Home Care
Why CT Home Care Workers Are Uniting Together
Far too often, home care workers are forced to leave the consumers or loved ones we care for in order to find work that offers benefits, paid time off or more hours. For some consumers, the high turnover of the home care provider profession can get in the way of receiving the stable care they need. It’s a heart-wrenching decision for any caregiver to have to make, but the reality is that we cannot care for others if we cannot make a living that enables us to care for ourselves and our families.
Personal Care Attendants in 10 states have already united in SEIU Healthcare and worked together to make home care more stable and reliable for consumers. We’ve won paid sick time, paid days off, access to health insurance and increased wages — and we’ve partnered with consumers, family members, and advocates to ensure consistent, quality care and a care-delivery system where consumers remain empowered.
Now Connecticut home care workers are ready to join them. Click here to visit the “Home Care Workers United” webpage and learn more about the campaign.
If you are curious to learn about how SEIU works with consumers, you can hear directly from organizations and individuals in the disability advocacy community about their experience working with SEIU as a partner for dignity, empowerment and quality care by checking out the video below:
People with Disabilities and Workers Team Up for Quality Care & Services
Bob Kafka, from the Adapt Community, Endorse the Guiding Principles while SEIU President Mary Kay Henry and SEIU Executive Vice President Kirk Adams look on.
On November 17, leaders from the union and disability advocacy movements joined together to sign a historic document called “Guiding Principles: For Partnerships with Unions and Emerging Worker Organizations When Individuals Direct Their Own Services and Supports.”
For nearly three years, SEIU, ADAPT, the Center for Self Determination, and the National Resource Center for Participant-Directed Services have collaborated to design these shared principles.
The refrain at the signing ceremony today was the words “stronger,” and “together,” because these principles provide a framework for how disability advocates and labor unions can work side by side to advance an individual’s ability to direct and control their own services while also improving workers’ wages, benefits, and working conditions.
“In this environment, our two great movements must work together to fight these threats. We must support each other and combine our strength, or we will suffer the consequences. These Guiding Principles create the framework for us to work together,” SEIU President Mary Kay Henry said.
Now more than ever, Americans need our united voices. Millions of Americans in the 99% are being left behind in this economy; affordable, secure healthcare is under attack; corporations and right wing extremists are focused on dismantling the rights of workers; and the very foundation of independent living for people with disabilities is at risk.
Today’s ceremony closed with the joint commitment of both movements to go forward in educating its respective constituents of the Principles. Please feel free to download the full document and pass it along to everyone you know. You can also read a cover letter from the individuals involved in drafting the principles and get in touch with them here.
Left to right, back row: Tom Nerney, Leslie Frane, Kirk Adams, Mary Kay Henry, Mark Polit, Kevin Mahoney, Erin McGaffigan; Left to right, front row: Mike Oxford, Bob Kafka