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The job quality and wages of home care workers are the focus of recently published articles in LeadingAge Magazine and BrainTrack.

“Ethical Workplaces” Needed

In LeadingAge, writer Dianne Molvig explains the need to create more “ethical workplaces” for home care employees.

“To me, an ethical home care organization is one that cultivates both quality care and quality jobs,” PHI Policy Research Director Dorie Seavey is quoted as saying in the article.

“High quality care is individualized and respectful,” Seavey continues. “High quality jobs provide a family-sustaining wage, affordable health insurance and respect for the worker, who gets excellent training and is allowed to participate in decision-making.”

Molvig uses PHI data to show that wages, retention, and overall working conditions for home care workers must improve if the U.S. hopes to keep pace with the increasing demand for such care.

She cites two organizations — Senior Independence in Columbus, Ohio, and Loretto’s PACE Central New York in upstate New York — as examples of ethical workplaces. Both organizations have invested in their workers in recent years, with positive results.

Revising FLSA Is “Win-Win”

The BrainTrack article, by Beth Panitz, focuses on the debate surrounding a proposed revision to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which would extend minimum wage and overtime protections to home care workers.

“This revision would be an essential first step to stabilizing the home care workforce and positioning it to meet the demand we see coming,” Seavey is quoted as saying.

“We can raise the floor of these jobs in a way that’s win-win. We can attract more workers to these jobs so that we meet demand, and in so doing, it will improve the livelihood of workers,” Seavey adds.

Opponents of the proposed revision have argued that it will lower care quality by making it more expensive for home care companies to employ workers for 40 hours or more a week, which they say is necessary to establish care continuity. Seavey, however, told Panitz that “the notion that you get the best care when you have one aide working more than 40 hours a week is very questionable.

“We need a more modern approach to what continuity of care means,” Seavey added.

– by Matthew Ozga

A brief roundup of recent direct-care worker state news:

Court Rules That Missouri Home Care Workers Can Unionize

A state appeals court ruled May 1 that Missouri home care workers can unionize, ending their three-year battle to gain legal recognition as a union in the eyes of the state.

In 2009 and 2010, Missouri’s 13,000 home-care workers voted — by overwhelming margins — in favor of unionization. Both times, however, the votes were thrown out in court after anti-union activists challenged the results, alleging procedural flaws in the voting process.

Last week, however, a Missouri appeals court ruled that the state had to validate the 2010 election, thus clearing a path to the creation of a union for home-care workers.

The newly formed union, Missouri Home Care Union, is a partnership between SEIU and AFSCME.

Minnesota PCAs Temporarily Spared Wage Cuts

Proposed wage cuts to thousands of personal care aides (PCAs) in Minnesota were left out of the state’s latest Health and Human Services (HHS) budget, which Governor Mark Dayton (D) signed into law April 30.

The original HHS budget bill would have reduced state spending on PCAs by nearly $6 million. The cuts would have affected as many as 7,000 family caregivers who serve as PCAs to low-income relatives and receive payment through Medicaid.

The controversial cuts were deemed legal by a district judge in March after being challenged in court by eight Minnesota home care agencies. Despite the judge’s ruling, however, the legislature removed the cuts from the final budget sent to the governor.

Additionally, the budget bill postpones a $20.6 million rate cut to long-term care facilities. The postponement could give Minnesota enough time to negotiate a deal with the federal government, rendering the cut unnecessary.

Alabama Gov. Pushes for More Medicaid Funding

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley (R) vowed on May 2 that he would veto any General Fund budget bill that allots less than $602 million for Medicaid.

The governor’s announcement was a response to an early FY 13 budget proposal from state lawmakers that would have set aside just $400 million in Medicaid spending, 30 percent less than the FY 12 Medicaid allotment.

On May 8, a State Senate committee approved a budget bill that would devote $418 million of the General Fund to Medicaid, with the remaining $184 million to come from a line of credit from a state trust fund.

The credit line can only be created through a constitutional amendment, however. The state legislature is currently considering the amendment; if it passes, it will have to be approved by Alabama voters.

– by Matthew Ozga

Terry Bucher

The U.S. cannot build the home care workforce it needs to care for the aging baby-boomer generation unless home care workers are paid fairly, argues an op-ed published in the Orlando Sentinel on April 27.

