Union educators join effort to expand child care, early ed

February 2, 2022 by

Access to early care and education is good for children, parents and communities. But the shortage of child care providers in Minnesota has gone from bad to worse during the pandemic.

Union educators are putting their weight behind a push to address the child care crisis this legislative session, teaming up with Head Start advocates, child care providers and parents who want a portion of the state’s $7.7 billion budget surplus invested in early education.

In a virtual press conference Tuesday, Maplewood child care teacher Mary Solheim said change won’t happen in the industry unless stakeholders come together and demand it.

“We need a unified understanding of each other, an understanding that child care, early learning and public education can coexist together because we are equally important in the lives of our families,” Solheim said. “Children need education, children need care and children need to be educated by caring people.”

Solheim is a leader in the advocacy group Kids Count On Us. Its agenda includes capping child care costs at 7% of a family’s income and giving workers in the industry better wages and career opportunities.

Greta Holupchinski, a Head Start home visitor in Ramsey County, said it’s time for Minnesota to start recognizing the importance of child care and early education to the state’s economy – and investing accordingly.

“The benefits of accessible child care affect everyone in a community, not just the families and kids,” Holupchinski said. “We’re currently seeing a huge worker shortage, and lack of child care is one of those causes.”

Minnesota was short nearly 80,000 child care slots before COVID-19, according to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. Federal employment data shows the industry lost about a third of its workers at the outset of the pandemic, and employment remains below pre-pandemic levels.

Kirsten Ragatz, a former preschool and kindergarten teacher in Minneapolis and St. Paul, said she retired early two years ago, in part, because of a “lack of respect for teachers at every level.”

“Now that we are in global pandemic, teachers are leaving the profession at very high rates, and no one who has worked in a school or child care center is surprised,” she said.

Attracting workers to the field is a challenge, researchers say, given long hours and wages that often are too low to meet the cost of living – even for positions that require post-secondary degrees, like preschool teachers.

But availability isn’t the only barrier families seeking child care face. The average cost of full-time care ranges from $12,000 to over $15,000 in Minnesota.

LaTanya Hughes, a personal care attendant who manages two group homes, said she applied for child care assistance from the state, but was denied because her income was too high. When she found a child care center that would accept her 5-year-old, Hughes had to take another job to cover the fees, only increasing her child care costs further.

“Sometimes I feel like the working people are penalized the most,” Hughes said.

Even for families who qualify, the state child care assistance program lacks sufficient funding, resulting in long waitlists in some areas of the state.

Gov. Tim Walz set out to change that last week. He proposed spending $2.6 billion over the next three years to fund state’s subsidy program in full, eliminate waitlists and raise reimbursement rates for providers. The plan would also provide direct grants to keep child care centers and family providers open.

Advocates at the press conference called the governor’s proposal a necessary first step, and they urged legislators to act during the session that began Monday.

Mercedes Lee, a member of the St. Paul Federation of Educators who has taught kindergarten and second grade, said the most important return on an investment in early care and education is the opportunity it provides children.

“It was always incredibly apparent to me who had experiences with early education and child care prior to coming to kindergarten, and who did not,” Lee said.

“Early education matters, and if we truly care about our children, we need to prioritize funding and resourcing early education. And we need a strong workforce that is well supported through wages, benefits and educational opportunities, so that they can give their full selves to the children they are educating.”

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Outside Amazon fulfillment center, workers demand tax fairness

May 6, 2021 by

Tyler Hamilton is in his fourth year working at Amazon’s fulfillment center in Shakopee.

SHAKOPEE – Minnesota workers unfurled a “Tax the Rich” banner outside Amazon’s MSP1 fulfillment center here today. It was a not-so-subtle suggestion to state lawmakers about how they might pay for investments in child care, paid family leave, education, infrastructure and other supports for working families.

Tyler Hamilton, in his fourth year working at MSP1, said he and others inside the facility could use a little support right now.

“Honestly, I’m tired,” the Maplewood resident said during a press conference organized by local unions. “And I’m not just tired from working night shift, even though I’m a night-shift guy.

