In Missouri, 12,000 self-employed home care workers will be represented by the Missouri Home Care Union (MHSU), which is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation for State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

“Missouri attendants and their consumers have been coming together in Jefferson City to fight against state budget cuts that threaten home care for over 40,000 Missourians,” according to MHSU’s website.

In Wisconsin, 5,000 independent home care workers will be represented by SEIU. “The vote could result in a minimum wage being negotiated” for these workers, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Number of Personal Care Aides Underestimated

In 2008, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were a total of 817,000 personal care aides. “A growing number of direct-care workers work directly for consumers and their families rather than being employed through an agency,” explains PHI FACTS 3: Who Are Direct-Care Workers? (pdf).

The Employment Projections Program estimates that nearly a quarter of these personal care aides were either directly employed by private households or were self-employed, but PHI suggests that these figures significantly underestimate the actual number of home care workers and the proportion that are hired directly by consumers across the country.

As evidence, PHI notes that the count of home care workers who are part of state or county public authorities currently totals over 400,000 and is now even higher with the addition of the workers in Missouri and Wisconsin.

The newly unionized home care workers in Missouri and Wisconsin who work now under the aegis of a home care council are joining their counterparts in five other states: California, Oregon, Washington, Michigan, and Massachusetts.

– by Deane Beebe

Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI)

Along with many economists and advocacy organizations, Rep.  Gwen Moore (D-WI) wants to see women’s poverty placed at the very top of the nation’s agenda. And she has exerted her political power as a U.S. representative to pursue this goal by advocating for the inclusion of women in President Obama’s economic stimulus package.

Moore’s passion for supporting low-income women is not just political but personal — She was a teenaged mother who lived on government assistance. Now she’s fighting to narrow the wage gap and increase post-secondary education for women on welfare. Thanks to a writeup at WomensEnews.org, we caught wind of the comments she delivered at the Democratic National Convention on women and poverty, and we tracked her down this week as she was on her way to cast votes in the House.

“One of the things I was concerned about when looking at the stimulus package was making sure it does not leave women and children behind,” she said. “I agreed that we needed to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. Some of the oldest school buildings in the country are in my state. Obama needed to provide tax cuts, but I’m very concerned that many of the jobs — building roads and so forth — were not things women customarily did.”

Moore briefly invoked a comparison between the levels of responsibility shared by a nurse and a bank CEO — and highlighted the stark contrast between their respective levels of pay.

“They have people’s lives in their hands. It’s that nurse and the nurse’s aide who summon the resident from their sleep to let them know if things aren’t going well. If we start paying women comparable to the level of responsibility they have, you’re going to see greater income equality.”

She wants to increase money for food stamps and head start programs, as well as to emergency shelter grants that help women avoid eviction.

When it comes to the stimulus package, she supports the proposed federal aid to state Medicaid programs because she believes it will benefit women living in poverty and expects the savings from the proposed $20 billion for new health care information technology can be used to pay health care workers.

“Education and training dollars are vital and critical for women and children,” said Moore. “We were at risk of creating a permanent underclass because women (on welfare) couldn’t get educational opportunities. I think this is a big ticket item and the package has been calculated and calibrated to produce some results in the next 18 months that people can get their arms around. I think women are going to be huge beneficiaries of that.”

Training, coupled with equal pay for equal work, is what it’s going to take to care for a generation of aging Baby Boomers like her, says the Congresswoman.

“There’s going to be a whole lot of us that are elderly at the same time. It’s going to create a number of jobs. This man (Obama) is serious about it. It’s not just a talking point.”

Family members attested to the importance of paid caregivers, employers discussed the increasing difficulty of recruiting enough workers, and direct-care workers talked about the difficulty of surviving on their wages as gas prices and other expenses increase.

According to an article in the July 2 Dunn County News, the legislators in attendance “admitted that for some of them, the issue had not come up on their radar.” One of the three, Representative John Murtha  (pictured), said: “It was touching to hear the stories presented tonight. We think it [disability/aging] won’t happen to us — but you got through to me.”

But the legislators said there was nothing they could do to increase reimbursement and thus improve caregiver wages, since Medicaid formulas are set by the federal government. T the same time, Senator Pat Kreitlow counseled the audience to “keep the drum beat beating,” adding: “Budgets are organic and are based on real people’s moms, dads, siblings, and needs.”

The Eau Claire meeting was arranged by the West Central Wisconsin Workforce Alliance.

Elise Nakhnikian, Senior Online Editor
enakhnikian@phinational.org