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Independent home care workers who provide services to Medicaid-eligible consumers voted to unionize in Missouri and Wisconsin on May 5 and 6, respectively, totaling 17,000 workers who will be represented there. Read the full story

Missouri’s Department of Social Services has learned that it will be sanctioned by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for requiring that consumers be “confined to the home” to qualify for Medicaid-covered home health services. Read the full story

Missouri home care victory conference - St. Louis, July 24, 2009

Building on Missouri voters’ approval last November of a ballot initiative to create the Missouri Quality Homecare Council, which has authority to negotiate with workers over wages and benefits, Missouri’s in-home care workers have voted by a landslide margin in favor of organizing themselves into the Missouri Home Care Union.

But even before the ballots were fully counted, a Missouri judge temporarily blocked certification of the unionization vote in response to a suit filed by a company to challenge the election process. Read the full story

The Missouri Capitol Building in Jefferson City

PHI reported last fall (“Missouri Passes Quality Home Care Act,” November 6, 2008) that Missouri voters had overwhelmingly passed a measure to create a Quality Home Care Council, which would run a statewide registry of home care workers, coordinate backup services, offer training, and negotiate with workers over wages and benefits if they chose to form a union.

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Seniors, people with disabilities, workers, and home care advocates, celebrated the passage of Proposition B, the  Quality Home Care Act, on Nov. 4. Read the full story

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Following our story last week on Washington State’s ballot initiative, we were contacted about a ballot initiative in Missouri that also deals with long-term care workers.

The ballot question called Proposition B would create a Quality Home Care Council that would run a statewide registry, coordinate backup services, offer trainings, and negotiate with workers over wages and benefits–if they choose to form a union. Similar councils exist in Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Michigan, Wisconsin, and California.

Read the full story