“I’m tired from working in this building behind me for over a year during the coronavirus pandemic and having to deal with all the stupid stuff Amazon does all the time – and they get away with.”

But the pandemic has been anything but exhausting for corporations like Amazon and the wealthiest Americans. With stock markets posting record gains over the last year, the super-rich have consolidated even more wealth. U.S. billionaires increased their combined wealth by $1.62 trillion, or 55 percent, between March 2020 and April 2021, according to an analysis published last month.

Inequality in the U.S., already sped up by corporate tax cuts in 2017, has shifted into overdrive. “Evidently, those tax cuts don’t go toward their workforce,” Hamilton said. “It’s really frustrating.”

Minnesota lawmakers have an opportunity to restore some fairness to the system before the Legislature’s scheduled adjournment May 17, other speakers at the event outside Amazon said.

Mary Solheim, a child care provider from Maplewood, described a state of “chronic underinvestment in care for the children” of Minnesota’s workforce – a crisis made worse by the pandemic, as frontline workers not eligible for essential care struggled to find care for their children after school buildings shut down.

Solheim was precise about where to pin the blame. “We know there is enough for everyone to thrive in Minnesota,” she said. “But for too long, corporations haven’t paid their fair share.”

Public school educators have seen chronic underinvestment firsthand too, said Kate Schmidt, president of Dakota County United Educators.

Meeting students’ needs, she said, requires smaller class sizes, more access to counselors and other specialists, healthy meals and safe buildings. But instead of fully funding those priorities, school districts across Minnesota are preparing to lay off teachers, a response to uncertain state funding.

“This year let’s demand that our Legislature ensure the wealthiest among us pay their fair share,” Schmidt said. “That’s how we fund the future of our students, by ensuring every child has what they need to focus on all they can become, whether they are black, brown or white.”

Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou, president of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, emcees a press conference calling on corporations like Amazon and the super-rich to pay more taxes.

Octavio Chung, a union Laborer from Hugo, said improvements to the state’s transportation system and other infrastructure are urgently needed. Corporate profits rely on getting products to customers, after all.

“Corporations like Amazon need to pay their fair share so we can address decades of delayed essential maintenance and upgrades to provide all Minnesotans with safe roads and bridges, more affordable housing and functional school buildings,” Chung said. “It is long past time.”

Debate over whether to fund these and other priorities is likely to heat up at the Capitol next week, as the deadline to adjourn draws closer.

Gov. Tim Walz has proposed – and Republicans in control of the Senate have opposed – small tax hikes on some corporations and on individual income over $500,000, or over $1 million for married couples filing jointly.

Among the proposed investments Walz and DFLers who control the Minnesota House would make with the extra revenue is paid family leave for all Minnesota workers. That’s a measure Hamilton, who believes he contracted COVID-19 while working at MSP1 last year, said is long overdue.

“I was out of work for a month, the majority of that being unpaid,” Hamilton said. “It’s tiring having to work hard to pay your bills – 10-hour shifts, 12-hour shifts – only to be hit with something like getting sick and falling behind because we don’t have paid family medical leave or paid sick leave like we should.”

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

John Marty: Minnesota must end worker poverty

February 25, 2015 by
mug-marty

Senator John Marty

Working people should not be trapped in poverty. This was part of the social contract America made with its people 80 years ago in the New Deal. Workers will receive a minimum wage. It may not be enough to make you rich, but you will have enough to afford necessities for your family – food, housing, clothing, medical care.

We are far from fulfilling that social contract. Economic hardship affects many: one of every three Minnesota children lives in a family struggling to make ends meet. One in 10 households has times when family members go hungry because there’s no money for food. There are working people who go “home” from their jobs to a homeless shelter at night. Many of these families feel they have been left behind, as others accumulate ever-greater wealth.

Despite ample political rhetoric about “supporting the middle class,” neither party has had the courage to back initiatives to end poverty, even among working families.

