If you want quality care, make home care work a quality job

Last week, home care workers in Ontario voted in favor of joining SEIU. In a vote held by the Ontario Labour Relations Board, personal support workers employed by the Victorian Order of Nurses in Brampton and Mississauga voted 83 percent in favor of joining SEIU Local 1 Canada. This past Monday, more good news raising the quality of life for home care aides broke, as 780 home care workers from Addus Healthcare became the first long term care workers to join SEIU Local 1107. They are the latest workers, along with those joining Local 1 Canada, to join SEIU in their growing campaign to raise standards and improve the quality of home care across North America.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, one of the fastest growing areas in health care is home health aides. But dedicated home care providers are frustrated by a system that often does not pay a living wage or offer health benefits. In 2008, a full-time home health aide made an average of $14,000. Thirty-six percent of home health aides in this country are uninsured and forty-five percent live below the federal poverty level income.

An ad campaign launched this week begging Illinois lawmakers not to cut home care and child care services funding "to the bone" in FY10 budget. The ad campaign by SEIU Healthcare Illinois--representing more than 35,000 child care providers and 35,000 workers who provide home care to seniors and people with disabilities--includes television, radio, print, online and billboards ads that have begun in Springfield, Ill. and will spread across the state in the coming weeks.

Watch the TV ad here:

If carried out, the proposed budget cuts to state-funded child care and home care services in the FY10 budget would have a devastating effect on workers and the people they care for. "Cutting a few hours of care a week may not seem like a big deal to number crunchers, but for many seniors and our families it determines whether or not we are able to stay in our homes and near our loved ones," said Marlin Hosick, a 73-year-old Pekin resident who is one of the 51,000 Illinois seniors receiving in-home care through the Community Care Program. Even slight cutbacks would require these seniors to reassess their need for constant care--likely forcing many into nursing homes.

SEIU Healthcare Illinois is part of a broader coalition, Campaign for Illinois' Future, that supports an income tax increase to help fill the the estimated $12.4 billion budget gap, rather than cutting vital programs and services. If you live in Illinois, act now to stop devastating cuts to quality care.

Tell Springfield: Don't Cut Home Care and Child Care.

Nurses in the Detroit area are celebrating a $13.6 million settlement reached with St. John's Health System in a class action lawsuit brought to expose attempts by area hospitals to hold down wages for nurses despite an ongoing shortage of RNs willing to work in acute care hospitals. "This [is] good news for everyone in Detroit who looks to these hospitals to provide quality care. Patients get better care when nurses have the staffing we need to meet their needs," said RN Cathy Glasson of the Nurse Alliance of SEIU.

According to a report by the Institute for Women's Policy Research commissioned by the Nurse Alliance of SEIU, over 1.2 million nursing positions will need to be filled nationally over the next five years. The report shows that the shortage may be due in part to artificially low wages caused by collusion among hospital employers. This settlement is an important step towards ensuring fair compensation for the nursing profession and helping to solve the nurse shortage crisis.

"By helping to ensure competitive methods for setting RN wages, we can attract more new nurses to the profession, bring non-practicing nurses back to the bedside, and improve patient outcomes," said Anne Jacobs-Moultrie, a registered nurse and VP of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers. Ensuring competitive wages for nurses would also benefit hospitals in the long-term by allowing facilities to meet their staffing needs without resorting to mandatory overtime or expensive temporary nurse agencies.

At the White House's online town hall yesterday, SEIU nurse Linda Bock thanked President Obama for giving her the opportunity to be heard and offer a front line perspective of the health care crisis. Bock expressed the importance of nurses having a voice in the solution to fix health care, to create a system that puts caregivers in charge of the decisions that affect their patients to ensure the high-quality of care.

The President also had a few words to say, expressing his appreciation for all the hardworking nurses who are there "around the clock" to provide the best care possible for their patients. Calling nurses the backbone of the country's health care system, Obama admitted, "I'm biased towards nurses, I just like nurses." He went on to address the problems facing caregivers in this country today and why we must fix healthcare now.

Current and past issues of SEIU Healthcare News are now available online. The newsletter is issued bi-weekly to keep SEIU, members, activists and friends informed of efforts around the country to deliver quality care to patients and give healthcare workers a voice on the job.

Offer story ideas, news and suggestions by emailing seiuhealthcare@seiu.org.