“The Baby Boom generation will need care, and most people today prefer to stay in their homes, so in order to attract and maintain people like Rosa, we need to make sure they’re paid a livable wage, that they have health care benefits and that they have the training they deserve,” Washington Governor Christine Gregoire told Tacoma Weekly. Gregoire was talking about having shadowed Tacoma home care worker Rosa Vadillo for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)’s June 30 “Walk A Day In My Shoes” event.
The governor helped Vadillo assist client Rita Madding. On a YouTube video shot that day, Madding says: “The people who are in Rosa’s situation, and the kind of work that she does – she’s amazing. What I would like to see come of this is to help them to get more training, to help them get a living wage so they don’t have to work 60 or 70 hours a week just to put a roof over their head. Because you have to be a certain kind of a person to do what Rosa and her fellow people do, and they need help.”
Gregoire called Vadillo “an amazing woman, a woman with as big a heart as anybody I’ve ever seen, an amazing work ethic, and just an absolute commitment and love of her client.”
Gregoire is the first governor to take on the SEIU’s challenge.
More on the governor’s day:
- Photo gallery
- Public News Service audio interview with Gregoire
- Tacoma Weekly article
- SEIU coverage
See PHI’s Youtube Channel for videos of Barack Obama’s and former Presidential candidate John Edwards’ Walk a Day in My Shoes events with direct-care workers.
Elise Nakhnikian, Senior Online Editor
enakhnikian@phinational.org