The public believes working people should not live in poverty. The only public opinion poll I have seen on the issue – an April 2000 poll conducted by Lake Snell Perry Associates for Jobs for the Future, based in Boston – showed a virtual consensus, with 94 percent of Americans agreeing, “As a country, we should make sure people who work full time are able to earn enough to keep their families out of poverty.” People understand that this is a matter of fairness.

Back in 2007, Minnesota created a legislative commission to examine how we could end poverty by the year 2020. Our bipartisan commission recognized that justice for low-income workers means those workers need higher wages, some other means of paying for necessities or a combination of both. Since the Poverty Commission issued its final report in 2009, Minnesota has made little progress with the exception of last year’s increase in the minimum wage. With a public consensus that workers should not live in poverty, it is time we take action.

I have introduced legislation, Senate File 890, to ensure workers can afford basic necessities by extending the phased-in increase in the minimum wage beyond $9.50 per hour in 2016. The legislation would add 75 cents per hour every year from 2017 through 2020, when it would reach $12.50/hour.

Even at that wage level, some workers will not be able to pay for basic needs, so the legislation would more than double Minnesota’s Working Family Tax Credit – a credit designed to help working people make ends meet. The credit would jump to 120 percent of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit. A one-parent, one-child family earning about $23,000 would receive $3,000 from the Minnesota credit, a boost of about $2,000 per year.

The bill increases access to affordable child care, eliminating the 7,000-family waiting list for our Child Care Assistance Program and substantially increasing the payments so low-income parents have a better choice of providers – and so child-care providers get decent compensation. To help create jobs, my proposal reestablishes the Minnesota Emergency Employment Development program, a simple but highly effective initiative to assist small businesses in hiring the unemployed. Created during a recession 30 years ago, MEED has been described as the most effective job creation program in any state in the last half century. Although this particular bill does not address health care needs, in conjunction with proposed universal health care legislation, it would help lift all workers and their families out of poverty.

The Worker Dignity Bill is not a radical approach, but let’s talk real politics. It is not likely to pass because it would require both businesses and government to do more. In politics rhetoric about supporting workers is easier than action, especially when the idea of a living wage for all workers is considered unrealistic. That must change. The current reality, where some hardworking people can’t afford food or housing, is not acceptable. This is a matter of justice. And with nine of every 10 people supporting wage justice, it is a fight we can win.

– John Marty represents Minnesota Senate District 66, which includes parts of St. Paul, Roseville, Lauderdale and Falcon Heights.

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Judy Wahlberg: The sexist agenda hidden in Harris v. Quinn

June 5, 2014 by
AFSCME Council 5 President Judy Wahlberg

AFSCME Council 5 President Judy Wahlberg

Any day now, the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on Harris v. Quinn, the most important labor law case in decades. The lawsuit is another attempt to kill off public employee unions. It centers on a small group of Illinois home care workers who sued to avoid paying fees to the very union that would negotiate their wages and benefits. Their lawyers are asking the high court to go even further and rule against the right of all public workers in America to choose a union.

While that’s troubling enough, the case is about more than workers’ rights. It potentially opens up yet another front in the nationwide war on women now raging from state legislatures to our doctor’s office and our bank accounts. Here’s why.

The face of the working poor is a mother struggling to feed, shelter and educate her children. She’s working multiple jobs, but still can’t get by. She can’t put healthy food on the table and she can’t afford to live in a safe neighborhood. That’s because her profession is undervalued and her hard work isn’t recognized with a decent paycheck. Chances are she is a caregiver, one of millions of women who help us raise our children and care for our aging parents.

There are now more than 3 million home care and family child care providers in the United States, and more than 90 percent are women. With Americans living longer and baby boomers entering their golden years, it is expected that more than 5 million providers will be needed in the next five years to assist our growing, aging population.

Caregivers are with us from cradle to grave. Child care providers make sure our kids are healthy, learning and safe. Home care providers assist the elderly and people with disabilities who want to live in their own homes instead of an institution. These workers cook, clean, make beds and do laundry. Many also provide health-related care like changing bandages, monitoring medical equipment, and administering medication. It’s physically demanding work. Anyone who thinks that lifting children and helping a client in and out of bed every day isn’t work has probably never done it.