The op-ed was written by Terry Bucher, the president emeritus of the Florida Professional Association of Care Givers.

In the op-ed, Bucher explains that Florida is one of 29 states that do not offer home care workers basic wage protections, such as minimum wage or time-and-a-half overtime pay. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act similarly excludes home care workers from such protections.

“Florida’s home-care workers are dedicated and diligent,” Bucher writes. “But until they are guaranteed a fair wage, Florida will simply not be able to attract enough qualified workers to meet the growing need for home-care services.”

Hope for a Federal Rule Change

In late 2011, the Obama administration proposed a federal rule change that would finally extend basic wage protections to home care workers.

Bucher notes that the Department of Labor received 26,000 public comments regarding the proposal — most of them in favor of the change.

The DOL must act to extend overtime and minimum wage protections to home care workers, Bucher writes.

She cites PHI research (pdf) in arguing that the $84 billion home care industry can easily afford to pay its workers a fair wage.

Additionally, better wages for home care workers would lower worker turnover, Bucher writes. High turnover rates are costly to home care companies and result in lower-quality care for elders and people with disabilities.

– by Matthew Ozga

Ai-jen Poo, the director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, was selected as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine.

Poo’s advocacy on behalf of domestic workers — including home care workers — demonstrates “the humanity of a long devalued kind of work,” wrote Gloria Steinem in a brief essay for Time. Steinem also hailed Poo’s “gift for creating worker-led groups and empathetic tactics.”

In addition to her role as the National Domestic workers Alliance director, Poo is the co-director of Caring Across Generations, a coalition of 200 organizations that includes PHI in its leadership. The coalition is undertaking a national campaign to provide quality care and dignity for aging Americans and their caregivers.

Poo has also been instrumental in the drive to achieve fair pay for home care workers.

Last December, she spoke about the necessity of paying such workers fairly at a Department of Labor press briefing (pdf), shortly after President Obama announced that his administration would pursue a rule change extending basic wage protections to home care workers.

– by Matthew Ozga

PHI President Steven L. Dawson and Center for Economic and Policy Research Co-Director Dean Baker, in an op-ed published in The Washington Post on March 29, contend that the exemption of home care workers from federal minimum wage and overtime protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act is an “issue that affects the welfare of women,” but gets little attention.

In “Home Health Aides Deserve a Living Wage,” Dawson and Baker write that “caregiving in America is a female occupation.” Women are the vast majority of family caregivers and comprise 90 percent of the paid home care workforce (pdf) — which explains why home care workers have been excluded from basic federal labor guarantees.

“Caregiving, like other forms of domestic service, has traditionally been considered less important than jobs done by white men,” Dawson and Baker write. “The idea that domestic work is not ‘real work’ has kept wages low for all types of ‘women’s work.’” The annual income of home care workers is $16,600.

“Extending minimum wage and overtime protections to home-care workers is another step in America’s progress toward ending gender and racial discrimination,” Dawson and Baker write. “But fairness is not the only reason to make this change,” they add, noting that it would also help to reduce costly turnover and meet the rapidly increasing demand for these workers as the nation’s population ages.

“The country needs a national solution that helps us all meet our family responsibilities. That includes building a skilled, stable workforce by treating caregiving as real work and paying those who provide these services a living wage,” Dawson and Baker advise.

More Media Coverage on the Companionship Exemption

PHI National Policy Director Steve Edelstein was interviewed by America’s Workforce Radio on March 30 on the proposal to revise the companionship exemption.

National Domestic Workers Alliance Director Ai-Jen Poo and Jobs with Justice Executive Director Sarita Gupta, the co-directors of Caring Across Generations (CAG), discussed workers’ rights with Bill Moyers on his new PBS television show. CAG is a coalition of 200 organizations, including PHI, that seek to provide quality care and dignity for aging Americans and their caregivers.

For other media coverage and more information on the companionship exemption, visit PHI’s Campaign for Fair Pay site.

– by Deane Beebe

Steven Edelstein

SUMMARY: Steve Edelstein, PHI national policy director, discusses the background and current status of efforts to extend federal minimum wage and overtime protections to home care workers on the America’s Work Force radio program in Ohio.

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download podcast (mp3)
Recorded: March 30, 2012
Duration: 12:00
File Size: 16.5 MB