the people who owned the homes kept slipping through loopholes. Though the homes are state-funded and state-regulated, the state insisted it was not the employer. Group home owners did the same. This legal game of hot potato has put workers on hold for seven years, through some eight rounds of court appeals and National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rulings.
Even now, only one company in 38, Cyprian, has chosen to recognize the union and sit down at the bargaining table with its workers. In May, Cyprian workers ratified their first contract.
“I’m not afraid of the union,” says Rosie Colman, Cyprian’s executive director. “I think it can help problem-solve, call attention to issues. It provides representation for staff that doesn’t feel it’s getting that from management.”
The 37 other companies whose workers are also represented by AFSCME don’t agree. They have chosen to appeal the latest decision by the NLRB — depriving their workers once again of their legal right to bargain.
Even so, the direct care workers are sticking it out.
“I’m not going to be abused and just take it,” said Khali, who felt he could speak out because he had another full-time job.
Others find the courage to speak because a strong union doesn’t just help the workers — it is also good for the men and women in their care.
A LOT OF LOVE. Talk to these workers about the people in their care and their faces light up.
Jarnot remembers taking a group to a hockey game. “They didn’t understand it, but they enjoyed the noise and the music. That’s my favorite part: seeing the clients out in public, interacting, enjoying themselves.”
Unlike many other group home workers, Cyprian workers agree that they have the necessary resources to provide good care to their clients. But when these workers are asked about the worst part of the job, they say, “the pay.”
Workers addressed that problem in their new contract. In it, residential workers are guaranteed the 75 cents-an-hour increase for which AFSCME lobbied the state legislature. For day workers not covered by that raise, the contract includes a 40 cents-an-hour increase. It also includes a 30-day reopener to talk about retirement benefits: an industry first.
Such improvements are much needed. Most direct care workers have second jobs. Susie Betts supplements her Cyprian Center wages with a night job at a factory. Hunter House employee Betty Williams is a teacher’s aide. Jarnot works as a contract examiner.
“I have to have another job,” says Jarnot, “or I couldn’t make ends meet.”
WATCHDOG. Better pay wouldn’t just help the workers. It would help the clients by reducing turnover and increasing staffing levels in an industry where double shifts are common — and by ensuring that workers come to their job fresh.
“Having a union [contract] will make the quality of care better,” says Cyprian worker Edna McAfee, “People won’t have to work two, three jobs. [The clients] deserve our best.”
One group home worker who asked to remain unnamed says it’s typical for him to be assigned to distribute medications after working a double shift. “I’m on for 15 hours when I pass meds,” he says. “I’m tired.”
AFSCME has fought for — and won — pay raises in the legislature, but workers have had to battle their employers to receive them. In the meantime, anecdotal evidence shows that many employers are making large amounts of money in this largely unregulated industry.
Again, though the state doesn’t keep figures, workers can all testify to their employers’ lavish lifestyles. The anti-union Detroit News ran an extensive exposé of group home owners who “divert government money to overseas bank accounts, personal investments, and to buy luxury automobiles” and who “skimp on food and clothing or claim nonexistent expenses to conceal profits.” Too often, the money to fund the big houses and fancy cars is coming out of workers’ wages and clients’ care.
“Who’s the watchdog?” DeBois demands. “Who’s watching these people?”
For now, AFSCME is.
By Alison S. Lebwohl