Yet many of these jobs pay too little, have inadequate benefits, and don’t provide women with a path out of poverty so they can support their families.

That’s why so many women have come together to form unions. The average salary for home care workers and child care providers is about $20,000. But caregivers represented by a union have seen their salaries increase by as much as 65 percent, reflecting the grueling demands of the work.

It’s simple. When women join unions, we gain a voice on the job. That gives us the power to get the fair and equitable compensation we deserve. We close the income gap. We climb out of poverty.

A ruling undermining unions in the Harris case would bring that progress to a halt and deal a significant blow to pay equity for women, as well as fair treatment in the workplace.

Let’s be candid about why cases like Harris v. Quinn are rising to the Supreme Court. Women make up 45 percent of union membership and will become the majority by 2020. That has anti-worker forces worried. They know that if women enjoy collective bargaining rights and have a strong voice in the workplace, the inequalities of the past will begin to fade away. Nearly 60 percent of women would earn more if they were paid the same amount as men, and the poverty rate would be cut in half.

We have already lost too much time and too much compensation owed for our work.

Caregivers have a better shot at the American Dream when they choose a union to represent them. The evidence of that is clear. The question now is whether the Supreme Court will side with hardworking women, or put the judicial seal of approval on income inequality.

– Judy Wahlberg is president of AFSCME Council 5, a union of 43,000 public service workers in Minnesota.

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AFSCME: Child-care providers continue to organize despite temporary injunction

September 27, 2013 by

Although a federal appeals court last month temporarily blocked a Minnesota law allowing in-home child-care providers to vote on whether they want a union, AFSCME Council 5, the union seeking the election, dismissed the injunction as temporary.

“This one-sentence ruling has nothing to do with the merits of the case,” said union spokesperson Jennifer Munt.  “It’s just a temporary road bump that doesn’t stop us from organizing.”

Thousands of child-care providers statewide who receive subsidies from the state are in the process of organizing a union – a process, Munt said, the judge’s ruling won’t affect.

“We’re moving full-speed ahead because child-care providers want a union,” she said. “We won’t let National Right to Work lawyers take away our right to vote and have a voice.”

The injunction was bankrolled by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which represents providers who oppose the union.  The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals said it will wait to see if the Supreme Court decides to hear an appeal on a related case that allows Illinois home-care workers to form a union.

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , ,

In address to union retirees, Dayton weighs in on Cretex strike, more

September 25, 2013 by
Gov. Mark Dayton (right) greets Minnesota AFL-CIO President Emeritus Bernard Brommer at the Minnesota State Retiree Council convention.

Gov. Mark Dayton (right) greets Minnesota AFL-CIO President Emeritus Bernard Brommer at the Minnesota State Retiree Council convention.

Addressing a roomful of union retirees in Maplewood today, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton recounted his morning meeting with members of Laborers Local 563 who are on strike, fighting to ensure a secure retirement of their own.

Dayton’s remarks to the Minnesota State Retiree Council’s 17th convention came on the heels of a dialogue with workers who have been walking the picket line outside the Cretex concrete plant in Shakopee since June 19. About 40 workers went on strike after the company refused to budge from its demand they give up the defined-benefit pensions many had been self-funding for decades.

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Shar Knutson introduces Gov. Dayton at the retirees' convention.

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Shar Knutson introduces Gov. Dayton at the retirees’ convention.

One Cretex worker, the governor recalled, had “tears streaming down her face” as she explained what losing her pension after 20 years of service to the company would mean for her family’s quality of life. Dayton did not identify Cretex by name, but said it was disheartening to see any company “take advantage of the fact there really isn’t a recourse for working men and women” when management decides to cut workers’ benefits.

The governor also said he planned to reach out to company executives for their side of the story, and that he hopes to see workers return to their jobs soon.

Tim Mackey, Local 563’s business manager, confirmed the meeting with Dayton, saying he was hopeful it would be a step toward resolution of the 3-month labor dispute.

“Thanks to this meeting with the governor, we can hopefully make further progress and get back to work,” he said.

Leaders from Operating Engineers Local 49 also attended the meeting with Dayton. Cretex employs 49ers at several of its facilities, and their current contract with the company is set to expire Dec. 31. That means 49ers are “on deck,” Business Manager Glen Johnson said.

“We don’t intend on allowing Cretex to take our members’ pensions away,” Johnson added. “We’re ready to fight for our members’ retirement too.”

The rest of Dayton’s remarks to retirees focused on politics. Highlights included:

• Jobs numbers. Dayton pointed to a report showing Minnesota had seen the fifth-most economic growth of any state last year. He also trumpeted the most recent state jobs report, which shows the state has regained all the jobs it lost during the Great Recession. About 122,000 Minnesotans who were unemployed when he took office, Dayton said, have jobs today.

“We’ve got 152,000 Minnesotans unemployed,” Dayton acknowledged. “We’ve got a lot more to do, but we’re making progress.”

• Minimum wage. A labor-backed coalition of groups announced plans during the State Fair to push a bill that would raise the state’s minimum hourly wage to $9.50 by 2015. Dayton said he supports such a bill, pointing out that the state’s current minimum wage of $6.15 per hour is the lowest among Upper Midwest states.

“What does that say about Minnesota and our commitment to working men and women?” Dayton said. “I believe we want work to pay.”

• Union organizing. Dayton said he was disappointed with a federal appeals court’s ruling that temporarily blocks a law passed last spring allowing child-care providers who receive state subsidies to vote on forming a union.

The legal challenge was bankrolled by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which represents providers who oppose the union. Dayton decried the corporate-backed legal fund as an “extreme right-wing element in this state and this country” that was fighting to keep workers from deciding for themselves whether to form a union.

Rather than fighting to strip them of their rights, Dayton added, “we should be embracing” the people who want to improve wages, benefits, working conditions and training opportunities for workers in critical fields like home health care and child care.

• Health insurance exchange. A new federal report shows MNsure, the new health insurance exchange created as part of the federal health care overhaul, will offer the lowest rates of any state in the nation. “That’s something to be incredibly proud of,” Dayton said.

Dayton also thanked AFL-CIO retirees – he called them “the voice of middle-class Americans who have worked hard all their lives and played by the rules” – for their work last fall to win pro-worker majorities in the Legislature. “We really moved Minnesota ahead,” he said.

Union retirees open their 17th convention with a singing of "America the Beautiful" at the Sheet Metal Workers Hall in Maplewood.

Union retirees open their 17th convention with a singing of “America the Beautiful” at the Sheet Metal Workers Hall in Maplewood.

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Organizing bill extends child-care, home health workers ‘the respect we deserve’

May 21, 2013 by
After the union organizing bill passes the House, Jamie Gulley (left), president of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, and AFSCME Council 5 Executive Director Eliot Seide lead a celebration in the Capitol hallways.

Jamie Gulley (left), president of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, and AFSCME Council 5 Director Eliot Seide lead a celebration in the Capitol hallways after House passage of the organizing bill.

Child-care providers and in-home health care workers celebrated a hard-fought victory for their professions yesterday, after the Minnesota House joined the Senate in passing a bill that would allow them to vote on whether to form a union.

The celebration spilled from the House gallery into the Capitol hallways, as pro-union child-care and home-care workers hugged each other, sang together and cheered the DFL authors of the legislation, Rep. Michael Nelson of Minneapolis and Sen. Sandy Pappas of St. Paul.

Authors of the legislation, Rep. Mike Nelson and Sen. Sandy Pappas, hug after the House vote.

Authors of the legislation, Rep. Mike Nelson and Sen. Sandy Pappas, hug after the House vote.

“This is incredible,” said Sumer Spika, a home care worker from St. Paul. “Home care workers deserve the same right as other workers to form a union, and now, because of this bill, we will soon have that right to choose for ourselves if we want a union.”

Gov. Mark Dayton has pledged to sign the legislation, which passed the House 68-66 and the Senate 35-32 last week.

During prolonged debate on the House floor, supporters said the bill was a step toward recognizing the value of workers who provide state-subsidized child care and self-directed home health care. Rep. Carly Melin, DFL-Hibbing, reminded opponents of the bill that workers in established professions like teaching and nursing fought similar battles in years past.

“When teachers tried to form a union, they heard the same arguments against it: ‘You can’t do that, you can’t form a union,’” Melin said. “But they did.”

Lynn Barten, a child-care provider who traveled from Alexandria to watch lawmakers debate the bill last weekend, said some of the arguments revealed just how far she and her colleagues have come – and how far have yet to go.

“This week we were called glorified housewives,” Barten said. “There’s nothing that makes me more angry than not being recognized as the professional I am. For me, this fight is about getting the respect child-care providers deserve.”

Republican lawmakers vigorously opposed granting home health workers and child-care providers the right to vote on forming a union – and offered amendment after amendment in an attempt to delay voting on the bill. Debate on the Senate floor lasted a record 17 hours, and the House tabled the measure twice over the course of three days before voting on the session’s last day.

Republican efforts to amend the bill ran the gamut from absurd – a lengthy debate over the size of the font printed on union sign-up cards – to offensive. An amendment offered by Rep. Kurt Zellers would have required union organizers and volunteers to pass background checks before making house calls.

When their stall tactics failed, Republicans claimed the bill amounted to “forced unionization” of home care workers and child-care providers – an argument DFL Rep. Erin Murphy of St. Paul dismissed.

“This is about giving the people who care for our loved ones the opportunity to vote,” Murphy said. “They may choose to organize. They may choose not to organize. As Minnesotans we should give them that right.”

Filed Under: Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Bill would grant bargaining rights to Minnesota child-care providers

March 4, 2013 by
Lisa Thompson, president of Child Care Providers Together, an AFSCME Council 5 local, fires up the crowd in the Capitol rotunda during Council 5’s annual lobbying day Feb. 26.

Lisa Thompson, president of Child Care Providers Together, an AFSCME Council 5 local, fires up the crowd in the Capitol rotunda during Council 5’s annual lobbying day Feb. 26.

Surrounded by more than a dozen family child-care providers clad in pro-union T-shirts, two state lawmakers unveiled legislation Feb. 25 that would grant collective-bargaining rights to providers who receive subsidies from the State of Minnesota.

The Child Care Collective Bargaining Act, introduced by Sen. Sandy Pappas (DFL-St. Paul) and Rep. Mike Nelson (DFL-Brooklyn Park), could enable about 9,000 home-based providers statewide to join a union – and gain a more powerful voice in decisions that affect their work.

“Family child care providers are much more than babysitters,” Pappas said. “These women deserve respect for doing one of the toughest jobs imaginable – helping raise our children.

“They are professionals who are experienced, smart, dedicated and loving.”

Faced with budget cuts to the state subsidy for child-care services, home-based providers have been working for more than six years to increase their clout at the Capitol by organizing a union.

“We know that parents can’t pay more and providers can’t work for less,” said Lisa Thompson, president of Child Care Providers Together, a local union affiliated with AFSCME Council 5. “The state can help fix that problem by helping home-based providers stay in business. That will give working parents more choices for lower-cost, quality child care.”

Although family child-care providers in 16 states already have a legal right to bargain collectively, providers in Minnesota have faced several roadblocks in the organizing process.

After providers seeking to join Child Care Providers Together presented the state with signed cards seeking union representation, Gov. Mark Dayton directed the Bureau of Mediation Services in November 2011 to conduct a union election among child-care providers.

A court ruling blocked that vote, however, as a judge found it was unclear whether state law granted home-based child-care providers collective bargaining rights. The bill introduced by Pappas and Nelson seeks to move child care out of that legal gray area.

“Collective bargaining will help the State of Minnesota maximize its investment in helping working parents to access quality child care,” Nelson said.

The legislation affects all licensed and unlicensed providers who receive state subsidies from the Child Care Assistance Program. There are currently about 9,000 such providers in Minnesota.

The bill says providers would win collective bargaining rights if a majority sign union authorization cards, or if 30 percent sign cards triggering a union election.

Filed Under: Organizing, Politics Tagged With: , ,

Unions seek organizing rights for Minnesota’s home health care workers

December 13, 2012 by
Ziggy Norberg talks about the importance of quality home care, as his mother and personal care attendant, Karen Urman, looks on.

Ziggy Norberg talks about the importance of quality home care, as his mother and personal care attendant, Karen Urman, looks on.

Karen Urman of Mounds View works as a personal care attendant for her adult son, Ziggy Norberg, who has used a wheelchair since he was 3 years old. The work is a full-time job, one Urman gave up her career as a tax preparer and office supervisor to pursue.

For Urman it is rewarding work, even if it doesn’t always draw the attention – or respect – it deserves. “Being a PCA is rarely considered a real job, especially when you’re a PCA for a family member,” she said.

State legislators can count on hearing from home health care workers like Urman during the 2013 legislative session, as they push for changes to a state law that prohibits them from organizing a union – a step many believe is critical to making their voices are heard as the state plots its course for meeting the needs of a rapidly aging population.

The number of Minnesota adults over 65 is expected to nearly double by 2030, according to the Wilder Foundation.

What’s more, workers believe a union would help legitimize the home health care profession and ensure workers are treated with the respect they deserve. Urman pointed to nurses and teachers as “respected career” paths that afford their professionals the right to unionize.

“My job is not necessarily more important than them, but it’s definitely not less important,” she said. “Why shouldn’t I have the right to form a union too?”

Unions push changes to law

The answer stems from a distinction made in state law between workers employed by home health care agencies, many of whom are unionized already, and workers like Urman, who are providing so-called “self-directed” care. Considered more like independent contractors by the state, workers in self-directed programs are denied organizing rights.

That’s a law two of the state’s largest unions will push lawmakers to change when the Legislature convenes next month.

SEIU Healthcare Minnesota launched its drive to organize home health care workers with a media event yesterday in St. Paul, where PCAs like Urman, joined by their clients and family members, talked about the challenges they face, including low wages, minimal benefits and limited training opportunities.

Sumer Spika of St. Paul, who provides in-home care for her friend’s daughter, said her take-home pay has fallen over the last four years to the point where she can no longer afford to take days off work.

“I have sacrificed financial stability, I live paycheck to paycheck, I have sacrificed health insurance for my family at times, and I do so because I love what I do,” Spika said at the SEIU event. “I believe as a society and a community … we should not only value the ones that we care for, but also the ones that care for them.”

Council 5 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees has an active campaign to organize workers in self-directed home health care programs, according to Organizing Director Eric Lehto.

AFSCME has represented agency-employed home health care workers in Minnesota for more than 30 years, including 175 workers at Brooklyn Park-based Transition Health Care who won their first contract earlier this year.

“We have been advocating for workers in this industry for decades,” Lehto said. “We believe in collective bargaining rights for all workers, so we’ve been talking to and signing up (self-directed program) workers as well.”

Better Legislature provides hope

The drive to organize self-directed home health care workers parallels recent efforts to win union representation for child-care providers receiving direct subsidies from the state.

Last year, after Council 5 and SEIU Local 284 signed up thousands of child-care providers, Gov. Mark Dayton called for providers to vote in a union election, but a judge ruled Dayton lacked the authority to call an election without legislative approval.

Such approval may be easier to find next year, when labor-endorsed majorities take over both chambers of the Legislature. If they are successful in changing the law, it could pave the way for a union vote among the thousands of home health care workers statewide.

Ziggy Norberg, Urman’s son and client, said a vote to join SEIU Healthcare Minnesota is one he hopes his mother gets to take – for her sake and for his own.

“She has given up a lot in order to take care of me,” Norberg said of his mother. “The fact that she does this work for me, on top of caring for my brother and sister as a single parent, all without the benefits and wages of a real career is ridiculous.

“I dread having to get a stranger to come take care of my needs, (but) if the day comes that I do need to find someone else to be my PCA, I should be able to find someone who takes the job seriously like my mom does.”

Filed Under: Organizing, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,